Clapping her blue woolly mitten-wearing hands together and skipping about like a giddy school girl, Emily greeted Jennifer waiting outside the house. Wearing her job-issued steel toe boots, Emily kicked up the snow and ran up the snow bank at the end of the graduate students’ housing row. She did her old school’s rally cheer for Jennifer. Jennifer, laughing and trying to stay warm in the orange parka she grabbed off the sofa while going out the door, left by Emily in the front room as usual. Emily’s face covered almost totally by a matching blue woolly hat with her splotched ruddy and white complexion like a clown in the cold, couldn’t conceal the diamond sparkle in her blue eyes. Emily jumped back down the embankment towards Jennifer. They hugged like two parka-wearing skinny factory girls that had just won the lottery.
“It has to work!” cried Emily in her mid-western drawl. The plan they thought of last night, to get Rick back for all the crap he’s pulled on Emily and Jennifer. It’s been four years living together in the drafty old High Street house with Rick as self-appointed house manager.
Emily suddenly stopped her dance. “But what about Honest Jeff?” Emily couldn’t stand him. Jeff, their most recent housemate, moved in two years ago. Jeff appeared to go out of his way to avoid his housemates and clearly didn’t want anything to do with Rick. Rick was a fitness wannabe whereas Jeff was the real thing. Jeff didn’t want to be dragged down, but he was a poor graduate student just like the rest of them. A twiggy tall, dark and handsome competitive swimmer-slash-engineer, Jeff was aiming to go to medical school. Too good for his own britches, was Jennifer’s saying, even though she once confessed to Emily on having a bit of a crush. Jennifer preferred bad boys, to her housemates’ collective chagrin.
“He just might be the piece de resistance,” said Jennifer in a mocking French accent, hoping Jeff might still fit into the plan. Kidnapping Rick’s most prized possession in the whole world would work -- with or without Jeff’s help or over-the-top ethos. If Jennifer sensed Jeff wouldn’t play along, well there was always Terry. Jennifer had a sixth sense about people and their intentions. Emily, judging from her own experiences of Jen’s more than surreal mind reading, knew Jen was well on her way to being a credible psychologist, or a Tarot card reader. Either would suit Jen just fine.
“So, what’s next?” Emily asked, inside now and stuffing her face with Hagen-Daas. It was middle of winter, but Emily couldn’t live without her ice cream. Jen shook her head at Emily and checked up and down the street. Rick was due home soon, after his office hours for teaching undergraduate electronics labs. He always came home after that. He loved sharing his stories of his bumbling students with Jen. Jen heard him with one ear mostly these days, she had bigger fish to fry. Trying to look out the window and at Emily at the same time, Jen collected her thoughts, while tidying up the front desk, where all of them dumped their junk mail and other crap.
“Stop waffling Jen! Just tell me what I have to do!” Emily cried. Jen shook her head again at Emily and her cheerleader-like antics. Unlike Jen, Emily was thin and energetic and would never gain weight if she kept up her restless weird prancing around.
“OK, the robotics lab should be open but empty at 4 pm. You have the keys, yes?” Jen asked, she needed to see. Emily did her little dance with the duplicate keys she got from her supervisor, just in case, Rick locked himself out again. Good excuse, Emily prided herself for her ingenuity.
“We take that hideous thing… I don’t want to touch it, Emily. I don’t know how Rick can sleep with it, ugh! Em, You’re gonna have to bag it, OK?” Jen wrinkled her face, disgusted and glad she didn’t have Emily’s job.
“No problem! I got a cadaver bag, see?” Emily pulled a small black tarpaulin from her rucksack. “Will this do? I can deal with Rick’s cooties… I’m all on it!” primed Emily. Jen raised her eyebrows and grinned. Emily’s enthusiasm for the job was great. It probably helped that Emily was so keen to get back at Rick, and her enjoyment would make everything so much easier. Jen finished instructing Emily in as much detail she could in the short time they had before Rick came home.
“Don’t worry, Em, I’m working on the rest, map, clues you know, from our little talk last night…” Her hand over her heart and shaking her knowing head, Jen clucked like a grade school teacher. “He’ll have to beg me for ‘em, of course, there’s the ransom note too…” Jen moved away from the window. She saw Rick at the top of the street, heading down to the house. “Alright, go already!” Jen urged Emily along. Emily would have to leave quickly with the bagged package through the back door of the house. Emily would go to the campus through the backyard and woods beyond, avoiding Rick’s entrance.
Rick bounded up the front steps. Blissfully unaware and unassuming, that’s how Jen liked to think of Rick. Gullible might be stretching it too much Jen thought, and for the first time in a long while, Jen smiled at Rick and greeted him in the warm and tidy living room, like the friends they used to be before all this mess.
Word Count: 936 (a bit longer than planned, I know...) Go to Part 2 here.
