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[center]There were two things of which Theresa was absolutely certain of: the power was [i]out[/i] out and this town was not at all equipped to handle that fact. The power outage information came courtesy of old women gossiping on a bench as Theresa walked past; they spoke of needing a cold drink and how half the town would be congregating at a local tavern because of a generator. In her line of work, she had learned how to listen passively. Some might have called it eavesdropping but in the same way that you had some expectation of being recorded at a bank or something, overhearing conversations in public was a victimless affair. The lack of power certainly explained why there seemed to be a frantic pace on the streets and it certainly made it easier for Theresa to blend in despite her looking out of place. It was the clothes, really. She looked too...clean. Too...professional. This was the kind of town where the only way to tell if someone was an employee or not was because they had a nametag and even then...it could be hard to tell. Theresa, on the other hand, was dressed like she had a meeting to get to before lunch. The smartest thing she did was not wear heels and to leave her blazer in the car. Still, that left her in a white blouse and black slacks and a handbag that could barely hide the clipboard and notebook, both essential tools of her trade. 

In a more...modern city, a power outage would barely slow anything down unless it was bad enough to cause a blackout. But those places tended to have a grid system that covered different areas, an outage at one part of the city didn't always mean it was out everywhere. The fact that Theresa had to remind herself that, no, this wasn't a common system in places like her old home town was just proof enough to her that...maybe coming back here wasn't actually worth it. There were dozens of towns like this all across the country, towns that would surely welcome someone asking around about finances, about...the dozens of other issues that came with the job and eventual paper work. How was she supposed to do a market study in a place where half the citizens probably thought that meant picking out the produce with the fewest bruises at the market? How was she supposed to ask the town she once lived in to just fuck off with old town pride and get with the modern era? 

She was so going to get fired for this, wasn't she? When she did her reports and had to flower her language to dress up the fact that ornery folks and loyalists would rather die than allow big business to come in and start expanding roads and constructing businesses. Because to those who lived in the town, it didn't matter how bigger the roads got or how many franchises popped up, they'd only remember the sound of destruction as it paved over everything they held dear. There had to be some people that shared her position, that knew deep down that evolution was the best way to preserve the town. She just didn't know where to begin finding them and Theresa doubted they'd all be cluttered at the bar right now, trying to stay cool with the lack of power. Still, maybe that would be as good a place to overhear things.

The first store Theresa tried had been closed, but she couldn't tell if it was because of the outage or because the workers were still sleeping. Whiplash. To go from a place where she could get egg rolls at three in the morning and alcohol to boot to a place where sometimes 'open at 9' really meant 'open at some point before noon'. It would be charming if it wasn't actively annoying. The next store, which had someone in it, didn't so much as open the door even when Theresa knocked on the door. Then the window. Then even spoke up. But no amount of [color=E9ED40]"Excuse me?"[/color] could convince people to open their doors when the sign said closed. This goddamn power outage. Why today, of all days? She didn't even want to know what would happen to the town if there was a snowstorm or something. Hell, give this place five inches and it would probably shut down for a week.

What was crazy about all this, about walking down the sidewalks of Pines Holler looking for an open door amidst the sea of people scrambling to find a place with a working fan or ice cubes, was how...nostalgic it was. Familiar wasn't quite the right word but if she stopped to gather her thoughts, she could see herself twenty years younger, walking down this same street, holding her dad's hand while having a Popsicle melting in her other hand because her dad was taking so long talking to someone on the street who needed her dad to come check out some tile or side paneling and that led to the two grown ups talking about their lives. Theresa blinked and the image was gone, and yet the current version of her still looked at her empty hand as if she'd find cherry flavor on her hand. 

All that greeted her was manicured nails and a ring from a promise broken. 

[color=E9ED40]"Focus, T. Focus. You're here on a job, not memory lane."[/color] Theresa spoke softly to herself, shaking her hand free of memories of artificial fruit flavor and parental warmth. But the memories lingered on, especially as she saw the familiar shack that looked as stuck in the past as half the residents. Even when Theresa was younger, the place looked old, but her father had been a frequent shopper. No better place to get milk and a new hammer, he had said once. As a child, dragged along on another of her father's outings, Theresa once took fruit from the produce stand and took a bite without paying for it. Her dad was angry but the owner...the owner let her keep it and gave her a second apple for free. And now here she was, coming to ask the owner in polite terms to shutter the business and sell the land it stood on. 

The sign at Clarks was still flipped to 'CLOSED' but there were people inside, that she could see from the window. Local privilege, no doubt, though the older man could well have been the person she needed to speak to. The older man she didn't recognize, the other,  the one who seemed closer to her own age, had that certain...not quite familiarity but...he looked like someone that she would pretend to remember at a school reunion in order to be nice but not realize that pretending like that was actually incredibly rude. Was this the kind of life that could've been hers if she stayed? Working at a shop that looked straight from the days of James K. Polk and not knowing what to do without electricity? 

Theresa remained outside of Clarks. She couldn't hear what the two inside spoke of but...if she was just standing around like a creep then people would stare. People would talk. And before nightfall she'd be known as "The Weird Woman" or something. So Theresa got a little bold. Knuckles rapped lightly on the door with the CLOSED sign. Then they rapped a little harder. [color=E9ED40]"Excuse me!"[/color] She hoped her voice, muted from the other side of the door, would carry enough to the gentlemen inside. Even if they just told her to fuck off. [color=E9ED40]"Is the owner around? I'd really like to talk to him. Or...or her. Them? The owner?"[/color] 

Smooth, Theresa. Always so smooth.[/center]