She took her lunch break in an outdoor patio area, enjoying the sunshine
despite the cold. It was a small area with some plastic tables and potted
plants attempting to screen the cheerless and grafitti-covered brick wall ten
feet away. Rebecca stared absently at the wall as she chewed her sandwich. She
almost always brought a sandwich the first day on a new job, because she never
knew what she'd find in the way of lunch places in a new area.

Most of the spraypainted scrawls on the wall she couldn't pick out; nothing
more than multicolored splotches. In spindly white letters on one corner she
read: "ESCAPE mindless meandering."

She ignored the message, brushing crumbs from her fingers and pulled out The
Gem of Harduul. She glanced at her wristwatch and noted she had 18 minutes
until her lunch break was over. Twenty-three minutes later, she was back in
the stuffy copy room.

She made it home before Lucy and claimed her usual spot on the living room
couch. She propped her feet up on the coffee table, knocking copies of People
Magazine and Vogue onto the floor with disregard. Slipping back into her book
was like slipping into a warm sweater fresh out of the dryer. She didn't notice
the time until the light changed and grew too dim to read by.

The interruption was enough to remind her that she was hungry. It was just as
she started cooking something that Lucy got home.

"Hey."

"Hey, Lucy. Do you want some spaghetti?"

"I got pizza," she said, holding up a cardboard box after kicking the door
closed.

Bec nodded and picked up her book, reading while she waited for the water to
boil.

"Haven't you read that one before?" Lucy asked as she plopped the pizza box
onto the dining room table.

"I'm surprised you pay enough attention to recognize the covers," Bec replied,
making a show of checking the water on the stove.

"It's not hard after the twentieth time."

"At least you don't have to hear my book when you're in the other room." Little
trickles of bubbles were forming around the sides of the pot.

"I just don't get what you like about them."
"You don't have to. I don't try to get what you like about Jimmy Joe," said
Bec, flipping the page with exaggerated indignance.

"That's easy. It makes me laugh. You might want to try it sometime."

"Don't things ever bother you? Don't you wish you could fix problems or make
things better for someone? Or at least try to be a better person?"

"I'm a good person!" said Lucy, her mouth half full of pizza.

"I know the covers look goofy, and the stories are kind of repetitive. But it's
nice to see someone somewhere fighting, you know, bad stuff. Even if it's just
imaginary."

"I'm just saying you shouldn't take it so seriously. Sometimes I think it's
like you believe you're some chick with a sword and a chainmail bikini, or
whatever."

"Galatea Greenthorne has never worn a chainmail bikini."

The water was rolling at a healthy boil, and a drop of water splattered on
Rebecca's book. She wiped at it ineffectually, and put the spaghetti into the
pot.