Molly Bright did not live up to her surname.
Quite literally she spent the majority of every day shut away in her ‘home office’, which had no built in light source. She’d brought in a lamp when getting the oversized closet - her apartment’s ‘second bedroom’ - set up as an office, but its bulb burned out long ago and she had yet to replace it. The sickly blue light from her dual monitors provided plenty of illumination for her purposes anyway.
With a Teams meeting about to begin, Molly turned her camera on and inspected herself. She wasn’t the kind of person to take her appearance with any semblance of seriousness. Being pretty wasn’t Molly’s thing. Still, since a handful of execs and all of the department heads would be on this call, she gave herself a once over.
The frizzy mess of nearly white-blonde curls tangled into a three-day top bun had to go. The bun was leaning heavily to one side and nearly half of her uncontrollable plumage had escaped confinement - sticking out now at seemingly random angles with lengths varying from a few inches to its full length of nearly two feet. She pulled her orange scrunchy out violently then leaned back and pushed her hair over her shoulders, leaving it hanging nearly to her bum. Molly wrapped her hands around her tangle-mess from both sides and wrangled it into a new, slightly more aesthetic bun.
Next, Molly needed to change her clothes. The gray hoodie she’d been wearing since Sunday night was dingy and the light from her monitors seemed to accentuate the few food stains around her neckline. She replaced it with a company polo, which she despised - women just don’t look good in polos - but left on the sweatpants. It’s not like anyone would see them.
Before joining the call Molly noticed her posture. Between her will-definitely-result-in-back-pain hunch, arms forward with her fingers to the keyboard and the unnatural blue light reflecting off of her pale skin, Molly thought she looked like some kind of nightmare creature. The very anime-esque blue gleam from the monitor light against her thick round glasses did nothing but add to her nightmare monster appearance. Molly smiled to herself and captured a screenshot. She looked freaking awesome right now.
She was about to click the ‘join now’ link when Renea Mayhew sent her a new invitation, which Molly accepted. Renea appeared on the left monitor: prim, pretty, and proper as always. Her shoulder length black hair was immaculately groomed and shined beautifully under the natural light pouring in from her 13th story office window. As usual, the head of administration wore professional attire that looked like it had been tailored specifically for her and pressed into perfection that very morning.
“How are you feeling?” Renea asked, concern clear in her eyes. “Ready for this?”
It was just the two of them on a private video call. Renea, one of Molly’s only friends in the world, was probably worried about her. And she was right to be. Today would be Molly’s first time actually speaking in one of these meetings, and it was all Renea’s fault.
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Historically, Molly’s job was to compile and analyze the company’s bottom line stats and then provide accurate projections for Renea to convey to the top brass. In her well-meaning attempt to help Molly expand her role and grow as a professional, Renea insisted that she take on some of the responsibilities that were always intended to be completed by the one filling Molly’s role.
For the last three years Renea had been taking on the reporting and public speaking on account of Molly’s debilitating introverted-ness and nihilism.
Ready? Molly thought to herself. Is anyone ever ready to subject themself to unimaginable horror?
“I’m good,” Molly replied. She nodded affirmatively. “I’ve got this. Unless you want to do it this time, and then I can go next month?”
“Nice try,” Renea said with an indulging smile. “You’ll do great, Mol. I know you will. There isn’t a single employee under OUGPT’s roof that knows this material like you do.”
Worth a shot…
Molly wished she felt a modicum of the confidence Renea had in her.
Below the right-side monitor, off camera, Molly flicked the little red panda figurine on its porcelain head. The few non-owl decorations around her work area each represented one of her closest friends. The red panda for Renea, who was borderline childlike at even the mention of a red panda. A gnome figurine for Susan, who was obsessed with all versions of gnomes - even the ones that steal one sock from each pair when you’re sleeping. And a t-rex toy with a utility belt around its waist for Jodi, Susan’s partner and the most stereotypical lesbian anyone in the world had ever met - as well as an avid dinosaur enthusiast.
The four of them started as work acquaintances but, over years of working together, developed into the ‘nerdy’ group at OUGPT.
What started as a safe place with like-minded and genuinely kind people to discuss science fiction and fantasy advanced to game nights and movie marathons. They met up every Thursday night… until Molly was transferred to her current position - which was based in Denver.
Molly had a trip back to Oregon to attend an upcoming training event and enthusiastically looked forward to it. Despite her nearly overwhelming preference to avoid other humans, she missed Thursday nights with her friends. And to celebrate her visit, the group had something special planned.
Renea’s husband, Peter, agreed to DM a very custom DnD campaign for Molly, Renea, Jodi, and Susan. He’d always seemed like a giant airhead to Molly, but Renea assured her that Peter was actually very creative and would surprise everyone. He had apparently been harnessing his hyper-focus and abundance of free time into this campaign for weeks.
“We’d better switch over to the call,” Renea said. Her head tilted slightly and her cold eyes softened slightly. “You can do this, girl. What is it I’m always telling you?”
Molly couldn’t stop the smile that began to spread across her face. She rolled her eyes.
“That we’re all about kicking ass and taking names.”
“And?” Renea prompted, lips curling into a slight smile of her own.
“And we don’t give a shit about names.”