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Tweak says, "I don't believe in love..."

Ani✨ (

slinky) wrote in

dunwichgame,
@ 2023-03-02 12:21:00

ANI FLICKERMAN

WHO Ani, Mean Mrs. Stamper, Hector Sharp.
WHERE Doc's waiting room. What is his name? idk tbd doc for now
WHEN 2PM-ish, Thursday.
WHAT Ani finally has an appointment to have her meds prescribed! Before she even leaves the waiting room to meet the doctor, she makes two new friends and gets a job.
STATUS Narrative
WARNINGS Allusion to Ani's former not-so-nice to kids job. Anxiety. That's it, I think. Pretty tame.

SHE DON'T GUIDE KIDS NO PLACE THEY EVER COME BACK FROM

"Oh! No, no. That's not mine," Ani politely warded off the unfamiliar blue lanyard with one hand when it was offered to her, "Sorry." After a brief, apologetic scrunching of her nose, she made as if to continue following the nurse but she had stopped in her tracks. Following the nurse's eyes back to the balding scarecrow of a man, she watched as he frowned at the laminated card attached to the lanyard. He made a show of looking between whatever it was he saw on the card and her face. Though she was sure to smile with a patience she'd been completely out of for days at this point, Ani felt annoyance already coming to a simmer just beneath the surface of her skin. She just wanted to get into the back and out of range of a pair of laser-focused eyes belonging to a curiously furious looking woman. For all of forty-five minutes, those eyes had been relentlessly boring holes into her. Ani hadn't squirmed but, when she acknowledged the woman by making prolonged eye contact, she hadn't squirmed either. If she'd ever had a more uncomfortable waiting room experience, she must have blocked it from her memory entirely. Finally, having apparently satisfied his dramatic impulses, he held the lanyard out again, this time holding the card up for her to see with a gotcha grin. "Looks a whole awful lot like you, Mrs. Flickerman. Saw you drop it, too. Ain't gonna get into the building if ya don't have this on ya." She smiled a tight, thin smile at him and, despite her annoyance, resisted the urge to immediately repeat that it was not her goddamn lanyard. Instead, she humored him by looking at what he showed her. Beneath a picture that was, indeed, inexplicably of herself despite knowing she'd never posed for it. In it, her smile was wide, eyes bright. Her long brown hair was neatly pulled half-back, a pair of glasses she didn't recognize perched high upon the bridge of her nose. She puzzled over the picture for a moment longer before dropping her eyes to where it proclaimed DUNWICH ELEMENTARY SCHOOL in large, bold letters just above a smaller and italicized ANITA FLICKERMAN. She met his eyes again and, as if he could sense her reluctance, he swiftly slipped the lanyard over her head before she could so much as open her mouth to speak. "Don't lose it again, you'll need it to get into the building," he reiterated with a warm smile. It was warm in a well-practiced, performative way that Ani knew all too well. She lifted the card again for a second look. Beneath her name, it went on to claim that she was a guidance counselor. "If you ever gotta call Adam Sharp in and he's givin' you a hard time, you just tell him you got his Pops on speed dial," the man went on to say while Ani read the card over and over, as if it might decide to assert a more sensible job for her at any moment, "He's just goin' through one of them phases, you know? Wearin' all the black. Bad choice. Shows all the cat hair and you know how them middle school kids can be assholes, they give him shit an' he just can't handle that none at all." She let the card fall to dangle freely from the lanyard offered him a kind, understanding smile, mentally suppressing a rising panic in her chest. He leaned in closer to her and jabbed at her ribs with one sharp elbow. "He could really use some guidance, counselor.". When he wheezed at his own joke, she caught a sickly sweet, syrupy scent. A loud scoff drew Ani's attention, reminding her that the angry woman was still there. She was standing now, only steps away from Ani, and her unnervingly green eyes were blazing. "You keep that boy away from this one if you're smart, Hector," she snapped at him before she turned those fiery algae-green eyes back on her. Though she took a step closer to Ani now, she raised her voice as if she was making an announcement to the entire waiting room, "She don't guide kids no place they ever come back from." Ani's heart dropped straight through to her feet, plummeting with such force it was a wonder it didn't take her down with it. Though her face betrayed none of her shock by way of expression, it drained of color all at once. Normally, a generous, protective layer of expertly applied makeup would conceal this unfortunately obvious tell of hers. She regularly paled and reddened beneath all of that a thousand times a day unbeknownst to anyone but herself. It was a shame there was no beneath all of that to hide behind today. The nurse stepped in to break the line of sight between Ani and this perfect-and-far-too-well-informed stranger. "That's enough, Mrs. Stamper," she said wearily, "You're going to lose waiting room privileges again if you can't learn to play nice. Mrs. Flickerman, if you'll please follow me? Doc is waiting." Ani followed on the nurse's heels so closely as she headed for the door that she was all but on top of her, eager as she was now to lose not only this Mrs. Stamper's attention, but that of everyone in the waiting room now, too. She looked over her shoulder once more before disappearing into the safety of the back offices and caught Hector Sharp's deep-set eyes glittering with amusement. "Eight AM!" he called after her jovially just as she turned away. And although she most definitely hadn't asked and he certainly hadn't specified, she knew that was the time she would be expected to start her new job tomorrow morning. Maybe she'd manage it, too, if the doctor gave her something like a horse tranquilizer. Even if she walked out of the office today with a prescription for something that was the Dunwich equivalent of Cefaarit, she thought it might not be enough to put her down after this.

CODING

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