Think I Want to Twist the Plot This Time

Part 5

"Damn, that's actually kind of based for a white man in the 40s," Sasha replies, actually sounding impressed. "Not that I want to change my current project, but hopefully whoever writes about him brings all that up. Or maybe I will during questions."

They're pulling up to Davy Crockett Middle School now, slowly making it up to the drop off zone. "Okay, we are so not done talking about this," Sasha says as she gathers her backpack. "Especially about the time travel stuff."

"Don't get any funny ideas!" Gloria calls as Sasha opens the door. "I'll come pick you up after school."

"Okay, love you!" Sasha slams the door shut in that teenage way that's a little too harsh.

"Love you!" Barbie and Gloria call back, both of them watching to make sure Sasha makes it inside the gates of the school, walking up to meet her friends before homeroom. They don't move out until a faculty member is literally shouting at them to keep going, and a car honks behind them.

Even as they're leaving, Barbie still notices Gloria looking out the rearview mirror just to make sure Sasha's safe inside school. "Today's my work from home, but do you have school today?" she asks, finally making the turn back onto the street.

"Discussion at noon but that's it," Barbie murmurs, taking another sip of her coffee. Not that she's prepared much for it, but she might get away with sitting in the back and contributing the bare minimum. Just for today. Usually she's the first one to speak up, to say her piece, but she doubts she'll be in that mindset in a few hours.

She thinks about one more thing she needs to do, though, before they can head home. "Do you think we can stop at CVS first?"

"Yeah, sure." Gloria can so effortlessly drive and talk at the same time—hopefully Barbie gets to be that good at it when she learns. "So... J. Robert Oppenheimer, huh? What's he like? I think I just have the footnotes knowledge most people have, just that he's the guy who headed the project that built the first atomic bomb, but nothing about the man himself."

Apparently that's his legacy and pretty much the only thing history has watered him down to over eighty years down the line. It's even stranger, since clearly she met him before such an infamous invention. Barbie doesn't want it to taint everything she's learned from talking to him, but that hindsight starts to seep into her head, planting a seed that's threatening to grow. She instead starts to focus on the positive, the little things she noticed that really drew her to him. "He's so... interesting," she prefaces, keeping her eyes on her rose. "The way he speaks, it's like he won't until he finds the right words to say. And they're so detailed, and intricate, and he doesn't speak like anyone else I've ever heard before. Everything he says sounds deliberate, and calculated. Like... we talked about New Mexico, and he made it seem like the most beautiful place in the entire world."

"Uh-huh." Gloria nods along, but she's staying relatively quiet, just letting Barbie continue.

Because now that she's started, she doesn't want to stop describing her night. "I think what I enjoyed so much was that he didn't just care about what I looked like. He saw me, and he was interested in what I had to then sometimes, he'll stare off into the distance, and it looks like he's just thinking about the entirety of the universe. You can just see it in his eyes, which are so intense. And he seems to wear it all on his shoulders."

"And you said you danced?" Barbie sees that Gloria's got her eyes focused on the road, but she seems to be listening pretty intently. "Is he any good at that?"

"Oh, he's terrible!" Thinking back to how she had to practically pull him onto the dance floor has Barbie chuckling. "But I love the way humans dance. It's flawed, but when everyone's having a good time, it doesn't matter."

Gloria just hums, and her eyes or body language don't tell Barbie anything. Usually they can read each other pretty well, but right now, Barbie can't gauge a thing. Is she judging her? Concerned for her? Excited about what happened?

"Is there anything else you want to tell me, hon?"

She could come clean. Sasha's not in the car anymore. They could have an honest conversation about sex and hopefully Gloria won't come down too hard on her. But Barbie shakes her head, takes another sip of her latte. "Nope."

"Okay." And that's how they leave it for now. Gloria turns the music up a bit, a nice pop number that has Barbie reflecting on how much everything has changed in the past 82 years, and again at the things Oppenheimer never got to experience. She yawns, and it's huge and totally unflattering. Even with some caffeine running in her system she can't wait to crawl back into bed for a few hours, before leaving to brave the Bruin campus.

They turn into the plaza, and just as Gloria is about to park, her phone starts going off. "Oh, crap, that's work," she utters, sighing heavily. "It should only take a minute."

"That's okay, I know what I'm getting," Barbie assures, unbuckling. She keeps the rose on her seat for now. "I won't be too long."

"Oh—alright, then. I'll be right here." Gloria doesn't answer her phone until Barbie gets out of the car and shuts the door, and she can tell when that smile is fake. She usually reserves it for Aaron Dickerson, now that he's been promoted up to the top.

Barbie shoves her hands into her jacket pockets as she enters CVS, greeted by the whoosh of automatic doors. Unlike the warm, inviting lighting of the Palace Hotel, the florescent lights hit her like what she imagines a hangover to feel like—overbearing, too much, artificial, her head beating to adjust and her eyes squinting. Given how early it is, it's practically bare bones in its staffing, with just one person working the register up front and a few scant patrons roaming about the aisles, dragging their feet along with little purpose.

Unlike them, though, Barbie has a destination, and makes her way to the far left of the store to the food aisle. She pulls out a chilled water bottle from the long row of fridges, rolls it around in her hands and exhales. Something about the cool plastic on her palms is anchoring her back down to the present, as she strides to the back.

The good thing abut being here at this time is that no one's really scrambling to the pharmacy, so she's beckoned to the counter quickly. Barbie thinks she's seen this pharmacist before when helping Ryan pick up prescriptions, a woman a little older than Gloria with jaded eyes, and a mouth that probably used to smile a lot more than it does now. But this person seems pleased enough to be working early, at least. She approaches the counter, still juggling with her water bottle.

"How can I help you today?" the pharmacist asks, like she's speaking from a script.

Barbie just flashes her brightest grin, hoping that's good enough for an icebreaker. "I'm here for Plan B."