Chapter Text
When Wednesday’s boss had asked her to manage her stores, Wednesday wanted to say no. It would just be more work time she could use for writing. That was until Weems told her that her pay would be temporarily raised for the time she watched the two little shops. So, reluctantly, Wednesday agreed to take care of The Crypt Thrift and the small antique shop connected to it, Uriah’s Heap. She needed the extra money for rent, anyway, last week the rent was raised a few hundred dollars, and Wednesday had been outraged. She had a perfect plan in place already, how much money went towards rent, groceries, and the already small amount of money she set aside for herself. So, Wednesday had agreed to manage the two stores for a few months, that would at least give her enough time to find another job on the side.
So, here she was, unlocking the front door to The Crypt, her black tote hanging off her left shoulder, coffee in hand. It was 6 in the morning, 4 hours earlier than her normal shift started. Ridiculous. Who even went thrifting at such a time? Wednesday rolled her eyes, stepping into the small shop. To the left was a small counter space used for purchasing items, shelves lined the walls, all kinds of little trinkets piled atop them. Racks full of different clothing items were set in the middle of the room, a small space, but homey. The kind of place you wanted to keep coming back to. To the right, a couple shoe stands sat, and next to that, hooks holding practically whatever accessory you could think of. And in the back, a few dressing rooms and mirrors. Even if Wednesday would never say it out loud, she loved this place. She had been working here since high school, and it had become a second home, of sorts.
Wednesday sighed, placing her coffee down on the counter, and her tote behind it, resting against her seat. She sat down, reaching for the store laptop so she could clock in. Brushing the imaginary dust from her long black skirt, she reached for the velvet case beside her coffee, opening it and placing her glasses atop her nose. She opened the device in front of her, and was met with the confusing prompt of ‘update system’ . Wednesday scrunched her nose. Damn these electronic hell boxes. She will have to call and ask Weems how to do this. The goth got up and moved to the small break room just next to the checkout, clocking in manually would have to do for today.
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Wednesday hated folding clothes. Ironic, she knows. Her brother often said to her, “Why do you work at a clothing store if you hate folding clothes? That’s just plain silly!” And he had every right to think this. But the best excuse she could come up with at the time was, “There are other things in thrift stores that aren’t clothes, Pugsley, you should know this.” It wasn’t one of her smartest retorts, but it had shut her brother up, so she would take it as a win.
As she finished folding the last shirt on the decorative crates in the back corner of the store, the bell to the front door jingled. Wednesday looked up from her work, staying silent when she saw a group of people that looked to be her age walking into the store. They seemed to not notice her presence, simply chatting to themselves as they immediately began looking around the shop. Wednesday squinted her eyes at them, she swears she’s seen them before. She looked to the girl closest to her, scrolling through the t-shirts, her head shaved and eyes as blue as the sky. Next to her was a boy wearing a dress shirt and sweater vest, he kept pushing his round glasses up his nose and was looking around like he was self conscious of people who weren’t even there. Wednesday turned her head when she heard a loud “HA!” coming from the farthest rack of clothes to the right, a girl with long black hair and sunglasses (in the Winter?) was holding up a fur lined jean jacket. She was showing it to her friends beside her, a boy with long curly hair and bright blue eyes and a girl with short brown hair and striking green eyes that seemed to study the piece of clothing before giving a short nod and a smile to the overly excited girl who draped the jacket over her arm.
Oh. This was the group of students who went to Nevermore that Weems had mentioned to her. Yes, this had to be them. They matched the descriptions her boss had given her perfectly.
…
Well…except for the blonde one of course.
The stray had been looking around like she had never even laid eyes on this place before, which was odd because Weems had told Wednesday that the group very often dropped in to browse both sister stores. Her honey blonde hair seemed to frame her face just perfectly, a baby blue scarf that matched her half-lidded eyes was pulled up under her red button nose and hands tucked safely into the pockets of her cream colored puffer.
Just as soon as they locked eyes, a girl a few inches taller than her stood closer to Wednesday than necessary, hands on her hips as if she were scolding a small child.
“Hey! Why are you glaring at my best friend like you’re planning her murder?!” She looked directly at Wednesday through her sunglasses. She was breathing hard like she had run a marathon just to get here.
“I was not-”
“Yoko, c’mon, leave her alone. She didn’t mean any harm. I’m sure of it.” The girl came up next to her and looked at her friend with big blue eyes, the girl, Yoko, looked at the floor and then back to Wednesday. “Fine.” She turned around with red cheeks, embarrassed, surely.
“Sorry about her. She can get kinda overprotective sometimes. Of everybody.” The blonde chuckled, letting her scarf fall slightly so she could have a proper conversation with the woman in front of her. “Anyway, uh, my name’s Enid.”
“Wednesday.” The shorter of the two responded, smoothing out nonexistent wrinkles in her skirt so she could avoid looking into Enid’s doe eyes. “Like the day of the week? That’s so awesome.” This made Wednesday look up at the other woman, watching her tongue dart out to soothe her dry lips. The goth didn’t know what to say. It certainly was not every day someone went and called her name anything other than weird.
It made Wednesday feel…
Well, she didn’t exactly know how it made her feel, it just made her feel.
“Well…I must go, I need to get back to work.” Wednesday made up an excuse, though she really didn’t want to. If she wasn’t the cold woman she was all the time, perhaps she would’ve taken a short break to chat with Enid, maybe make a new friend.
But no. Wednesday didn’t do new friends, ever. She had maybe one friend in her whole twenty years of life, a fellow club member named Eugene back in high school, who respected her boundaries at all times, which is why she tolerated him. He moved back to his hometown after junior year, though, and from then on Wednesday had been alone. And she would continue to be.
It’s what she wanted to be.
“Well, all right. I’m-ahem…we’re-“ she corrected herself, looking at her peeking friend, who immediately looked away, “sorry for bothering you, Wednesday.” and with that, Enid walked back to her smirking friend.
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“Dude! She was totally into you!” Yoko smiled widely at her now flushed best friend, who tsked and began looking through a rack of cozy sweaters.
“She was not into me. And even if she is really pretty, I just met her! That would be weird” Enid pulled her scarf back up her face to hide her rosy cheeks, trailing her fingers down a soft orange sweater.
“Well, if you wanna see her more, we all come down to Jericho a couple times a week. You could always join us.” Yoko raised her eyebrows and looked down at Enid, taking off her glasses. Ever since the blonde moved onto their floor, Yoko has been trying to get her to become friends with the rest of her little group, since high school, Enid has always been a little shy with people she doesn’t know, but once she became friends with someone, she would become a little ball of energy you couldn’t get rid of. It was sweet, really.
“That sounds nice. Thanks Yoko!” Enid looked over her shoulder to give her friend a big smile before turning back around to unhook her pick of sweater from the rack. “I really appreciate you introducing me to everyone.”
“‘Course! Anything for you, Eenie.”
“I told you to stop calling me that!” Yoko laughed and followed Enid to the dressing rooms.
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Wednesday still hadn’t figured out how to ‘update’ this piece of junk in front of her by the time the Nevermore group was done with their shopping. She finally found a small button that said ‘Remind me later’ at the bottom of the screen, and promptly clicked it before scanning a few things one of the students brought her. She thought she would be done checking her customers out by now, but she was wrong. Wednesday looked up from the much too bright light coming from the laptop, making eye contact with the same blonde she’d been talking with just a few minutes ago. She placed down a few items of clothing and smiled down at Wednesday, eyes squinting slightly. Wednesday proceeded to scan the items in silence, not knowing exactly what to say. Her eyes widened when she was once again given a notice to ‘update’ her laptop, she scoffed, accepting the fact that she would just have to manually type in the item number.
“Hey, I think your computer needs an update?” The girl - Enid said, eyes fixated on the large prompt on the screen.
“Yes, I know. Unfortunately I am…unfamiliar with this sort of thing.” She looked to the counter, fumbling with the security tag remover. Enid let out a breathy giggle, “Do you need some help, then?” Wednesday looked up at soft blue eyes, slowly nodding and getting up out of her seat to make room for Enid, who smiled and came up behind the counter.
“When I update my laptop at home, I don’t like reading any of this stuff, so I basically just press yes to everything it asks me.” Enid laughed, and a small circle that seemed to be revolving around nothing popped up onto the screen. “There you go! Just give it a few seconds and it shouldn’t bother you anymore.” The blonde hopped up out of the chair, smiled at Wednesday once again, and made her way back around the counter to let the shorter of the two sit back down. Wednesday hummed as she saw her computer start back up. “Thank you.” She said quietly. And in return, she received a soft chuckle and a nod.
Wednesday scanned the last item, placed it in the bag and slid it over to the girl in front of her. Enid grabbed the handles before smiling sweetly, waving to Wednesday and joining her friends outside the store. Not before rolling her eyes at a smiling Yoko, of course.
A cat hopped up onto Wednesday’s lap, purring contently when she slid a hand across his head and back.
“Yes, Thing, I hope to see her again too.”