Marjorine had read all the messages that sent her phone into a buzzing frenzy—but not her phone, some whole new phone she'd never seen before. She knew, because it didn't even have even one rhinestone on it, and it wasn't pink either.
Well, there was that, and then there was the fact that she was holding her real phone too; she had one in each hand, hers violently pink and sparkly, a large blue pom-pom dangling from the headphone jack, and the plain gunmetal gray one in the other.
The biggest difference, though, was that only the new one had service. She knew that, because she'd been trying to send texts for ten minutes, and every last one had an angry red notification telling her that it couldn't be sent.
She'd texted Kenny first—obviously!—before working her way through Wendy and the rest of the fellas. She'd even tried to text Eric, which was the only text she was maybe sort of glad hadn't gone through.
We know you must be confused because we were too. Jeez cheese Louise! The message people were confused? Them?! She reckoned she was way more confused! None of the fellas were with her and, wherever she was, it wasn't Colorado.
Marj didn't know what any of this portal nonsense was and, more importantly, what the point of a dog park was if she couldn't go there and play with people's dogs!
The dog thing was what had sent Marj into big, sopping wet tears. It wasn't so much the thought of all those cute puppy dogs she couldn't even pet, but it was the straw that broke the dang camel's back!
She just wanted one text to go through; that was all. She could figure out the rest, but Kenny was waiting for her at the movie theater! And now... Oh boy, now she was gonna be real late.
What if he got scared when she never turned up? What if he thought she was dead?!
...if she was in a place with angels and a dog park with no dogs, maybe she was dead... and maybe she'd gone to hell on account'a all the bad stuff she'd accidentally done as a kid.
That only made Marj cry harder, her big plastic looking heels click-clacking on the pavement as she ambled along trying to find somewhere to sit down, and finally plopping down onto a bench when she found one.
"Son of a—" Marj sniffled and sobbed, looking from one phone to the other, both just goshdarn useless in their own ways! "Son of a— a— fudgin' biscuit!"
Typically speaking, America was a fan of the whole ‘ask no questions’ lifestyle; it got her from place to place, and frankly she’d prefer not to listen to long sob-stories about this person’s great-aunt’s forlorn granddaughters’ pet goats problems. She had enough on her plate as it was.
But Nightvale opened a person up to new possibilities and options, broadened horizons, made people nosier. Mostly because it was so boring at least two thirds of the time.
So that fact was, normally, America would most certainly walk right past anyone crying in public, because that shit was just screaming ‘I’ve got problems’ and honestly, everyone did. But this was not normally, and America, for some ungodly reason (Loki might’ve cast something on her, she’d check will Billy later), she stopped and pondered for a second, biting her lower lip.
“Y’okay there, chica?” This was a stupid question, America would admit that, openly and honestly, but what the hell else did you ask a crying girl on a bench?
"...huh?" Marjorine looked up from her very soggy pity party, brows furrowing in an attempt to meet in the middle and falling woefully short. "W-Well no, I—"
She held her phones up uselessly, giving them both a shake as if that might knock loose some answers out of one of them.
"Oh, hamburgers—I don't know where I am! And what if Kenny's looking for me?! What then!" she exclaimed, feeling bad a second later when she realized this poor girl didn't have a clue who Kenny was. She dropped both arms, holding her phones uselessly in her lap.
"...do you know where we are? Oh jeez, please tell me we aren't in Hell. 'cause I still feel real bad about that competition, and I didn't mean for anybody to get hurt!"
Aw hells, she had to be the welcome party for something? Well, shit that wasn’t going to go too great for either of them. Never mind the sobbing, explaining alternate realities was never fun, and frankly, she didn’t have the willpower to dumb it down either.
“It’s called Night Vale.” Still didn’t know why, or where it was, “We think it’s somewhere in Nevada, but who the hell knows when it’s just desert all over this place.” That and the fact that not even leaving Night Vale actually got them anywhere; the mystery was annoying most of the time, America didn’t enjoy not being able to portal her damn ass across the universe on a whim. “It’s not Hell, though. Sometimes feels like it with this sand.” America absently shook her hair, as if expecting a torrent of sand to just fall from the strands.
“If it helps, I don’t think Kenny is going to notice you’ve gone. It’s a bit like… time stops where we’re from, or something.” Yeah, the physics of it were not her strong point.
Crossing her arms over her chest, America figured that might look a little too standoffish, especially with the crazy spiral the blond chick seemed to be gearing up for, so she dropped them back to her sides, hooking them into the belt of her shorts, “You um… you tried finding Kenny on your new device?” Who knew, maybe he was already here. Fuck knew dozens of people just kept appearing.
Marjorine's relief over making sure they weren't in hell was a lot shorter than she would have liked, because... what if she was right?
What if Kenny didn't notice she was gone? The rest of the fellas hadn't when she left the last time, and nevermind all that time stopping stuff! What if it didn't stop, and they all just...
Didn't remember her anymore? But Kenny— He would never—
A weird sort of whining sound bubbled up in the back of Marj's throat as her chin wrinkled. The only thing that stopped a renewed onslaught of tears was her belated realization that the other girl had had a great idea!
Maybe the other phone wasn't useless at all—if she'd gotten lost and wound up in this Night Vale place, maybe Kenny had too!
"Oh boy, you're right!" Marj gasped, scrambling to her feet. Maybe horrifyingly, she click-clacked her way over to throw her arms around the other girl's shoulders. "Thanks a lot, Miss—
"Aw jeez, my P's and Q's!" she exclaimed, stepping back as quickly as she'd descended, then juggled both phones in one hand so she could stick a hand out with a bright smile that went all wrong with the runny black smears of mascara on her cheeks. "I'm Marjorine—well, it sure is nice to meet you!"
Fuck this kid was all about the whiplash; from the whiny cry noise to the shock exclamations to the surprise hug, America was near to just opening a star portal under her feet and letting it take her where it took her -knowing her luck, the petting zoo. But, shit this was probably super stressful if someone wasn’t used to stuff like this.
America dropped in and out of realities constantly, she was used to the laws of time and space changing and altering, she’d exited the omniverse once, just because there was an idea of saving something. She was used to weird; not everyone was on her level of weird.
“Um, I’m America,” she shook the hand thrust at her, light grip and loose shake, trying not to wince at how deranged the girl looked from her swing back and forth between happy and whatever this breakdown would be classed as, “It’s great meeting you too, even if … this is a bit overwhelming?”
"Boy howdy, is it ever!" Marjorine agreed, wiping carefully at her under eyes with the side of her finger after letting go of America's hand. "America, that's a fun name! Gee, your mom and dad must be real patriotic and such, huh?"
There sure had been a lot of information in all those notifications, what with all the no-good dog parks and angels and whatnot, but Marjorine had to look at the new phone again. There'd been something about having a place to stay at least, which was real nice of the people who'd sent all those messages.
"Just here?" she asked, holding out the phone to show America the app she'd opened up. There were all kinds of posts on the feed, so she reckoned if she was gonna find Kenny, it'd be on there.
If he was there at all...
She never actually knew how to tell people that actually, she had two moms, three if you counted that time Loki was her mom, and actually, she wasn’t even from America. It was hard to work into conversations, even ones that brought up the subject straight out, like this. How did you correct a person on their perfectly valid assumptions without being a dick?
“My moms just liked the sound of it,” there, not dickish, covered the bases, hopefully didn’t come off like being a pendejo about it either.
Turning her attention back to the network that Marj had pulled up, America just nodded. “Yeah, so, it’s like… You can send messages and stuff, see if your friend is around, or other friends. It’s pretty handy for meeting people, getting jobs, finding something to do.” Not that America used it a lot. She just fell into Billy or Loki’s place and demanded attention most of the time.
“But um… Don’t panic if there’s no one you know here, okay? You’ll make new friends too.”
"Huh, well..." Marj said uncertainly, thinking it over. "I—I sure do like making new friends... Oh hey, I have a neat idea—we could be friends! We already got plenty in common too," she told America confidently.
"I ain't got two moms, but I did start an alliance at school for senior year! On account'a bein' trans and all. I mean, me and Kenny and Jennifer Thompson were the only ones in it, but I reckon that still counts.
"...the fantasy football club did take our meeting room slot a lot, though; then we just had our meetings behind the portables by the leaky dumpster. Well anyway, I sure am glad I met you. I dunno what I woulda done otherwise! What with all the confusion and such."
The sheer openness of the girl just sharing was enough to flare up a mild protective streak, enough that even if she was a lot, America couldn’t avoid huffing out a laugh, crossing her arms over her chest and nodding, “Yeah, we could be friends, chica.”
The kid could talk too, a mile a minute, and she clearly just said whatever popped into her head. Okay, so yeah, maybe it was just as well America stopped by when she did. “Pretty sure you could do that here too, the alliance, might get some more people, meet more friends. And I bet we could figure out somewhere better than beside the dumpsters.” Fucking American schools letting fantasy football overshadow safety. Shit, maybe the point of Marj landing her ass in Night Vale was to show her this shit wasn’t acceptable.
“You wanna go get a shake? You can look for this Kenny guy and we can get outta the heat?” And America wanted a fucking shake, that was all.
"Well heck, that's a great idea!" Marj meant the alliance, but she reckoned she meant the shake too when she thought about it. Chocolate always made a bad day better, even if it was only a teeny tiny bit.
And it wasn't all bad, with the new friend and whatnot. She definitely needed a phone case for the new phone as soon as possible, though; it didn't match anything she owned.
Now if she could just find Kenny, everything would be just fine. Mostly. Except for how she was stuck in a place she'd never heard of before.