Chapter Text
Tricia woke up to the most godawful noise. It was a thudding sound that had even invaded her dream. Where, instead of walking around with Jo at a party in her dream, there was suddenly a jackhammer making whatever the hell racket it was that woke her up.
She thought maybe it was just the painful throb of her brain against her skull from the few drinks that she’d had last night, but once she’d woken up a little bit, she realized it was coming from the other side of her front door.
She sat up quickly, cursing whoever the hell had woken her up before her morning shift as she made her way around all the stuff she’d abandoned on the floor last night to get to the door. She knew what she must look like in her Batman pajama pants and old band t-shirt stretched out at the collar, and no bra on. But whoever it was would just have to fucking deal with it.
In a more awake and rational state, Tricia would probably be hesitant to answer the door because she’d only ever had an unannounced visitor once. It had been her landlord checking to see if she needed new batteries for her smoke detector.
Since she wasn’t awake or rational yet, she swung open the door, immediately regretting her decision not to have used the peephole first, to come face to face with Pete.
The other woman looked worse than Tricia did. Pete’s makeup had started to melt under her eyes, which already had huge, almost bruise-like bags. Her hair was all stuck up on one side and curly on the other, like she hadn’t brushed it. She was wearing a hoodie with her thumbs poked through what were supposed to be the wrist cuffs. She held up a paper bag covered in grease stains. Despite all of this, Pete was grinning at her, sharp canines on display.
“I have donuts!” she said in a sing-songy voice that had Tricia rushing to put her hands over her ears. Too loud and too early. “Oh, sorry,” Pete said, seeing Tricia’s reaction.
Tricia stepped away from the door and gestured inside, and Pete followed quickly, setting the bag down on Tricia’s kitchen counter.
“I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I got one of basically everything,” Pete rambled as she rummaged around Tricia’s cabinets until she found a plate to put them all on.
Tricia rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She couldn’t believe that this was even real. She had to still be dreaming.
“They’re from this place by my apartment that I used to go to all the time when I was a kid with my parents after church. It was my reward for sitting still for that long in the pews.” Pete huffed a laugh.
Then, held the plate out to her when she was done with her ridiculous plating. Tricia stared at them. There was powdered sugar from one of the donuts dusted onto all of them. She picked one with white frosting and sprinkles and took a hesitant bite. It wasn’t bad.
She ate while Pete continued her rambling. “You’re probably wondering why I’m here. I just wanted to say sorry again about last night. Gabby felt so shitty about it. We missed you at the show. I mean, like I said last night, the band was awful, but still, we could’ve bitched about it together or something.”
Pete paused to look over at Tricia, likely to gauge her reaction. Tricia just nodded. She probably would’ve loved to critique it with Pete. Pete smiled at her and kept going.
“Anyway, I got here so early because I was hoping that you could tell me more about your… thing.” Pete winced a little at her choice of words, but kept on going. “Well, I mean, you don’t have to, but I want to hear about it if you’re willing to tell me. I want to know more about it, I really do. Because Gabby was asking me about you after you left, and I told her about how you don’t really understand sarcasm. That you weren’t joking at all, and that was just how you are. And I know that we kind of talked about it before, but I realized I don’t even know what it is. Your… thing. Or if it’s even an official thing. I know sometimes, some people are just like that, and I don’t want to make you feel weird about that either. Mine is an official thing, just so you know.”
She sighed and scrubbed a hand over her face, looking down instead of at Tricia. “Fuck, sorry. You don’t have to tell me. That was so rude of me to ask like that. Never mind. Forget what I said. Sorry, again.”
Tricia chewed thoughtfully around the bite that she had just taken, turning Pete’s words over in her mind. Part of her wanted to be annoyed with the way Pete woke her up just to ask about this, something that Tricia would probably tell her about happily when she wasn’t so sleep deprived. And yet, the other, larger part of her was intrigued that Pete had been thinking about her last night, and that she wanted to know even more about Tricia to better understand her. It was strange having someone want to be that close to her.
She decided that it would be okay to tell her, at least part of the story now. She racked her brain for a moment, thinking about how best to explain “her thing” to her friend. She wanted to consider her words carefully, not to parrot the harsh words that her clinicians, and even her mother, had used for her when she was growing up.
Just as she was about to speak, Pete stood up from where she was leaning against Tricia’s counter and began to gather her purse and rush towards the door. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have bombarded you about this. Waking you up this early was crazy, but I couldn’t sleep thinking I had hurt you last night, and I wanted to make it right. Even though I kind of just made it so much worse. But I guess I can see you later when we--”
“Wait,” Tricia called after her. Pete turned her head slowly. “You don’t have to leave. I’m not mad, I was just thinking.”
“Oh,” Pete said quietly, putting her shoes back by the door, and walking back to her place beside Tricia against the counter. This time, she let Tricia have the silence to herself.
“I was figuring out the best way to put it,” Tricia finally explained. “I don’t really talk about it that often, so I don’t have something ready, and I’m still really tired. But I do have an official thing, as you put it. It’s called Autism.”
Pete’s eyebrows furrowed. “I’ve never heard of that.”
Tricia laughed a little. It was an inside joke that she had with herself whenever anyone ever said that. It was funny because for the first few years of her life, no one had ever heard of it either.
“It’s a developmental disorder,” she explained. “You already know I struggled a lot as a kid. The behavior problems. Well, I didn’t care to be around people like my siblings did at my age; I didn’t really know how to communicate very well about how I was feeling. I did so many things that my mom and my doctors didn’t understand, which turned out to be really just me trying to communicate how I felt in my own way. I guess I was a pretty tough kid. I don’t remember most of those years.”
Pete’s face was blank, and Tricia couldn’t discern how the other woman felt about what she was telling her, so Tricia just kept going.“It wasn’t until I was around six that my mom found a doctor who knew what it was. The definition of Autism had just been changed, and it was becoming more well-known. Anyway, I had to get a lot of help from a lot of people growing up to be able to socialize and participate in school. My mom took me to classes downtown to work with other kids like me, and she worked one-on-one with me every night, even when teachers at school told her that I was never going to be able to live on my own.”
Pete’s eyes widened slightly at that. “Never?”
“That’s what they said.” Tricia shrugged. The more she opened up, the more she found it was actually a little uncomfortable to talk about this to someone after so many years. She was so distanced from that version of herself that Pete couldn’t even begin to conceptualize what Tricia was like at that age. It was strange and too emotionally overwhelming for this early in the morning. “Does that answer your questions? I want to talk about this another time when I’m not all…” she trailed off and gestured to her Batman pajama pants.
“Uh, yeah,” Pete answered. “That’s fine.”
“I’ll tell you more about it some other time, I promise,” she said, as she took another donut off the plate. She took a bite. It was just as good as her first.
A silence lapsed over them, as Pete ate her own donut, both of them staring off into the distance towards Tricia’s back wall with her bathroom door, TV, and bookshelves crammed full.
It wasn’t awkward like it would be with anyone else. The idea that that might be because Tricia had feelings for Pete was not lost on Tricia. She was acutely aware of it, as the realization had not gotten any less looming since she had first understood it last night.
Finally, Pete broke the silence. “Mine is Bipolar Disorder. My thing, I mean.” She took another bite of her powdered donut, getting the sugar all over herself in the process. Tricia might have laughed if it weren’t such a serious conversation.
“Thanks for telling me. And for the donuts,” she offered instead. She glanced at the time on the oven and saw that it was almost when she would normally wake up for work. “I should probably start getting ready.”
Pete nodded. “Mind if I crash on your couch for a bit while you do that?”
Tricia shook her head, and Pete bounded over there faster than Tricia had seen her move before. “The remotes on the coffee table, if you want to watch something.”
“Nah, just need to catch a little bit of sleep,” Pete said, already snuggling into one of the cushions.
Tricia crossed her apartment to her bathroom door and eyed Pete for a moment before she started. The woman had her eyes closed, so she didn’t catch Tricia staring. Pete looked like an absolute mess, the sugar still sprinkled all over her already stained hoodie, her hair sticking up in all directions, and a grease stain on her pants from the bag of donuts. Yet, Tricia found her heart aching to join the woman on the couch, to be the pillow that she was currently clutching. She had to force herself to tear her eyes away.
Tricia moved about her morning routine as she always did. It was laminated on a piece of paper, all the steps of what she needed to do before work, and she followed it religiously. Her mom had come up with the concept after Tricia would forget a crucial step while getting ready for school, and wouldn’t realize until midday that she’d forgotten to brush her teeth or put on deodorant. With the steps in color ink in front of her, Tricia was guaranteed to remember them.
She was brushing her hair and trying to decide what hat to wear when she heard a soft wheezing sound coming from the direction of the couch. She turned to look, and Pete had fallen asleep with her head tipped back and her mouth open. Fuck, was there anything she did that wasn’t so adorable?
They had twenty minutes before they needed to leave, but there wasn’t much else for Tricia to finish on her morning checklist, so she busied herself packing up all the donuts for herself and Pete to snack on while they worked today.
With five minutes remaining, Tricia went over the couch to shake Pete awake. It was hard when a little bit of drool had collected at the corner of her mouth. Tricia had to stop herself from reaching out and wiping it off.
She jostled Pete’s shoulder as gently as she could, and the older woman shot up. “Fuck, I’m ready. Let’s go.” Her eyes were wide open and bloodshot from her lack of sleep. Tricia wished that she could have let her sleep so much longer.
It was nice to catch a ride with Pete to work and not have to take the bus. Normally, when Tricia’s schedule was thrown off like this, she struggled to cope with the changes, but she kept checking in with herself, and it was fine so far, at least. Fuck all those people who said that she’d never be able to live on her own. She was getting a ride to work with her friend, who had surprised her at her apartment, which she lived in alone. It didn’t get better than that.
When they got to the mall, Pete told Tricia to go on ahead to open up, and reappeared ten minutes later with a death grip on a huge cup of coffee. She sipped it quickly like someone was going to take it from her, and it made Tricia smile just watching her.
Their shift together went by easily. It was a little busier than usual, but it was a Saturday, after all. They ate the semi-stale donuts for lunch, Pete somehow managing to ruin her hoodie even further with the sticky-sweet glaze of one of them.
It was just starting to die down after lunch when she heard someone shuffle in. She raised her head, just about to greet the customer, when the other person spoke first.
“God, this place is so much creepier when I’m not clocked in,” a familiar voice called from the front of the store. Gabby emerged from behind a display of pink stuffed bears, and her eyes bounced back and forth from Pete to Tricia behind the counter. “Um. Hey. Pete. Tricia.” Finally, her gaze settled on Tricia, who stared past Gabby instead of making eye contact.
Tricia pushed her fist hard against the stitched edging in the pocket of her denim jacket. She had thought a lot about what had happened last night while she was trying to fall asleep, determining that she was upset about the way that Gabby had treated her, but since it seemed like the woman was remorseful based on what Pete and Andy had told her, Tricia was willing to give her a second chance. A second chance that was dependent upon how the rest of this interaction went,
It took her a while to come to this conclusion. She decided that this was different than the others who had laughed at her in the past. They hadn’t shown any guilt for their actions when Tricia had told them how it made her feel. When it seemed like Gabby had,
Her face was serious when she said, “I just wanted to apologize for last night. What I said was mean, and I didn’t mean to laugh at you. I promise I’m not normally like that, I thought that Pete put you up to it or something. She’s always doing anything to try to prank me.” Pete looked away sheepishly. “And that’s not an excuse or anything, just telling you what I thought was going on. But it’s cool that you’re into all types of music and instruments and stuff. I wish I knew how to play.” Recognition flashed in her eyes for a moment, and she reached into her back pocket for something rectangular and held it out to Tricia. “Here. Andy told me last week that you’re really into girl bands.”
Tricia took the cassette tape from her and examined it. The only thing on it was the words, ‘EJ’s, Portland,’ and the date 9/4/97.
“It’s a recording of a Team Dresch concert. I got it a while ago in a huge case of tapes from this guy who runs copies of them, you know, for, like, a living. Anyway, I didn’t know who they were, and not sure if you do either, but they sound amazing. Thought you might be interested. I promise it’s not a bribe or anything. I was going to bring it to you sometime this week, anyway. I was hoping that’s when I could meet you because between Andy and Pete, I hear about you all the time. You seem like a pretty cool person. Sorry, we had to meet that way.”
Tricia’s mouth opened and closed wordlessly for a moment, like a fish out of water gasping for air. Not only did she know who Team Dresch was, but she was so familiar with them that she had worn out her previous CD of their album Personal Best, playing it too many times on repeat.
She stared at the tape for a moment before finally looking up at Gabby to meet her eyes. She smiled. “Thank you. I love that band. I can’t wait to listen to it.”
Gabby returned the smile. “I thought you might like it. Does this mean you’ll come to the pool party, then?” Tricia nodded. Gabby let out a sigh, and her body seemed to relax a bit now that Tricia had assured her that she wasn’t still upset. “Oh, good!”
Pete, who had hung back most of the interaction, spoke up now. “Hell yeah!” She gave Tricia an encouraging smile. “It’s like Andy is always saying, we’re a team and we need to start acting like one.”
That made Gabby giggle. “You know she’s just saying that cause corporate tells her to.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not true,” Pete answered.
“No man left behind from Billie’s pool party!” Gabby said in a gravely lower register, like she was commanding some great army. She and Pete fell over laughing, and Tricia watched them with fondness.
She really enjoyed seeing the dynamics between all of her newfound friends. They all had these completely different relationships with one another, but still managed to be friends. Maybe that was why it was so easy for her to fit in with them, because her relationship with each of them was different, too.
When the laughter died down, Gabby was staring at her. “Oh, hey. I actually had a question for you, Tricia. What’s a theremin? You said you wanted to learn to play it last night, and it’s bugging me that I have no idea what it even is.”
Tricia knew that her eyes were probably alight as she explained to Gabby all about the electromagnetic fields on the instrument, and how she remembered the haunting sound it made when her band teacher played for her freshman year. Gabby nodded along and listened intently.
“The Beach Boys actually had a variation of one custom-made for their song Good Vibrations, but it was destroyed in an earthquake,” Tricia explained.
Next to her at the counter, Pete giggled. “Is there anything you don’t know?”
“Geometry,” Tricia answered quickly, and the three of them cracked up.
“Please tell me that knowing how to chicken fight is embedded in that brain of yours,” Gabby said once she’d finally stopped laughing. “We always have a contest at Billie’s party. You gotta play. We’ll actually have even numbers if you do!”
“Um, not sure if that’s in my wheelhouse,” Tricia answered honestly. She wasn’t sure if chicken fighting was for her. From what she remembered, it was a lot of touching involved, and she wasn’t sure that she wanted any of her new friends that close to her yet, even Pete.
Pete leaned against her, their thighs pressed together, denim on denim, so that she could better try to make eye contact with her. “Trish, you gotta! It’s so much fun!” She was giving Tricia those puppy-dog eyes again that melted Tricia’s resolve as quickly as possible. “Then, Andy doesn’t have to be the ref anymore!”
“Alright,” she said, against her own will. “I’ll try.”
“Yes,” Pete exclaimed, drawing out the s, while she high-fived Gabby over the counter, who quickly pulled her hand back.
“Wait, what time is it?” Gabby asked, suddenly pulling out her phone. “Shit, I forgot I was meeting my mom in twenty to get our nails done. I gotta go, but I’ll see you guys on Sunday, yeah?” Her eyes were wide as she darted towards the door. “Hope you enjoy the tape,” she called to Tricia from the exit.
Tricia nodded and said, “See you later.” Pete blew her a kiss as she ran out of the store.
When it was just her and Pete alone in the store again, Tricia asked the question that had been on her mind for the past twenty minutes. “Did you ask her to come in and apologize?” She didn’t blame Pete if she did, and it wouldn’t change her opinion of Gabby either, because it seemed to come from a genuine place, regardless of who put her up to it.
Immediately, Pete shook her head. “No, I wouldn’t have even told her to if she asked. I assumed you wouldn’t want to see her for a while.”
“Okay,” Tricia answered. “Do you think Andy did? You know, for the sake of the store, I mean.”
Pete laughed. “No way. She knows not to meddle in our shit unless it’s actually inside the store.” Tricia must have looked confused because she went on to explain. “Last time she got involved in our outside drama last year, it ended in three girls quitting.” She shook her head, still laughing to herself. “The woman has learned her lesson.”
“How long have you been working here, then?” Tricia asked. She was surprised to learn that it seemed to be longer than a year.
“Uh,” Pete said, as she trailed off, counting on her fingers. “Two and a half years now, I think. Andy’s been here for three. We’re the veterans of this place.”
Tricia smiled, mock-saluting Pete. “And I thank you for your service.”
They laughed together for a moment until a customer came in, and they had to be on their best behavior again. The tween girls walked around a little bit, giggling about everything that they picked up, until they finally approached the counter and purchased a bunch of flavored Chapsticks. Tricia checked them out with ease, grateful that she didn’t have to make small talk with the girls because they were still busy giggling with one another.
Tricia was about to start organizing a new shipment that they’d gotten when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at Pete. “So we have about half an hour until our shift’s over. Do you want to maybe… I don’t know… hang out again or something?” Pete looked nervous for some reason, which was weird because they’d hung out plenty of times outside of work already.
“Yeah, sure,” Tricia said. “We can watch a movie at my place again, if you want.”
“I was thinking more like dinner, maybe?” Pete asked, rubbing at the back of her neck and avoiding eye contact. “I don’t know what kind of food you’re into beyond, like, donuts and mac and cheese, but there’s this new place that Andy has been telling me about. I think it’s Korean? I don’t remember, but she said it was really good. And we could go. I mean… if you want.”
“Absolutely,” Tricia said quickly, without even a moment’s hesitation. She loved Korean food more than anything. “But can we get takeout and bring it back to my place? I’m just still kind of tired from getting up so early, and I don’t think I could handle the sounds and all the people at a restaurant right now.”
Pete let out a breath and finally looked up at Tricia again. “Really? You’d be into that?” Her eyes were wide, not quite as pleading as when she made those puppy-dog eyes, but pretty close.
Tricia smiled. “Contrary to what you may think, I do go out. In fact, you’ve been out with me plenty of times before. And I love Korean food, so of course I’m in.”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant,” Pete said quickly. “I just meant like dinner with… me.”
Tricia laughed. “Is there something I’m not getting here? I spent my entire day with you, Pete, so why would I draw the line at going to dinner?”
There was a brief moment where Pete’s whole face was indecipherable to Tricia, an emotion she hadn’t seen pass over her before, but it was quickly replaced with a smile. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Then, we’ll go after this.”
Tricia just smiled back at her, taking Pete’s words at face value. Pete knew that if she had something to say to Tricia, she would have to spell it out pretty explicitly, so Tricia trusted that whatever it was Pete was trying to express, it really didn’t matter; otherwise, she wouldn’t have said it like that. She went back to sorting inventory, already dreaming about what she would order.
***
Much later, they had picked up the food and were once again seated on Tricia’s couch, eating the food right out of the containers. Pete had insisted on paying, which was sweet considering she had gotten their drinks the night before, too, but she wouldn’t let Tricia put cash down.
They’d dug in immediately, both of them blown away by the flavors. Pete had gone out of her way to thank Andy profusely over text for the recommendation. Tricia had asked Pete if she wanted to put on a movie while they ate, but Pete shook her head. So, instead, they ate in contented silence, only pausing to pass each other sauce packets or napkins. It was nice.
When Tricia had eaten the last of her bibimbap, she watched Pete for a moment. Pete was attempting to eat the rice with chopsticks, but she clearly wasn’t as practiced as Tricia, so she kept sighing and going back to the fork. It made Tricia smile. Once again, struck by the overwhelming feelings that she had for her.
“What did you do before you worked at Everything Nice?” Tricia asked, breaking the silence. She wanted to know everything about Pete that there was to know.
Pete cleared her throat and looked up at Tricia. “Well, uh, after high school, I went to college for a while. DePaul, actually. I was pre-law, and I was even on the soccer team.” Pete laughed a little. “It was weird. I was this jock, but I was still somehow in the hardcore scene, too. Best of both worlds, I guess. Then…” She looked down at her food, but didn’t take any bites, just pushed it around with her fork. “Then some stuff happened. Those behavioral problems I was telling you about.”
“Your bipolar disorder?” Tricia asked. She didn’t mean to interrupt Pete, but she did want her to know that she had been listening. She could remember.
Pete nodded. “Yeah, that. I had to drop out and move back home. It was bad there for a minute.” Again, she laughed, but it didn’t have her usual humor behind it. “I had to work at fucking Cracker Barrel. And I wasn’t even any good at it.”
“I’m sorry,” Tricia said softly. She didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t even imagine Pete working at a place like that.
Pete didn’t acknowledge her; she just sighed really loudly and put the takeout container onto the coffee table. “Anyway, then I started going back to shows, and I ran into Andy there, and she asked me if I wanted to work with her, before she was the manager, and we used to have weekend shifts together. It was hell, but it was fun.” She smiled. “And when I finally got enough money saved up, I moved out. And that’s how it’s been since I started there. I mean, it’s not the greatest place, but it beats Cracker Barrel.”
Tricia was not really sure what to tell Pete, except the truth. “I’m glad that you got your independence back, and I’m really glad that you work at Everything Nice, so that we were able to meet.”
Pete finally looked up so that their eyes could meet. She smiled, softer than her usual smirk. “Me too.”
Tricia volunteered to do the dishes (or rather, utensils) since Pete had paid, and Pete seemed to have no objections, sprawling out on the couch while Tricia picked up the mess they’d made.
When Tricia finished cleaning up the takeout, it was about the time that she would normally start her night routine. She was about to ask Pete if she was ready to go home when she looked over at the couch to find her already passed out, just as she had been earlier this morning.
It made sense, considering that she’d told Tricia that she’d only gotten a few hours of sleep last night. In fact, Tricia was surprised Pete had even made it through their busy shift. She thought about waking Pete up, but the more she looked at her, shaggy bangs falling into her eyes, eyeliner in deep bruise-like smudges, and powdered sugar still all over her hoodie, all thoughts of waking her left Tricia’s mind. What she really wanted was to lie there on the couch next to her, Pete’s head in her lap, and her hands combing through Pete’s tangled hair.
Instead, she grabbed a blanket from the other side of the couch and draped it over Pete, so she wouldn’t get cold. Tricia went about her normal night routine, surprised that none of the noises she was making disturbed Pete at all, and finally, when she was all tucked into bed, she whispered a ‘good night’ to Pete just in case she could hear her.
***
Tricia woke up in a good mood the next morning, expecting to see Pete still cuddled up on her couch. She couldn’t believe how lucky she was that she got to spend the entire day yesterday with her new friend.
But when she opened her eyes, Pete was no longer lying on her couch. She looked around to see that no, she hadn’t gone to the bathroom, and her shoes were missing from beside the front door. She had really left.
Her blanket was folded up neatly, and there was a note left on top of it. It looked like Pete had ripped out a page from one of Tricia’s many notebooks open on her desk. It read: ‘sorry forgot i was supposed to meet my parents for brunch today. didn’t want to wake you up. u looked peaceful. thanks for letting me crash here xo’ and then she had drawn two little smiley faces on it with hairstyles that looked vaguely like their own, and they were labeled with her and Pete’s names.
She checked her cellphone, and sure enough, Pete had messaged her on there too. She wrote, ‘did u know u talk in ur sleep? its cute <3 see u soon.’ Tricia set her phone down carefully back onto her nightstand and flopped face-first onto her bed.
Pete had called her cute. Pete had used the heart emoticon. Pete had been listening to her while she was sleeping. Pete had drawn them together and used the hugs and kisses letters in her messages.
She buried her face in her pillow, knowing it was probably bright red. She needed to consult an expert on this, someone who could tell her what it all meant. Someone who wasn’t her mother.