Season 1, Episode 3 - The Ring Dings IV - "The Bad Habit"
Audrey shook her head. "Reed, it's not good to eat a diet based on convenience store Ring Dings and Red Alert. Don't you remember health class? The food pyramid? Your whole diet right now comes from that little white triangle at the top, but you need to eat from all those layers below."
Shortly after arriving at Audrey's apartment, Reed knelt in front of Audrey's white bookcase, reading through the titles of VHS tapes, the few volumes of manga Audrey owned, and young adult literature. Reed frowned in disappointment. "You have Dusk but not Sunset?"
Audrey ignored her. "Here, look, I got all the ingredients you need for a well-balanced meal right on this table. Let's cook something right now, Reed, and let's turn that perpetual frown of yours upside down. The first step to that is a good diet."
Reed waved her away. "I don't get it. It goes Sunset, Dusk, and Sunrise. But all you have Dusk. If we were talking about the movie adaptations, I'd understand it, since the Dusk VHS came with this cool little poster thing. But the book? I mean, I respect having a banned book, but how does having only the middle book in a trilogy make sense?"
Reed realized Audrey was looking down at her in slight exasperation.
"Alright, well, you got your cooking apron on and everything, let's do something then," Reed said, making no indication of her leaving the bookshelf. "Why don't you start now?"
Audrey beamed. "I have some leftover rice from last night, so I'll show you how to make fried rice."
"You're making me leftover rice?"
"Reed, rice is man's best friend. Give a man a rice cooker and a big bag of rice and he'll never go hungry a day in his life."
"Still…I come to your apartment, and you're gonna feed me leftovers?"
"I could not feed you at all."
"Point taken."
"Here, I'll indulge your gas station tendencies a bit tonight by using this." Audrey pulled a can of Spam out from a cabinet. Reed raised an eyebrow as Audrey peeled back the lid and then cut out a dog-food looking pale hunk of meat.
"Give that rice man a can of Spam once a week, and he'll go from eating for survival to eating for luxury."
"...I bet."
Audrey began chopping up the hunk on a paper plate, watching in satisfaction as she divided it into smaller and smaller pieces. Audrey's eyes followed each split, watching her creation at work. She could get lost in moments like these – a dinner underway, the darkness of night visible through the windows, the orange lights of street lamps and the reds of car lights, the rumble of a distant train, Reed looking content and lazy, Audrey herself working on her clean counter on a peaceful night. Tonight will never happen again…it would be a shame to not enjoy the moments it offered.
"Place down your pan, pour some vegetable oil on it – I use this avocado-sesame oil mixture because of the higher smoke point – set it to medium, and drop that Spam in."
Using a knife, Audrey pushed the chopped pieces off the paper plate into the pan. "If it's good enough for the boys on the lines, it's good enough for the family," she said in the gruff tone used by the suave actor in the Spam commercial regularly aired over the radio. Audrey looked over to see if Reed heard, but Reed was just looking at the ceiling.
"What are you doing?" Audrey asked.
"Nothing in particular."
"You're just gonna lay there and do…nothing?"
"Yeah."
Reed's words sounded pretty casual.
"Why not do something? You can push around the spatula to fry these bad boys!"
Reed shrugged. "I don't really ever feel like doing anything, you know? Well, sometimes I like doing things. On an individual basis, I like doing things. But overall, I don't wanna do nothing. I just want to…sit in a garden all day, watch the flowers sway. I'd like that."
Audrey put her hands on her hips. "Would you really like that?"
Reed looked at her for a moment before a smile broke out on her face. "You never know."
Audrey smiled in return and went back to the stove. "Alright, next thing you gotta do is put in some garlic. I use minced garlic. It's cheap, spend some of your meal priviledges on it once and you're set for the year with that can. And…here we go." Steam rose from the pan. "Garlic really makes a sizzle when you first put it in. Don't know why."
Audrey sighed when she saw Reed sprawled on the floor, her face buried into a volume of a certain scientific manga.
"What? I like this." Reed pointed to the book. "Strong female main character, you know? Very relatable. Reminds me of me."
Audrey looked a little defeatedly at her pan. "…next you put in your rice, you know, because it's fried rice and all…"
Audrey blinked, realizing Reed was suddenly standing next to her. Reed was good like that – just sneaking up on you, movements fast and quiet.
"Didn't think you were found cooking more interesting than my bookshelf," Audrey said.
"Well, you were going through all the trouble to teach me. And I've seen better collections."
"You're real kind, you know that?"
"I try."
Audrey laughed, and Reed found herself smiling too.
"Alright, next you got your egg."
Reed held her hand out for the egg. "I heard if you drop an egg above a certain height, it cracks perfectly."
Five minutes and two clean-ups of broken eggshells later, Audrey tapped the third attempt onto the side of the pan like a normal person would, then dropped the yolk in smoothly.
"Mix this for me, because this is gonna be the coolest part."
Reed reluctantly took the wooden spoon from Audrey and began shuffling around the contents of the pan. Reed wondered what Audrey saw in moments like these. Reed didn't care about the present, one way or the other, but Audrey seemed to really live in it.
"Watch this," Audrey said. A seed rested in her palm. Red energy suddenly crackled in her hand, small explosions of energy as the seed burst forward into a red pepper. "Cayenne," Audrey explained. Audrey dropped the pepper into the pan, the vegetable disintegrating into dust as it went.
"You make your own vegetable spices?" Reed asked, doing her best not to reveal that her mouth was slightly watering.
"I speed up cell growth and division. I can just divide it more and more until it becomes the oblivion that flavors my fried rice."
Reed placed her hand over her stomach to dampen the rumbling it made when Audrey added onion, carrots, and soy sauce the same way.
"Where do you get the money for the all seeds?" Reed asked, her hand guiding the spoon around the pan.
"I volunteer with community gardens," Audrey explained. "If I work for an hour or two there each week, I can take all the seeds I want."
"You oughta re-sell those seeds."
"…is that all you think about? Money and gardens?"
"Mostly," Reed answered dryly.
Audrey turned off the stove and slid the pan over to an unused jet. Audrey and Reed felt the warmth emanate from the pan, sighing in unison as waves of that fried smell washed over them. The fried rice itself had a nice brown texture, mixed with love and care, at least when Audrey was mixing. Reed's contribution was the rough look to it that made it feel all the realer.
Audrey took a look at the clock on her wall and gasped.
"Oh, quick, Reed, turn on the television and change it to NEBN. The News at 9 is on."
"You watch the news?" Reed asked in disbelief, sighing as she sat down on Audrey's brown couch that groaned with age.
"Not always, but tonight they're gonna talk about the Mystic Killer."
"The Mystic Killer?"
"Yeah, you haven't heard?" Audrey made two plates of fried rice and brought them over to the coffee table, sliding Reed's legs off the table in the process.
"Why would I watch the news?" Reed questioned, now stretching her legs below the table.
"To stay informed," Audrey explained. "How else are you gonna know about serial killers on the loose?"
"I heard about the Mystic Killer," Reed informed her. "But not from your mainstream news sources. You know how much government censorship there is? They won't tell you nothing real. They all just spit out government-approved facts."
"How do you know?" Audrey asked, taking a sweat next to Reed.
"You ever see a negative story about the Presidential Administration? A negative story about the Armed Forces? You don't because it's all government-controlled. Watch. Let's see the news right now. I bet it's all sunshine and rainbows. Never mind the fact that we're in the middle of an economic depression and that the population of 'Occupied' Oklahoma actually likes being part of the Unified Pact, or that socks cost ten dollars now. Ten dollars, Audrey. That's ten more than zero, and that's terrible. Five dollars a sock. God, our ancestors would be rolling in their graves right, knowing their kids have to pay five whole dollars for a cheap sock. And don't get me started on gloves. Your better off using your socks as gloves in this economy-"
The ticking clock that signified that start of the News at 9 interrupted Reed's rambling.
Two strong-jawed news anchors looked solemnly at the camera while the national anthem of New England briefly played.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, to tonight's edition of the News at 9, presented to you by the New England Broadcasting Network, your premier source of news within the Commonwealth and associated states. I'm Alexander O'Leary-"
"And I'm Chuck Banner-"
"And we'll be presenting tonight's news."
Reed shook her head, but she and Audrey settled down and started eating as the two news anchors, black and white and tiny on Audrey's aging television set, presented the most pressing news issues of the night – that they were allowed by the government to broadcast, Reed might add.
"We are issuing an official safety warning for tonight, folks," O'Leary explained. "A few nights ago, the Mystic Killer, as the public and now the media have taken to calling him, claimed a sixth victim."
"See," Reed pointed out. "The last victim was also the 'sixth victim'. He's at eight victims now, Audrey."
"So, they just lie like that?"
Reed nodded. "I'm telling you, it's all controlled by the Presidential Administration."
O'Leary shuffled some papers on the desk. "As with the previous victims, the police investigation has found evidence of the cause of death being multiple knife stab wounds."
"Furthermore, all the murders have taken place in South Narragansett, specifically the New York Quarter," Banner continued, referring to the walled neighborhoods in which the New Yorker minority lived. "However, the latest victim was a visiting high school student from West Narragansett. We advise against any and all travel into the New Yorker Quarter at this time. Furthermore, in cooperation with West Narragansett Technical Academy, a curfew will also be in place for the entirety of West Narragansett, beginning tonight at 10 PM. We advise all citizens to stay indoors until our tireless security forces have captured this dreaded monster."
"Wait, Reed, Elizabeth Pond is a district in West Narragansett!" Audrey realized. "That means we live in West Narragansett!"
"That we do," Reed said, unconcerned. A curfew had never stopped her before. But an uncomfortable feeling emerged in Reed's stomach when she looked at Audrey's eyes.
Wait, why does Audrey look so...happy?
Audrey grabbed Reed's hands in her own. "You know this means, right?" Audrey asked with an overwhelming level of excitement.
Reed sighed cautiously. "...uh-"
"It means we're having a sleepover!" Audrey exclaimed, throwing both of their hands up in the air.
"...Oh God no-"
"Oh God yes!" Audrey stood up and danced around the room. "Oh, this'll be so much fun!" She spun around in circles, her eyes ablaze in ambitious wonder. "We can tell stories, talk about boys, eat dessert, and then we get to wake up and go to school together."
Reed eyed the door, but Audrey danced her way to the other side of the table, blocking Reed's view and her way out. "I don't have a pullout couch, but that's fine, the dimensions of my couch are perfect for your body, Reed! Oh, you'll have a wonderful sleep and a wonderful sleepover."
"...ehhhhh." Reed leaned back in the couch. "The feeling of sleeping in your own bed is unparalleled, Audrey."
"So think about how much better sleeping in your own bed tomorrow night will be!"
There's really no stopping her. Well, at least I brought the Dopamine Rushers.
"Alright, if I'm staying here, two things," Reed ordered. "First, we're listening to my radio news station at 10. You listen to that and you'll know the truth."
"Deal!"
"And second...wanna get high?"
Audrey looked at her in confusion. Reed stood and went over to her trenchcoat, hanging from a rack near the door. She fished in a pocket and pulled out two black nasal inhalers.
"Are those...d-d-drugs?" Audrey questioned, taking a step back.
Reed pinched the bridge of her nose. "Quit acting like a stereotype and just take a rip."
She tossed it over to Audrey, who bobbled it in her hands.
Audrey looked down at it. It was a rough, black plastic, most of it rectangular except at the top where it transitioned into a tight cylinder. "What's it do?" she asked.
"Rushes dopamine," Reed explained. "You'll feel spaced out and happy. It's good for three rushes. Take one every twenty minutes and we'll be good for the night."
Audrey rolled it around in her hand. "I don't know, Reed. Aren't these illegal?"
"Of course they are," Reed admitted. She tapped the side of her head. "But think. Are they illegal because they're drugs or because they're from New York?"
Audrey gulped.
"I won't force you," Reed explained. "But there's no way I can have a sleepover at your place without getting high."
"...thanks."
Reed placed the cylindrical end into one of her nostrils and inhaled, feeling a rush of nasal spray heading into her system.
Audrey eyed the thing in her hand.
"When in Rome..." she supposed, then followed suit.
