ORESTES

"What'd you think they're talking about," she said, glancing at me as she leaned back in the seat, her feet up against the dashboard. Through the streams of rain that slipped in waves down the windsheild and the windows, we both looked back out across the crowded parking lot to where the arguing couple stood.
"I don't know," I said quietly, straining to see. The wipers pushed the rain aside, and for a moment we could see the couple clearly.
"They're really loud."
"Yeah."
"I mean, I can hear them, almost."
"Roll your window down," I said, nodding. the wipers went off again. "They're pretty angry at each other."
the arguing coupld stood a few paces away from a black Ford Taurus that was presumably theirs. They both wore the slick plastic casings of wet ponchos; the woman's hood was off and her blonde hair hung in front of her face in long wet strands that she continually pressed back behind her ears. She waved her hands viciously, emphasising certain words in her unknown argument against him. The man stood there, his hands in his front pocket, looking down as the heavy rain dripped off his hood towards the ground.
"Should I?" Scarlett said, tapping her finger against the window absent-mindedly. "I'll get all wet."
"They're probably having an awesome argument." She rolled the window down halfway, letting a barrage of cold air and rain into the car. "Maybe if-"
"Shh," she said. "Can you hear them?"
Across the lot, they continued screaming. She sounded like she was crying, her voice unstable and wavering with every shout and frantic hand motion. He held his arms out helplessly. Scarlett and I both leaned closer to her window.
"What are they saying?"
"Something ..." Scarlett shook her head. "I think she just said 'When your father was murdered' ... I'm not sure," she glanced at me. "It's so hard to hear with the rain."
"Roll your window up then, you're gonna get soaking wet." The window went up as she shoved back into her seat.
"What'd you think they're talking about?"
I shook my head. "You sure that's what she said?"
"What?"
"The murdered thing, you sure that's what she said?"
"Yeah," said Scarlett, putting a piece of gum in her mouth. "That's what it sounded like. It's hard to hear, with the rain."
"I guess we'll never know."
"Unless we make it up." Scarlett leaned her chair back as far as it would go and closed her eyes. "Just make up a story until he gets back."
I turned the heat up and cracked the window as I rummaged through my coat for a cigarette. I leaned forward and rested my elbows and forearms on the steering wheel. The rain continued to come down in heavy, drenching sheets, and I thought for a moment of the childhood I spent playing pranks on the neighborhood children who walked underneath my water-bucket traps with no idea of what was coming.
"I wonder if they know we're watching them," I said quitely, blowing smoke towards the window crack. "I wonder if they've forgtotten they're in public."
"How do you think his father was murdered?" she asked, her eyes still closed. She cracked her neck and sighed. The rain made a backdrop of sound like the distant popcorn-fire of machine guns in war movies. I rubbed my lip.
"Hm. It's gotta have something to do with the family. She hates his family, maybe? This is a tough one."
"Its just so hard to hear them,"
"Alright I'm gonna go with this: his father was murdered, right? What if--"
"I think they're brother and sister."
"What?" I looked down at her, incredulously, the cigarette frozen in between my fingers. "Brother and sister? Siblings dont fight like that,"
"You don't have siblings." She readjusted the seat and turned. The seat was almost all the way back. "So you wouldnt know."
"I have siblings."
"Step-siblings don't count. You only saw them on the weekends growing up, that doesnt count."
"Alright well if they're brother and sister then that really fucks up my theory. They're not brother and sister, look at how passionate they are. Siblings dont fight like that."
"They're definately brother and sister."
"Alright fine," I said, ashing my cigarette through the crack in the window. "So they're brother and sister. They're father --obviously --just got murdered."
"Obviously."
"Right."
"So why are they yelling," she said, leaning the seat forward. "I hate your car. Why are they yelling? Shouldnt they be upset?"
"They're clearly upset. They're clearly very upset. But there's something rotten in the state of Denmark, see."
"Did they murder him?"
"No," I said, frowning. "At least I don't think so. But they're gonna go find whoever did murder him."
"How do they know?"
"Because they saw. Well, she saw. He doesn't believe her though." I nodded to the blonde woman, dripping wet and now very visibly crying, even through the waves of rain going down the glass. "He can't believe it. It's too much to believe."
"It's the mother," she said, nodding, leaning her face against the cold window. "The mother."
"And the step-father," I flicked the cigarette out of the window and turned the heat down. "That's why the guy is so upset. Because either the woman is lying - which would be just a confusing, unneccessary plot twist -- or,"
"Or she's telling the truth." Scarlett looked at me sadly. "But why would their mother do that?"
"A whole list of reasons. Money, probably."
"So they're gonna kill the mother and the step-father, to get revenge for their father's death."
"Well she wants to," I said. "I don't think she's convinced him yet though."
"This is a lot like Hamlet."
"Well not entirely," I said, playing a drumbeat on the steering wheel with my fingers. "See I forgot to mention: They're step-father is the CEO of a private security company. In order to get to him, they'll have to go 'Kill-Bill' on an entire security force."
"Ok well now it's a lot like a comic book."
" And these are two ordinary people -- like me and you -- so how are they going to pull that off?"
"He's not gonna do it," she said, nodding at them. "Look."
The hooded man shook his head and turned, starting to get into the black taurus. The woman took a step closer to him; as she reached him, he held out his hand, palm forward, fingers extended. She stopped. He climbed into the car and shut the door, and a moment later he was pulling away, leaving the blonde girl standing alone.
"He said no, I guess," I said. Our eyes were glued to the blonde girl, as she put on her hood and started to walk away across the parking lot, not even attempting to dodge the puddles that lay scattered like minefields. Scarlett shook her head.
"What's she gonna do now?" she said.
"I don't know. I guess ... just try to do it herself."
"She'll never make it. She'll never make it alone."
The back door of my car opened and Isaac crawled into the backseat. He shut the door and breathed heavily, placing the plastic grocery bag on the seat next to him.
"Sorry that took so long," he said. "Lines were so, so long."
"No worries."
"It's like everyone is in there just buying things."
"It's fine. We played the game."
"Oh," he said, smiling, buckling his seatbelt as I put the car into drive. "The story game?"
"Yea," said Scarlett. "We were watching a brother and sister who were arguing because their mother and step father killed their father and the sister wants to get revenge by killing them but the brother can't do it because he cant believe it."
"Sounds like Orestes," said Isaac, opening the bag. "Check out what I bought."