Sarah

Sarah - Los Angeles

The parking lot was nearly deserted when Sarah left the building. Axiomatic rented space in a building largely staffed with bank employees who nearly stampeded each other to get out at 5 -doubly so on a Friday. So even a few minutes afterwards, she had the building nearly all to herself. Most of Sarah’s co-workers at least waited until Mike ducked out to make it look respectable: Five minutes after he’d headed out to watch a game, they were out too. Sarah preferred it once they were gone, the annoying distractions dropped to a minimum and she did her best work.

Olivia was waiting against the door of Sarah’s Tesla.

“First in, last out again?” Olivia smiled.

“Yeah, but the place would collapse without me.” Sarah greeted her girlfriend with a kiss. "The first face I’m happy to see all day." Sarah wasn’t very tall, but she still towered over the diminutive Olivia. Sarah’s short, unkempt brown hair, ripped jeans, and hoodie marked her as either a high school boy or an irreplaceable software developer, but the sports car in her marked parking space gave away the latter. They climbed in and Sarah started the engine, unnecessarily tearing out of the lot towards her on-ramp.

“You don’t get enough out of them.”

“That’s definitely true.” Sarah knew that based on her work, she could be doing better than Axiomatic, financially and professionally. The place was a bit of a dead-end and seemed to be circling the drain. But even geniuses had to play nice sometimes, and she’d burned a lot of bridges. She’s been pushing and pushing me to try again up in the Bay Area, but I’m not sure I wanna deal with that noise again. Sarah chose not to speculate whether they'd return her calls up there if she tried. “I thought you had class tonight.”

“Got canceled. Thought I’d come over and surprise you, catch you for dinner and drinks.”

“How long have you been out here?”

“Long enough that the first round is on you.” Olivia joked.

“First round is always on me. I’m the one with a job.”

Olivia changed that subject real quick. “The security guy is such a creep, can’t you get me a badge so I can just come up and wait there?” Olivia asked. “Or at least leave your phone on?”

“Mike’s still pretty gun-shy about letting people in since that bitch raided the firm. And I told you, I leave my phone off so I can get some work done. Spending all day on Slack with those primates and melts your brain.” Sarah slid into the freeway traffic, which was fortunately lighter than normal. She moved her way over to the left lane and the car quietly rocketed up to speed. “Did you have somewhere new in mind? I’m sick of the same-COME ON!” Sarah stomped the brakes, throwing the pair forward into their seatbelts as a pickup truck blindly merged in front of her. Sarah gassed it again, swerving to illegally pass him on the shoulder. She made sure to lay on the horn so he saw her double-bird salute as she zipped past.

“LA is not the place for you, honey.” Olivia patted Sarah’s thigh.

“I’m not the one that needs to leave, I know how to goddamned drive! it’s these other fucking idiots that need to go!” Sarah fumed.

“Well if we kicked out everyone that failed your standards, that’d just leave the two of us. And then who would make our tacos?” Olivia laughed and pulled out her phone, which she connected to the car’s music system. “Come on, Sarah… Let’s get all that negativity out. No bringing that energy to dinner.”

“This isn’t going to work.” Sarah complained as the opening bars of “Bad Habit” played. As soon as Dexter Holland started singing, so did Olivia. “Get that dying cat out of my car.” Sarah jibed, but her mood was already improving.

“Never! You gotta join me!” Olivia kept going. “When I go drivin’, I stay in my lane… ”

“No,” Sarah hid a smirk, but Olivia saw her armor cracking and pressed on.

“But getting cut off, it makes me insane… Come on, you silly bitch! Sing!” That did it, Sarah joined and blared the verse right along with her in a well-practiced duet.

Both: “Open the glovebox! Reach inside! Gonna wreck this fucker’s ride! I guess I got a Bad Habit!”

Sarah: "Of blowing away!"

Olivia: “Yeaah! Yeaah!”

Both: “I got a bad habit!”

Sarah: “Yeaaah! Yeaaah!”

Both: “And it ain’t goin’ away! Yeaah! Yeaaah!”

Sarah took Olivia’s hand, finally feeling the stress of the day melting away as screamed along with each line. But then the lightheadedness came over her as well…

—

Ruby

“The true brains behind Michael’s company, Sarah Henderson!” Al introduced.

Oh shit. Ruby sensed it before she saw it. The door to the green room slammed open and Sarah rampaged out in a blur. Al made sure to step in her path.

“Where the fuck is Olivia?” Sarah dove at him and grabbed a hold of his lapel. She was not an athletic person, but in this agitated state she looked as if she could lift him off the ground. “We were on the freeway you motherfucker! She can’t even reach the pedals from her seat!”

“Baby, those cars drive themselves. Don’t get your panties twisted.” He appraised her outfit. “Assuming you even wear panties.”

Ruby had to jump onto Sarah’s back and wrap her arms around the woman to bring down her volcanic rage. Ruby panted with effort, the magic was getting harder and harder to summon. Al’s grin hadn’t drooped one inch, even as Ruby grappled with Sarah to keep her from throttling him. He wants her to hit him, he’d disqualify one of my girls before we even start! Sarah finally relented as Ruby’s spell pummeled the necessary parts of her brain into submission. Sarah released her grip and her face took on a joyful facade.

Al calmly adjusted his blazer as Ruby plopped Sarah into her seat. “Sarah Henderson is 34 years old, the lead developer at Axiomatic, and the only one loyal enough to stay when Michael’s company was raided! Probably because no one else could put up with her!” The crowd laughed, but the doped-out Sarah just kept smiling. “Well, she’s on a magic carpet ride for a while, on to the next one.” Al’s second choice was…