Slacker- Part Two by: Moongoddess Esther is certain she can remake her good for nothing, slacker of a son into a worthwhile and industrious member of society. Artie… well…

I would like to thank my Beta Readers, Donjo, Bailey and Lisa for their input and ideas. I'd also like to thank all of you for giving me a place to share my work. Last but not least, I'd like to thank my lovely Muse, Dani for everything she is.
All characters copyright 2011 BolaDesign Studios. Image Copyright SuperArtistbOy.

“Way to put Barbie girl in her place Miss,” Sonya grinned crookedly, “How can I separate you painless from your money?” Artie took the extended hand and smiled back, her anger evaporating.

“Well as I explained to your walking mannequin, the airline lost all my luggage and I need clothing… skin out figured I’d get the basics here before heading to West 49th and Sport Chek for boarding gear.” Artie smiled again. Sonya looked her up and down.

“Sorta figured you for a boarder, you said you’re here for BoardStock?” Sonya asked, “Competing?” Artie nodded.

“Hope too… but like I said, all my gear…” Artie trailed off sourly.

“Yeah, though you kinda look like a board bunny in that outfit,” Sonya grinned her crooked grin again, “tell you what… let’s get you tidied up and I’ll clock out … then I can show you where the real boarders shop… first clue, it’s not a mall. I can tell you’re not from Vansterdam. I’m Sonya, by the way.” She shook Artie’s hand firmly. Artie had a moment of panic… then it dawned on her, keep it simple.

“Nice to meet you Sonya, I’m Marnie.” She smiled. Sonya took her to the underwear section.

“Ok Marnie, did Barbie get your measurements?” Sonya asked, “I need to know what to grab and how much money I’m gonna make today.” She smiled. Marnie smiled back.

“We had just gotten to that discussion when she went all frosty on me… I used to wear a ten,” Marnie pulled a number out of the air, "but I’ve been training for the last four months and most of my old gear was loose… this is Sally Ann surplus.” She indicated what she had on. Sonya clucked her tongue.

“Yeah, Barbara was never really a hands on sorta sales girl.” She turned Marnie towards the change rooms, “We’ll get a tape and figure out what’s best in the basics, then I’mma gonna get all personal shopper on your ass girl.” Marnie giggled, which shocked the hell out of her.

“You have got to be shitting me, her real name is Barbara?” Marnie was astounded. Sonya grinned wickedly as she closed the door behind them.

“Sure as shooting,” she laughed, “I’m not sure if her boyfriend is named Ken though. Her kind doesn’t ‘slum’ with the people.” Sonya looked at Marnie, “Ok, I can’t measure you through the clothes…” Marnie smiled and stripped off her layers to the underwear and Sonya got busy with the tape.

“Cool, 5’7 in socks, hips 37 inches,” Sonya paused to write on a clipboard, “Waist is…26 inches, nice! And bust is 34 inches…” she moved the tape, “ohhh a B cup. Aren’t you just the bucket of sexy?” Sonya laughed and Marnie felt heat in her cheeks, was she blushing?

“Oh get on with it,” Marnie growled with a smile, “you have your specs list and I’m freezing. Can you get me three or four days of unders though, so I can do laundry?” Sonya chuckled, deep in her throat.

“Yes boss lady! But not all from here and not all sports.” She ducked out the fitting room door and left a near naked Marnie alone in front of a full length mirror, alone and rapidly sobering up.

‘So this is me now,’ she thought as she looked at herself in the mirror closely for the first time, ‘Sonya is right… I am sexy… Why isn’t this driving me nuts? I was a guy yesterday…’ she ran through her memories of the day. She could recall things more clearly than usual, even though she had been stoned. ‘Weird, ever since mom showed me my hand… I’ve been calling myself her and she in my mind, accepting that I’m a girl. My balance has been compensating for my t…breasts and hips without even having to think about… what did Mom’s lab monkeys come up with? A girl Captain America serum?’ she filed this though away for further study and turned around to see her bum. ‘Nice… I must send them a thank you note and then beat some answers out of them… ok… calm now. Ewwww my hair is nasty… and I smell… ok… I’m sorry Barbie…’ The change room door opened and Sonya handed her a sports bra and hipsters.

“Put these on, they’re your first purchase,” she said as she gathered Marnie’s original clothing into a cloth drawstring bag, “panties and socks off… do you need a liner?”

Marnie wasn’t sure what Sonya meant, but took a chance and nodded yes. Sonya handed her a packet and left Marnie to find more clothing.

‘Ok gotta do this…’ Marnie thought as she stripped off the underpants and socks. She looked at the plastic wrapped packet and tore it open, ‘this looks straightforward enough… I’m pretty sure the adhesive doesn’t go on the skin’ she shuddered at the image that popped into her mind, ‘so… pull on the underpants and…’ she managed to secure the liner in the crotch of the underwear and pull them snugly up. She held up the sports bra and examined it. ‘Looks like a short, stretchy wife beater…’ and pulled it over her head, unconsciously leaning forward to settle her breasts in the bra. Marnie straightened up and looked in the mirror at the reflection of herself / of a complete stranger and had a momentary surge of dizziness. ‘What the fuck was that?’ she thought before the door opened and Sonya came in with an armload of stuff.

“Ok, I put a selection of underwear at the cash with the tags from what you have on…”she looked at the blank expression on Marnie’s face with concern, “you ok? You look a little pale and weirded out…” Marnie shook herself out of here staring contest with the mirror.

“Yeah… I was just noticing how much I could use a wash, I might even have to apologize to Barbie.” She lied smoothly, “Anyways, what you got there miss Shopper?” Sonya grinned.

“Only the best selection of skater gear the Gap has to offer…” she laughed, “which is to say… not a lot. Ok package of tights, red… the red plaid of your jacket was a good colour for you, so I went with it, red tee shirt with a black tank to go over it loosely, distressed skinnies in black… we’ll get you a belt elsewhere, red socks and voila… get dressed and I’ll meet you at the cash with some other stuff then I’ll take you to a couple of good shops and see if I can find you a sink for your wash up…” Sonya chuckled and left the room.

Marnie picked up the tights and opened the package, they were tiny but stretchy. She struggled for a minute or two, but got them in place. The rest of the procedure was easy and she was slipping he deck shoes over her socks and checking out her reflection again shortly. As she looked at the young woman in the mirror, something in the back of her mind was slightly uncomfortable… everything looked ok and the reflected image seemed relaxed, but something just felt…off. Marnie sighed and gathered up her old clothing in the bag Sonya had left behind, all but the jacket and her hip pack. Checking that she hadn’t forgotten anything, she exited the room and walked to the cash desk at the front of the store.

Sonya had everything rung up by the time Marnie got to the register for a grand total of *gulp* $740.25 and four largish bags of clothing that would actually fit. Opening her pouch, Marnie took out $750.00 and settled up with Sonya, who then ducked into the manager’s office and quickly rejoined Marnie.

“O.K. Marnie, I’ve clocked out… believe me, Liz was happy to let me take the time off.” Sonya smiled mischievously, ‘She’s happier still that I have probably stopped a big customer service hassle. Anything else in the mall you need or are we going more hardcore right away?” Marnie thought for a moment.

“Is there a decent sports store in the mall and an electronics place?” she asked, “cause I need a backpack for this stuff,” she hefted her purchases, “and I need a MP3 player and a netbook. God only knows when Air Canada is gonna cough up my stuff, so I need access to the cloud.” Sonya grinned, which seemed like second nature to her.

“Your wish is my Etc…” she pointed to the Sport Chek and the Future Shop across the mall and down a level, “I can probably get you employee prices at both joints, I have friends in low places… retail, I mean.” She chuckled merrily. Marnie found her spirits being lifted by the gentle good humour of this new… friend?

“Well then, ‘Lay on MacDuff and damned be him that first cries Hold, Enough’,” Marnie tossed out the quote casually. Sonya’s grin threatened to crack her face in half.

“You are so not a board bunny! There’s a brain behind those blue eyes and blond roots,” She pushed Marnie towards the escalator, “dish! Or am I asking too much for a first shopping trip?” Marnie thought for a moment then decided it could be good to have an ally. She shrugged.

“Mom wanted the perfect child, great grades, good looking, and low maintenance. Grades were easy; I loved school and learning, hated the popularity contest that junior and senior high school became.” She shook her head, “I think mom would have been happy with Barbie back there. I started boarding seriously in grade ten. My grades didn’t fall so mom didn’t even notice till just last spring I guess.” She sighed and looked at Sonya. “As long as I was at school or out, everything was fine with her… I barely saw her. But I graduated last spring… she wasn’t even there, and she saw a lot more of me…” Sonya flinched a little.

“And she saw you weren’t her perfect little china doll anymore, right?” Sonya sighed, “And your dad…?” Marnie paled a bit.

“Dad… my daddy,” she actually felt tears stinging her eyes, “he… he passed when I was ten… something he got at his lab I think. Mom threw herself into the company and well… two solitudes.” Marnie took a shaky breath, “anyway, I had some money squirreled away and signed up for competition. Practicing kept me out of her way and gave me a goal to think about, other than our crummy family dynamic.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, “sorry to unload on you like that Sonya, I mean I barely know you…”

Sonya looked at Marnie for a moment and gathered the smaller woman into a hug. Marnie relaxed into the hug and some of the first human contact she had felt for far too long. She felt her tears start and let them go. Sonya just held the sobbing girl till the worst was over, then as Marnie’s crying eased, walked her to the nearest bench and sat her down.

“Better Marnie?” she passed her a tissue, “I could tell you had something bottled up, but wow… did you ever need to meet me!” Sonya smiled and wiped Marnie’s eyes, “good thing you didn’t have your makeup on or you would be a raccoon…” Marnie blew her nose and looked into Sonya’s eyes.

“You are probably the best personal shopper on the planet,” she giggled, “What do I owe you for this?” Sonya snorted.

“Haven’t decided what shrink services are worth yet my new friend,” she smiled a gentle smile, “Yes, friend. You need at least one out here and hey, you seem like a mostly fun, sarcastic gal… I like that.” She held out her hand which Marnie took and shook firmly. “But my new friend Marnie, you do stink, however I have a cure for that.” Sonya dragged her towards the Sport Check.

Esther on the other hand wasn’t feeling quite as calm as her daughter at that moment. It had been over two hours since Artie had somehow got away from the house. Esther was frantic, slowly realizing the enormity of what she had actually done to her own son, what if the serum had killed him? ‘Oh lord! And I took away his very identity… all I could think about was that sweet 10 year old son that David and I had…’ she glanced around the kitchen, trying to hide her tears from herself.

Esther’s eyes landed on an envelope from Artie's high school and desperate for any distraction, she grabbed it and tore it open. It was Artie’s final report card; she scanned the card and the grades… ‘4.0 GPA, honours, Valedictorian… this is what Artie had achieved but I never noticed…’ she closed her eyes and let her tears flow as the years peeled away in her mind and she saw David’s beautiful face again.

Her perfect man, he had given her everything including his deepest love and an amazing son. An amazing son that she hadn’t paid a scrap of attention since David died, so focused on keeping NeilTech going and then growing, keeping David’s dream alive, making sure that Artie wanted for nothing… wanted for nothing but her love, her attention. And it was so hard…seeing David in Artie’s face or gestures; it made Esther’s heart break all over again.

So she kept her family…her son at arm’s length, never saw the man he was becoming… the genius, it seemed… but so was Artie’s father, Artie got a lot of traits from his dad quite honestly… the calm and quiet… the stubbornness… the ability to make her madder than anyone else on earth…
‘That was how David and I met,’ she remembered, ‘at university, I was taking business and he was already a huge lab geek, we had common friends or what did he call them? …Intersecting Venn circles. And we used to fight…well I would fight, he’d debate…used logic too, the cheater. Under the logic was a passion as hot as the sun… he was just so calm… and I fell madly in love with him. We married right after graduation, I worked, he did his post grad and doctoral in biotechnology, and then the startup.’

Those had been lean years for Esther and David but once he made his first major breakthrough, a drought resistant grain for the harshest places on earth, the business boomed and David brought in other brilliant minds… including that aging hippy Milo Samuels, brilliant yes, but not driven. She resented the fact that his ideas formed fully fleshed in his mind… When David had to labour so long to perfect his… but that was NeilTech… she left her job and stayed home to be wife, and soon, mother. Those ten years were bliss her family had been her version of heaven.

Then Milo had his breakthrough, finding the on/off for switch for cancer, but that wasn’t enough... he suggested that the growth switch in cancer could be used to grow genetically identical parts for injured tissue, a carbon copy grown by the body, replacing damaged cells as it went… A healing Cancer… and they did find that healing cancer… too late.

David died of congestive heart failure, three months before the serum was ready for anything beyond lab tests. Esther, in her grief lashed out and in her new position of president of NeilTech, fired Milo Samuels. The Healgen serum was property of NeilTech however and though Milo got wealthy, he didn’t own his own creation.

Esther focused the company on improving and refining Healgen and creating with it, a medical and surgical renaissance. ‘But now I see how that caused a very different illness in my own family’ she breathed a sobbing sigh, ‘we never grieved… I wasn’t there for him… all I saw was a slacker… like I thought Milo was… and then I…’ she couldn’t finish the thought and broke down completely, sliding from her chair to curl up on the floor and howl in the agony she had caused herself.

Sonya dragged Marnie into the Sport Chek and pushed her to the backpacks.

“I have to talk to one of the clerks Marnie,” Sonya explained, “see if you see one you like and I’ll be with you in a minute” and dashed off to the back of the store. Marnie giggled and looked at the selection. A salesman coalesced out of nowhere. He was young, handsome and fit.

“Can I help you find something sweet-cheeks?” he was also a douche, Marnie decided.

“No thank you,” she looked at his name tag, “Bryan. I’m capable of picking out a back pack by myself. After all, it’s not rocket science, is it?” she smiled sweetly. Bryan’s sales smile was replaced by a cocky grin.

“Shhhh, don’t spread it around,” he whispered conspiratorially, “everyone will want my job…” he chuckled, “she said you were quick.” Marnie looked at him with a flash of anger then relaxed when she saw Sonya laughing.

“You Brat!” she yelled, “she put you up to this Bryan? Marnie asked. Bryan laughed.

“Sorry about the sweet-cheeks thing, it’s a pleasure to meet any of Sonya’s friends… she only picks the best you know.” He extended his hand, “Bryan Niven, a pleasure to meet you. Sonya said you could use a bit of a cheer up after losing your luggage and all… did you see anything you liked here?” he said with a genuine smile. Sonya wandered over.

“Oho! Now the Irish Charm comes out does it?” she laughed, “don’t buy this Blarney either Mar. He turns it off and on like water… see what I meant by friends in low places? Oh and by the way Marnie…” she paused, “Neener!” Sonya had a grin that could only be described as shit eating, Bryan nearly fell down laughing and Marnie laughed alongside them.

“You get an ass kicking at the video game of your choice madam.” She caught her breath and pointed at Sonya, “you sir, can grab me that Skullcandy Daylong Backpack board bag there. That will almost make up for your role in her humour.” She grinned at Bryan. Bryan grabbed it down and handed it to her.

“Anything else Marnie?” he smiled. Marnie shook her head but Sonya spoke up.

“Actually yes Bry,” she began, “remember all of those three month, no question, and no obligation passes you guys handed out last month?” Bryan nodded.

“Yeah the deal with Premier Fitness, a pain in the ass,” Bryan growled. Sonya smiled.

“Got any left?” she asked brightly. Bryan nodded again.

“For you Sonya? Sure, how many you want?” he started towards the customer service counter. Sonya and Marnie followed.

“Just one, but could you call Kayla at Premier and tell her it’s no questions?” Sonya added, “It’s just for the locker-room shower for our wayward traveler. Meanwhile, after Marnie is ensconced, you and I need to get her a pay as you go cell, a netbook and an MP3 player.” Bryan grinned.

“Yes General!” he saluted, “I think I know a smart phone that I can lay hands on, then a sim… “He glanced at Marnie, “a combo phone player…a Tb only I’m afraid, is that ok?” Marnie nodded, slack jawed. Sonya patted her chin.

“Ok Bryan, you get on that… put all those items in the bag,” she pointed at the Gap bags on the floor, “And ring up the backpack… then get the phone set up and activated. I’ll take Marnie to Shoppers Drug Mart and get toiletries and then to Premier… I’ll drop her off, get the computer; make a quick stop at Curl Up ‘n Dye and meet you back here. Sound ok?” Bryan snorted.

“Geeze Sonya, plan something hard next time,” he smiled a breezy sort of smile which caused Marnie’s tummy to do an unexpected flip flop; “I can do all of that without leaving my desk here.” He grabbed a coupon and handed it to Marnie, then picked up the phone and started dialing. Sonya pulled Marnie to one side.

“Do you trust me Marnie?” she whispered, “enough to give me six hundred dollars?” Marnie was astounded, no one had ever asked for her trust before and people had abused her trust in the past, most recently, her own mother. But something about Sonya made you trust her and she had been nothing but helpful today. The small discomfort in the back of her mind flared for a moment then died down again as Marnie unzipped her pouch and counted the money out.

“Ok Bry, here’s two hundred fifty dollars for your half of the job,” Sonya handed him the cash, “and now Marnie, off to Shoppers!” She dragged the unresisting girl behind her.

The run through the Drug Supermarket was quick and to the point. Shampoo and conditioner, body wash and scrub puff, toothbrush and toothpaste, deodorant, razors and a combination lock. While Marnie waited in the checkout line, Sonya darted off to get a couple of things. When Marnie was starting to check through, Sonya dumped a few more items on the belt.

“There we are,” she panted slightly, “a couple of essentials…” Marnie saw that Sonya had added an assortment of makeup and both panty liners and tampons. She kept her mouth shut and eyes straight ahead… better to just use this as more camouflage.

“Good Lord, I must be short on sleep, thank you Sonya. I had blanked on the tampons,” she lied, “but the makeup?” Sonya smiled…

“Hey, you’re going to want to guild the lily for the BoardStock Parties, especially if you want to be seen with me girl.” She winked, “now pay the nice lady and lets hit the gym!”