[Neighborhood]

She missed her old apartment. Her old street. The old neighborhood most of
all. Her job vanished, she'd gotten sick, a flu that wouldn't relent, and
that was it. No more rent, she'd had to move into her parents basement. That
part really wasn't so bad. She got on well with her parents. The rooms were
bigger, and she had her own entrance and kitchen. The oppressive part was
how ... nice ... it was, she'd decided. Everything about her parents life
was safe. They lived in a cul-du-sac, on a quiet street in the suburbs. The
yard was nice. Durable landscaping out front, a carport, a big back yard
with nice grass. Her mother worked part time, and the rest she spent tending
the house or making things in her sewing room.

The nice TV lived in the basement with her, not that she used it. Her father
would use it on Sundays to watch a game, and she'd find him asleep in front
of it, blaring "touchdown" or the commercial of the moment.

It was perfect. House all but paid for. Nice furniture -- aside from her
bed, she'd left all her things boxed up.

She hated it. Every moment.

There were plenty of places to eat -- all lit in neon, all formica tables
inside. None really got her attention.

[Bailey's part]

They were mostly full of older folks and teenagers on Friday afternoons,
groups spreading out among the tables, kicking feet up on spare chairs. The
waitresses always scurrying to keep up. After football games, the diner
would fill with jocks and cheerleaders. She wouldn't go near a restaurant on
those nights. 

Most of the time, she made meals out of extras she found tucked away in
cupboards, cans with tops coated in thick dust. She knew her parents would
never use them, or they'd replace them with more canned goods to collect
dust in the future. She created odd concoctions a lot of the time, meals
thrown together with care but out of ingredients most people would not think
to put together. She cooked to pass the time on cold evenings when it was
too chilly to walk the streets in the damp darkness, the cough that had
stayed settled in her chest coming up when she'd tried against her better
judgement.

Books filled a lot of the rest of her time. She made weekly trips to the
library, often filling her bag until it was almost impossible to zip shut.
She'd stack them by her bed, reading bits and pieces out of all of them
before finishing one. If cooking was to pass the time, books were here
escape from this place, an escape from the easy life that was trying to
swallow her whole.

There was nothing particularly interesting in any sort of way in the
suburbs, not to her anyway. The houses on her parents cul-du-sac all looked
the same and the people likewise. Boring, white bread, the women were mostly
housewives with little to talk about other than their husbands or children
or the neighbor's kids and what trouble they'd managed to get into this
week. She was sure her arrival must have provided quite some fodder for
discussion over picket fences.

The biggest problem was the lack of anyone her age nearby. No oen to strike
up a friendship with, no one to ask out for a cheap cup of coffee. No one at
all. She was trapped in isolation in the easy life her parents offered and
it was completely and utterly mind numbingly boring.