What Came Before

GLEAM

Veronica's sitting at the bar of the PixelDust with Sandi, sharing a bag of those cheap greasy chicken wings and licking every bit off her fingers as she watches Charmaine fastidiously wipe glasses free of water spots. Pointless really, but she understands. Once she hated to be doing nothing. Now her life is a stretch of sitting around, sprinkled with encounters that involve men and money and noise that make her feel more removed from the human race than when she's alone. But it's a living when she could have been dead on the street, and connection of a sort. She figured she'd go off the deep end without something tethering her to reality.

Charmaine's saying something with a wistful smile on her face, and Veronica asks her to repeat herself. Sandi pulls a warped bar of chocolate from her pocket with a flourish, something she no doubt scavenged from her last client, and carefully opens the foil lining so not too much sticks.

"I was just saying, 'Keep your fork, there's pie!' Grandma Win would always yell that out from the kitchen, while she put the dinner dishes in the sink. Without fail, every night she'd holler that, even if there wasn't pie but pudding, even if there wasn't dessert at all."

Sandi doesn't say much. She thinks Charmaine is a bit of a dope--too sappy, too cheerful. But Veronica likes her. It's a nice reminder of what people can be like, even when they're facing hard times like most everyone else.

"That's sweet," she says, separating off a small hunk of chocolate and letting it melt on her tongue. "I think the last time I had pie was at college."

Sandi looks at her and nods briefly, remembering.

They were in a class together--a nutrition class, Veronica thinks wryly, examining the debris of their crappy lunch on the bar. The professor had asked the class a question and Sandi had replied with a smart-ass remark. Veronica, so eager to do well at school, so excited to be on the path to a career and a life that would lead her away from the string of losers her family gene pool seemed to produce, had been scandalized. She looked over at Sandi, a tall confident brunette with giant green eyes gleaming with mischief, and she felt a giggle rise at the back of her throat as Sandi muttered to her seat mate, "This professor needs to take his own fucking class. Look at the size of his thighs!"

They didn't exactly become fast friends. Aside from seeing Sandi leave that nutrition class a few times Veronica barely noticed her again. It was a huge lecture hall, easy to get lost in, even more easy to get lost on a campus teeming with students and professors and lectures and studying. Veronica kept to herself mostly, playing the part of devoted student that had gotten her her scholarship, and waiting tables at the dining center to bulk up her savings. What if financial aid didn't come through next semester? What if she failed a class and lost her scholarship? She was a planner. And she wasn't going to let college slip through her fingers.

Then, one day, the college was awash with protesters, complete with signs and chants. Veronica hadn't paid much attention, but she wished now she would have. She saw something about banks and credit cards, job loss and the growing gap between the lazy rich and the working poor. College kids were always protesting these types of causes, she figured it would blow over. The day after that, all of the buildings were locked, signs were put up saying the university had been defunded and classes canceled until further notice. The lines for the ATM were monstrously long, winding among benches and trees like a restless serpent. After waiting countless hours, Veronica made it to the front of the line, and took out her entire savings. It wasn't much, a few hundred, but it seemed safer just then to have it with her than at the mercy of the system.

She was so very wrong. Walking back to her dorm, trying to think what she would do until the university came back to life--because it had to, this had been her plan, it couldn't just fall apart like this!--she was tackled from behind and knocked to the sidewalk, busting open her bottom lip and scraping the hell out of her right palm as she tried to cushion her fall.