Common Ground

Hi boys and girls- my name is Ethel, or if your parents taught you well, Mrs. Falkenberg. I promise that everything I am about to tell you is true- or, in my advanced age, I just misremembered.

The following occurs Friday evening, the 16th of February.

“Come on in,” Ethel says to Katherine as she arrives at Ethel’s home. “What would you like to drink? I have milk, soda, whiskey, and scotch.”

“Do you have any wine?” Katherine replied, looking around at the strange home, and seeing Ethel’s pictures on the wall, many with price tags in the corners.

“Red or white- oh, never mind, with the lasagna it has to be red.”

“Here you go,” says Katherine tentatively, holding out a Tupperware dish. Ethel looks inside, realizing that the younger woman had tried to make garlic bread.

“Oh thank you, you are a dear,” exchanging it for a wine glass and putting it on the counter in the kitchen. “Could you make sure I have set up the evening news to record? I don’t watch much tv, but I always try to catch the news. I will watch it later. The remote is on the coffee table.”

Katherine goes into the living room, and shocked, finds an old remote and spies a VCR! “Is this right? What is ANT?”

“Oh yes, just set the VCR to record the network news at 6:30- it still works fine,” Ethel yells from the kitchen, surreptitiously tossing Katherine’s bread in the trash, muttering softly, “At least she used the same bread as mine- I will disguise it.”

After setting the oven up, Ethel comes out to the living room, her own glass of wine in hand, finding Katherine just finished and looking around. “Your home is very… different.” Ethel gives her a quick tour, and they talk.

They find out that both have had husbands that cheated in the past! Katherine shares that she was actually born in 1985, making her a surprising almost 40 years old! She is previously divorced, her husband leaving her for another woman!

They sit down to a leisurely dinner, sharing more details of their past, and their current situations.

“What about that bitch that your husband cheated with? Don’t you want revenge,” Katherine asked, her blue eyes seeming to darken. “I mean, you can’t just go up and hit her, but don’t you want revenge?”

“Trust me, dear, I have considered it, but I am trying to live up to the 2Good on my costume. She has moved up the food chain- I even saw her on the arm of my husband’s former boss, Mason Bloodgut of Xander Financial.”

“Don’t you want revenge though,” Katherine continued, “Like put sugar in her gas tank, draw something with weed killer in her yard, leave a flaming bag of poop, wrapping her car in saran wrap, or burn her house down, making it look like an accident.”

Ethel, slightly disturbed at the dark turn, replies, “I have been trying to get over my anger issues. I have been seeing a therapist. I am even trying to learn to not spit when I say my former husband’s name.”

“Oh, a therapist,” Katherine, seeming to return to normal. “I remember you mentioning that.”

They talk easily for a long while, sharing more, and finding more common ground. At one point they talk of Katherine’s powers, and she demonstrates one that Ethel was not aware of.

“I can temporarily copy someone’s skills. It is what allowed me to help Gare Bear in the lab. Mind if I show you?”

Soon Katherine and Ethel are talking in depth about the medicinal benefits of teas! Ethel is very surprised, and suggests other skills that Ethel knows that may be beneficial in the future, like the research skill that Ethel seemed to momentarily forget the previous Saturday.

“So, you feel your relationship to dear Garrick is exclusive? I am just checking, because the “hall pass” seemed to be very confusing. You know he was under the influence of drugs, and was not himself, right?” Ethel asked.

“Not of it was his fault. It was all the tramps fault. He is still learning.”

Ethel and Katherine work out a plan to “help” Garrick, and continue talking for a while. They eventually get to the fitting of Katherine’s new costume. Ethel has her try it on, and makes notes and pins specific areas, and decides that she is still fresh as a daisy!

“I really enjoyed tonight, and hope we can do it again. I feel that we have a surprising lot of things in common! I will have this ready for you at 6 am tomorrow, at our exercise meeting.”

“It was good Ethel, and I will definitely work on the proposal we discussed. I think it will be great to work together to do some real good for the people!”

 

Ethel picture is actually of Grace Ghanem
Katherine pictures are from our own Adamantium_Art