Winterlust (COMPLETE)

Protein Shakes

Violet

During her last period of the day, Violet has track and field. Despite all the training she does inside of school and out, she just can’t seem to claim the top spot on her team. She simply gets too tired too quickly.

“Hi Violet! Let’s get you straight the the treadmill”, Coach Gardiner calls out to her as she enters the school gym. With all the snow, they’ll have to train inside for a while.

Violet sets her water bottle into the holder on the treadmill, and slips in her buds for some motivational music. She selects the custom program on the treadmill that coach set up for her, and starts her warm up. Don’t look at the display, don’t look at the display. As the program ramps up, Violet picks up the pace with ease. She begins to run faster and faster with the program, but it seems to stop short of her limit. She looks down at the display and presses the button to increase her speed.

After a minute or two at this speed, she presses the button again. What’s happening? Am I actually running faster than usual? By now Coach Gardiner is standing beside her machine, watching her run. He’s nodding and giving her a thumbs up. She presses the button again and the machine is at its max speed. Coach’s eyes grow wide and his mouth forms a giant O. He tries to catch her speed from the display, but the machine is glitching. She’s strayed so far off her training program that the machine can’t register.

Coach looks back up at her in awe. She should be exhausted by now. This is faster than I’ve ever seen her run. Faster than I’ve ever seen ANYONE run.

Violet runs for six more minutes before pressing the button to initiate cool down. She grabs her water and takes a massive chug and then pulls the buds out of her ears. “That was pretty fast, huh coach?” She pants, grinning ear to ear. “It certainly was, Violet. Great work.”, he says as he pats her arm and walks away, shaking his head.

Violet takes the bus home from school, since her mother is still at work. She throws her bag on the table and walks to the fridge, taking out one of the many protein shakes her mother has prepared for her. Violet unscrews the top and raises the jar to her lips and stops suddenly. Could this protein shake be what’s slowing me down? That’s ridiculous, mom would never harm me. Well no, but maybe it’s the wrong formula or something. She does insist I have one daily and gets pretty upset when I miss one. You’re being ridiculous… aren’t you? I guess I could skip a few, just to see. She’ll never know. Violet walks into the bathroom with her shake and pours it down the toilet. Time will tell.

Violet scrambles herself some eggs and builds a salad for dinner instead. She makes some extra and sets it aside for Evelyn who should be home by about 9. Sitting down at the table, Violet takes the college applications out of her bag and begins poring over them. She has big dreams of becoming an architectural engineer. She’s got the grades, and hopefully she’ll be accepted by a school not too far from home.

Muriel

At the club, the seniors and middle aged townsfolk have gathered in the events room for some games of bridge. Muriel spots Buck sitting with his wife Lorraine, and Gracie. She waves and makes her way over to their table. “May I?”, she asks, pointing to the empty seat. “Of course!” Gracie grins from ear to ear, and pats the seat.

Nothing interesting ever happens around here. I’m sure all I need to do is wait. She’ll talk.

Muriel asks Lorraine about her grandson during the first few minutes of play. After nodding for half an hour while Lorraine prattles on, Muriel shifts her attention to Gracie. “How’s work these days, Gracie?”, she asks brightly. Gracie lights up at the opportunity to talk and dives in. Joe the cook is sour, Officer Evans has graduated to buying TWO donuts at a time, and the new girl is positively hopeless at her job. The day shift never gets ready for her shift properly and did anyone see the handsome strangers in town last night?

Muriel perks up when Gracie finally gets around to what Muriel is after. “Oh yes. Yes I did see those strapping young men come through here. They stayed the night at the inn”. Muriel says casually. “Well. They had a flat tire and so I sent them over to see Buck first thing this morning. Isn’t that right, Buck?”, she asks triumphantly. “It is so”, Buck replies, still looking at his cards. Buck, the man of many words. Muriel rolls her eyes and takes a run at him. “I hope it wasn’t a big fix…”, she prompts him. “Nope”, he says. Muriel waits a moment. Come on, Buck. Give me something. Buck raises his eyes and sees Muriel staring at him, waiting. “I will say that I found it kind of odd though…” he trails off. “What!? What was it?” Gracie exclaims. It’s getting juicy and Muriel knows that Gracie can’t resist, saving Muriel some work. “Well, that tire there was slashed”, Buck continued, moving his eyes back down to his cards. Hm. Interesting.

Muriel suffers through another ninety minutes of play and endless chatter from Lorraine and Gracie before she finds the opportunity to escape. “Well, I’ve got an early check in tomorrow, so I must be off! Ta ta!” She waves as she breaks out into a near run for the door.