And she stepped on one of those fortune weight scales in the bathroom--you know the kind that predict your life--but by the time you're interested it's just words bobbing back and forth like they aren't even sure they should be there. And she wasn't sure she should be there anyway. Yes, she could predict how the movie would end, and yes she thought it would have an oscar nod, but really, all she cared about was why Gwen was standing on the quarter scale and what she could have done to stop it.

The Foreclosure

When Richard got the fourth notice about the foreclosure he opened it on his way over to the condo. The first letter he placed in a horror novel he was reading on the weekends, the second he rolled up and used to fish his keys from underneath the kitchen hutch, and the third he lined the bottom of Slim’s cage. He decided it would do him better to recycle the paper, since he knew there was nothing he could do to stop the process the bank had already begun.

Cat Litter

It wasn’t because she was lazy, that’s what she was trying to explain to Olivia. The cat litter fight was coming again, turds rolled in gravely pieces of dusty chalk and the goddamn cat on the window sill watching the argument escalate.
“What if I’m pregnant?”
“Oh cut out the pregnant shit, what if I am?”
“You don’t even fuck.”
Gayle wasn’t entirely sure if she meant her last outburst. She had never seen Olivia bring any men over, except her own brother—who she was certain was mentally ill, perhaps bi-polar. They had played an online poker game until after 2:00 a.m. and it was Adam who had complained the next morning of the smell coming from the cat box. Still, she was pretty certain that Olivia didn’t have a sex partner—let alone any chance that she could be pregnant—which brought her to where they were right now, and she didn’t want to take any chances of losing this imaginary baby by changing the litter.
“It’s your cat.” Olivia pointed at Ginger who was at this point licking her right paw looking bored with the situation.
“Who paid the deposit?” Gayle crossed her arms, looking smug.
“I only paid it because you said you were waiting for your kicker. Which by the way I saw an envelope in the trash a week ago.”

Medical Records

I found out Mike Slater from my senior English class was tested for herpes but I never found out if it was positive or negative. I mean obviously it’s negative if it’s positive. There’s nothing positive about a positive test. I also stumbled across Megan Albright’s abnormal Pap smear results. Just a follow up appointment was scheduled. The weirdest thing I had discovered so far was that Mrs. Bromwell, the junior counselor I was sent to years ago because I left a nasty note in Judy Casterman’s P.E. locker, had bipolar disorder. This explains a lot since half of the class liked her as a counselor and the other half hated her. She told her doctor she had been diagnosed three years earlier by a psychiatrist but refused medication because she didn’t want to gain weight, but judging by her weight chart I don’t think it would have mattered. HavH hhejHaving all this information helped me stay awake at work; otherwise the medical records could be a real bore.

The Prescription

She didn’t intended on taking a vacation with Sumner, not at first anyway. When he invited her she thought he was joking. After all, he had been dealing with the family in room five and took thirty minutes to write three pages of orders on the newest chest pain admit. He seemed too busy to be thinking of anything but the normal quickness of a doctor on call. It wasn’t until he asked her for a prescription pad, scribbled a line and then handed it to her when Katherine sat for more than a minute trying to make out the last word: Maui.

The Call

When Jerry was lost, not in the oh crap I can't find my keys lost, but more of the today I don't know who I am lost, he stopping drinking and called Evette at 2:00 in the morning. Of course she thought he had been drinking when he called, that's all she knew of him when they had worked together at the bar. Although they never slept together, the one time they went hiking brought them as close as someone you would share a bed with. However sometimes, and Jerry knew this too well, lying next to someone often didn't equal closeness.

Florida

The humidity is becoming normal for Alice. She’s gotten used to wearing tank tops and flip-flops, but her father is still wearing the flannel work shirts and Levis that he wore on his construction sites in Oregon. Today she has to sweep out a house he is almost finished building, his last here in Florida. The carpet people will be coming the next day he tells her, the nails must be picked up, and the splinters swept, not to mention the stickers on the windows need to be scrubbed and then scraped. Alice is sorry she tried to run away yesterday; otherwise she could be at home, watching “One Life to Live” and eating popsicles from the freezer. Or better yet, swimming in the pool (everyone has a pool on the island.) Now she is stuck on the jobsite, broom in hand, staring at the back of her father’s flannel as he talks to the new owners, wondering if she should try to run away again tonight or wait until the weekend.