We were the royalty of the local high school. The girls were cheerleaders, homecoming queen, etc. The boys were cheerleaders, President of the student body, etc. We, just maybe, thought that rules and such really didn't apply to us. We all graduated from high school. We then all managed, barely, to get jobs at the factory just outside town. We were lowly file clerks, warehousemen, etc. Life was no longer good.
Our high school had been decertified, just before our graduation. That meant that none of us could get a scholarship and go to college. The local economy is in the toilet. We're lucky to just have crummy jobs. There's no real chance for advancement at work. Life has become a thing of despair and desperation.
One day my girlfriend Ava calls in sick at work.
After work, I go by Ava's apartment to see if she's okay.
It turns out that Ava isn't sick, but she's also not okay. Ava and Brenda, Ava's best friend, are in some sort of agitation.
However, I can't get any sort of sense out of either girl.
One of the girls is on the phone at all times and I can feel something building up.
I finally corner Brenda and tell her that I have figured out from the phone conversation that Ava has done something. If Brenda won't tell me what's happened, I'll go and scare the information out of one of the other girls around town.
Brenda panics and grabs the phone from Ava. She whispers something to Ava.
Ava walks over and sits down in a chair opposite the couch. Normally Ava would have sat down beside me on the couch. Ava looks scared and defiant at the same time. Ava finally tells me what she has done and why. It takes a long time, with a lot of stopping and starting over again.
It seems that the company where we all work is going to close down its machine shop operation and then move the machine shop work to a foreign country. Several of the girls, including Ava and Brenda, work in the front office of the machine shop operation. The whole machine shop front office is due for a layoff in the very near future. Ava, Brenda and Eva will all lose their jobs. There's no chance of transfer within the plant, as all of the job slots for which the girls are even remotely qualified are currently filled. Not only that, many of the other girls still employed by the company are being pressured by management to, 'put out or get out.'
As it happens, none of our guys are in the machine shop operation, but there will be guys cut loose from there who'll be desperate for a job. That means we'll have to work overtime whenever and however the company wants. Plus, some of us will be forced to work swing shift or even graveyard.
Ava tells me, “Alex, I wasn't sick, I went to interview for a new job.”
However, what she tells me makes no sense. There are no other jobs in the area. Then it hits me in the pit of the stomach. Ava is going to move away somewhere and I'll lose her.
I reluctantly ask Ava, “Do you then plan to move away somewhere else, to get a new job?”