Three Bored Girls

“How about hot potato?” May asked.

“Good choice. Lotta great sociological data to be had there,” Abrams agreed. “We’ve already thrown it at a couple of test subjects if you wanna check in on those.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” May asked. “I want to see the discovery phase.”

“Well, you’re in luck then. I have just the place to send it,” Abrams said. “Group of roommates we’ve been monitoring out in LA. We’ve been waiting to drop the app on them as their stress levels increase and I think they’re close enough to a breaking point that it’s time to throw a match on the gas.”

“Or give them some relief,” May mused.

Abrams looked over to her.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Or give them some relief. These apps can be fun, y’know. Sometimes escapism is important. Maybe they could even improve each other’s lives or something.”

Abrams looked skeptical.

“Gotta say, we don’t employ a ton of sunshine, lollipops and rainbows types here. You’re a rare one.”

She scoffed.

“I designed an app that was literally meant to put people at each other’s throats,” she reminded him. “That being said, this one’s a fun experiment. Sure, it could devolve into an ugly cycle of retaliatory changes, but it can also be a vehicle for creative people to have a lot of fun!”

“Uh huh. Well, as much as I admire your optimism, if I’ve learned anything about human psychology, it’s that these people will be at each other’s throats by the weekend.”

Maybe it was the danger she’d put herself in coming here. Maybe it was the brazenness with which she’d **** herself on the team. Maybe it was the rush she always got when one of her babies was about to go into action. Whatever the cause, May felt something close to a sugar high that overtook her better judgement.

“I’ll place a bet that they have a good time,” she said. “One spin on the Really Magic 8 Ball. I’ll request anything you want me to if it turns into a big fight. But you have to do the same if they end up getting closer through it all.”

“Alright, you’re on!” he agreed. “Now, let’s get this sucker launched.”

****

“Now alternate! One. Two. Three. Four. One. Two. Three. Four.”

Bianca lay on her back, bicycle kicking the air in front of her webcam. It was absurd, really. She couldn’t even see half of her students and yelling at a machine like some kind of drill sergeant felt completely foreign to her. She thrived off her students’ energy, and the sense of rhythm they provided. She had none of that now.

Still, **** times. And she really was flattered by how many of her students stuck with her through the transition to online classes. Mostly, she was happy to still have retained her studio, even if it was typically empty. She looked around it as though it weren’t, though, and the camera that had replaced them watched her.

“Alright people!” she said standing up. “That’s good work!”

She took a swig of water and wiped her forehead.

“Now, I want you to take that pain you’re feeling from your workout, and think of something great you did this week. Then tell yourself ‘Good job,’” she said. “I’ll see you all on Monday, okay?”

It was her last class of the day, a fact about which she was almost disappointed. While both Ash and Erica seemed thrilled to get out of work, for Bianca, it just meant boredom.

Well, it might anyway.

She opened her phone to text.

Bianca: Hola mi cielito. Wanna come over?

Carlos: Babe, you know I’d love to if I could.

Bianca frowned. Why did he have to be so gung ho about this thing?

Bianca: Oh, you can. Even the other girls don’t mind.

Carlos: You know I can’t. Not with Mom. She’s fragile. Wanna do a Zoom date at least?

She sighed. Of course she didn’t. She was a red blooded woman with needs, and while she liked Carlos (might, for that matter, have been even closer to a more impactful L word), he wasn’t meeting them. She tried to be supportive. Nobody wanted to be the bitch who dumped her boyfriend for properly quarantining. But as spring turned to summer, and both she and her friends had gradually loosened up only to tighten back down again as fall turned to winter, Carlos had never really loosened up at all. They’d been dating almost as long during the pandemic as they had before it, and she could count on one hand the number of times he’d been over.

Bianca: Let me talk to my roommates and see what they’re up to. I’ll let you know.

She sighed and tucked her phone away. Her roommates wouldn’t be doing anything that would keep her from a Zoom date. Ash, maybe she could get something going with, but Erica was unlikely to be anything but annoyed by her. Still, she didn’t think she had the heart to fake her way through it tonight, so the roommates would serve as an excuse.

With mixed emotions and a lingering sense of guilt, she shut the lights off in her studio and made her way upstairs.

******

Good morning Ashley,

Thank you for your application. We appreciate you taking the time to apply with our organization. Unfortunately…

She closed her laptop, feeling a tightness in her stomach that had grown all too constant and familiar these last 8 months. They were pursuing other candidates, or had received other, more qualified candidates or were no longer seeking candidates at this time. Whatever the exact language, Ashley knew the gist of what followed “unfortunately”.

Of the three women living in the apartment above Bianca’s fitness studio, Ashley had simultaneously been the most successful prior to the current mess and the hardest hit by it. At only 28, she was already a top concierge at one of LA’s most prestigious resorts. Her combination of Midwestern charm, girl-next-door beauty and slavish devotion to both her work and city had made her a massive success. Ten years after leaving her Kansas home as a naive, penniless teenager, she’d risen through the ranks of hospitality to the sort of position that had her supervisors saying words like “indispensable” and to whom guests left tips large enough to cover her rent.

Of course the sort of luxury resorts where the cost of a weekend getaway could run into five figures was not exactly a hot commodity during a deadly pandemic. And despite her large number of responsibilities, the specificity of her career and the degree to which her field had been ravaged meant she wasn’t getting many takers on the job market. On top of that, her previously robust social and night lives had dried up. She loved LA, not just for the new life it had provided her, but for its vibrancy, the things to do and the people to do them with. But with money going out and an ever decreasing supply coming back in, every day it felt more like a small room with shrinking walls.

Not that it was all negative. As Ash debated whether 8:30 AM on a Friday was too early for a glass of wine, the front door of her unit opened and Bianca stepped through it. Her bronze skin was sweat sheened, her hair fluttering to her waist as she released it from its bun. The sight made Ash’s heart flutter.

“Done for the day?” she asked, maintaining her composure.

Bianca gave a nod, taking a seat across from her on the opposite side of the kitchen island. Something about the way she carried herself gave Ash pause.

“You look tired,” she said. “Everything okay?”

Bianca sighed heavily.

“Carlos. I just… I don’t get why he won’t budge.”

Were she being honest, Ash would have reminded Bianca of Carlos’ mother, and that she hadn’t seen any of her own friends in months either. But there were times to be honest, and times to be supportive.

“I think he’s being unreasonable. I mean, he knows who you’ve been in contact with and he knows who he has. A small bubble is perfectly fine if you’re smart about it,” she said instead.

Bianca waved her hand.

“It’s fine. I don’t want to bore you with all this,” she said. “Besides, you’ve got it worse than me. I still have my job and I didn’t go out as much as you did. I shouldn’t complain.”

That was no lie. Ash had revelled in the LA nightlife and enjoyed it liberally. Moreover, she found that now that her friends didn’t have clubs to go to, they’d become ominously quiet and out of touch. Not that any of this was a road she wanted to go down.

“You’re fine, hon.” Ash said, crossing the room to the bottle of chardonnay she’d been eying. She lifted it, presenting it almost like a gameshow host. “You in?”

Bianca smiled faintly.

“You, chica, are a very bad influence.”

“C’moooon,” Ash goaded with a wink. “You know what’s good for getting over stupid boys? Day drinking. I know you’re done with class for the day.”

“Alright, alright,” Bianca agreed, “but I can’t go too hard. I have three classes tomorrow. Let me take a shower first.”

“Aww, but you look so good when you’re all sweaty,” she said, allowing herself a momentary confession of what she really thought of her longtime roommate.

Bianca rolled her eyes, failing, as ever, to read between the lines.

“Relax, you lush. It can wait till I’m back.”

“I’ll have sangria ready by the time you’re done,” Ash said, forcing a smile.

Bianca paused.

“Should we invite Quasimodo? I’m not sure I’ve seen her leave the belltower yet today.”

“That nickname is horrible,” Ash said, giggling in spite of herself. “I guess I’ll ask, but I think I already know what she’s gonna say.”

She watched Bianca go, a part of her wishing she had picked up on her flirtations. She liked her situation too much to **** the issue herself, and maybe even liked the tension too much. But one way or another, over the last year, the admiration Ash had for Bianca as a business woman had morphed into a crush and then further into an infatuation. For a woman who thought of herself as straight, or at a minimum, uninterested, it was all very confusing.

But then again, confusion could be fun. It was, at least, something to preoccupy herself.

*******

Of three women living above Bianca’s studio, Erica’s life had changed the least over the last year. She still worked from home, still hosted her shows, still wrote her reviews and still got most of her food through takeout. If anything, she was just fascinated by watching everyone else adapt to a lifestyle she’d had for years.

And it certainly had its perks. More people working from the comfortable confines of home, out of work altogether or just bored and stuck indoors meant more eyeballs on her streams. Today, it was Smash Brothers, and she was previewing its newest fighter for her UK weekend audience.

“Hmm… he’s very floaty,” Erica observed as she worked her way back toward the stage. “That’s kind of interesting for a character who can hit this hard.”

To demonstrate, she perfectly executed a side air that sent her opponent offstage, and annihilated him with a circle of spinning projectiles before he could recover. She twirled her gamecube controller around a finger before blowing on it like a smoking pistol.

There was a knock on the door. Erica looked over her glasses, but ignored it. It came a bit more insistently.

“Goddamnit,” she grumbled before facing the camera. “I’ll be back on momentarily.”

This was going to cost her viewers. Right when she had a good head of stem going. Erica was no flirty e-girl. Her streams were a combination of clinical gameplay breakdowns and high level competition. She was Japanese-American, and thus certain at least some of her followers fetishized her because of that, but overall her crowd was one serious about the medium.

“Come in,” Erica invited, trying to suppress her irritation.

It was Ashley. There was a part of her that envied Ashley, for her figure and easy charm if nothing else. Both would do wonders to improve her own popularity. The rest of her just wished that she’d leave her be.

Erica wasn’t quite sure how she’d ended up living with a jock and a bimbo, but for the first year of their lease, they’d been exactly the sort of roommate she cherished: they paid the bills on time, kept things tidy and most importantly, left her alone. But something about sustained quarantine had given them the impression that she needed to be included by them. It was the most annoying of the whole situation’s impacts on her.

“Heeey,” Ashley greeted, her blonde hair turning a vibrant pink as it caught the magenta light her LED strips produced, “Bianca and I were going to have some wine and watch movies. We wanted to know that you were welcome to join us.”

And listen to you get drunk and ramble about the nothing we have in common? Erica thought, Pass.

“I’m working,” she said, and then added a cursory, “Sorry. I have a good audience on Saturday.”

Ashley’s face did that cowlike thing it tended to when she thought too hard.

“It’s a Friday, though.”

“In the UK,” Erica, explained patiently, watching the realization slowly dawn on her.

“Oh… that is so cool!” Ash said with a smile. “You’ve got folks all the way over there watching you?”

“Yes. And I need to get back to it.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry,” Ashley said sheepishly. “Well, you’re welcome to join us if you’re done. Or not. It’s fine either way.”

As she retreated, Erica sighed. She’d let her irritation get the better of her. Bad habit. Ashley was trying to be nice, and for the sake of a harmonious relationship if nothing else, she should at least make an overture.

“Would it be okay if I joined later? You know. After I’m done,” she said, then kicked herself for parroting what Ashley had just said. “I mean, you already said I could. I just don’t want to interrupt or anything.”

Ashley smiled, and when she answered, that country drawl of hers came out more than usual.

“Of course!” she said, sounding almost surprised. “You feel free to come out whenever you want! We’ll even let you pick the movie! It’ll be fun!”

“Thanks,” Erica said, already beginning to regret the gesture. “Now, if you don’t mind.”

Ashley gave her a quiet nod, closing the door behind her.

Erica grumbled, firing the cameras and mics up again. She hated losing her rhythm.

“Sorry about that. Let’s jump right back in.” She said, “Ugh. Items...Who makes these rule sets?”

*******

“So...Those are our subjects.” Abrams said. “Three women trapped together with very different feelings about it.”

“I like Ashley. She seems nice,” May said. “Let’s give it to her.”

Abrams frowned.

“She’s too nice. Which is why we shouldn’t give it to her. Nothing worse than starting off with a goody two shoes.”

“Ogling her roomie. Drinking at 9 AM. I don’t think she’s that goody two shoes.” May scoffed.

“Well...what about Erica? Kinda clear she’s not a fan of the other two,” Abrams suggested. “Seems like a pretty fertile headspace to plant ideas in.”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t have much of an imagination. I dunno…” She trailed off. “Bianca seems like a boring option.”

“Those are sometimes that ones that surprise you. But honestly, it doesn’t matter all that much. They’re always really cautious on their first change.”

May looked at him, puzzled.

“Really? The chance to change anyone in your life isn’t a thing people jump on?”

“Developers, man…you’re all the same,” Abrams said with a sigh. “You deal with this stuff so much you can’t separate yourselves from it! You don’t get the real world.”

“I’m sorry,” May interrupted, twirling her fingers. “Could you maybe bring this back around to a point?”

He turned to face her.

“Look, you guys spend all day working on our tech and our items. You only know how to think about what you would do with them.” He gestured to the rest of the room, where various Research staff huddled around monitors. “We watch people use them in the real world. People who don’t know any of this shit is real.”

He straightened back up, cutting their feed to show Erica gaming, Ashley mixing drinks and Bianca in the shower.

“So…when they get their apps, they’ll wade into the pool, not dive. At least that’s what most of them do.”

“So,” He added, crossing his legs. “Who’s it gonna be?”

May watched the three, thinking it over. Finally, she spoke up.