Swin Cash sighed, more or less dramatically, and looked at her nails. As usual, they were perfect; with all the time she spent during and after work fixing even the tiniest chip in the polish, they were required to be. It was almost a shame that she was going to have to type and take the chance of spoiling them. But it was either the cushy secretarial job or she would end up in fast food again. That had wreaked havoc with her skin for weeks after she had finally quit.

“SWIN!” her boss screamed. To her embarrassment she realized that the office door was open and Mr. Stern had seen the entire scene with her nails. This was bad. If he decided to fire her she would have no recompense, and there were a lot of players looking for jobs. As she shot up from her desk, her mind worked desperately, trying to find a logical excuse for her to have been so preoccupied with her appearance. By the time she reached the office door she had found her excuse. She opened her mouth to deliver it, but he didn’t seem interested. “Type this up for me within the hour,” he snapped as he handed her a thick sheaf of papers. “You know how to make it sound good. See that you do.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Stern,” she said in her most neutral voice. She had learned quickly not to tick off the boss; bad things would happen if she did, not only to her but to the entire league. She was starting to regret every career choice that she had made throughout her life, and she was ready to curse her entire college for making things seem easy. She flipped quickly through the letters. It was more of the same stuff she had dealt with most of the week. She was sick of it.

A commotion in the outer office distracted her. Tamika Williams ran into the office screaming. “Mika, what the hell happened?” Swin asked.

“She’s cracked!” Tamika shouted. “We should have known it was going to happen someday, she’s finally lost it, we should have seen it coming, she was always too quiet- OW!”

The last exclamation had come because Swin had slapped Tamika across the face. “You’re hysterical, Tamika, settle down and tell me what’s going on,” Swin ordered.

Tamika heaved a few deep breaths. “She came in, she looked like she was just swinging by for a visit, you know how she does that sometimes? Well, she asked to see Mr. Stern, but you told me to tell everyone he was busy, so I told her that and she yelled that he couldn’t be too busy to see her, so she pulled a gun-”

“A gun?” Swin gasped.

Tamika nodded tearfully. “Yeah, a gun, and she shot a hole in the ceiling-”

“Oh, shit, there goes next week’s salary.”

“And then she started waving it around and then she put it to- to- to- oh, God, Swin, this isn’t good, we’re both gonna have to calm her down...” Tamika trailed off, fear filling her dark eyes. Swin slung an arm around her friend and former teammate’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry, Mika, we’ll get her settled down, we’ll make sure no one gets hurt. Don’t freak out on me now.”

“I think it’s too late, Swin, I tried calling Becca up at Ms. Ackerman’s, and there was no answer, I think she’s already been there and done something drastic!”

“Deep breath, Tamika, I am not going to hit you again. I could break a nail this time. We’ll get this straightened out, and then I’ll take you shopping at Odd-Job after work, okay?” Tamika nodded, the thought of shopping calming her nerves in a way that nothing else could. The two former Huskies made their way cautiously into the outer office.

“I’ll shoot her, I swear I will!” Asjha Jones screamed, her eyes bloodshot and her face crazed. Making matters more complicated, the terrified hostage was the last member of the UConn Fab Four, who had come in to interview for a position in one of the branch offices. Sue Bird had been rather happy to see Asjha, at least until the gun made an appearance.

“AJ, please, put the gun down. It’s not going to solve anything. Please, put the gun down and we can talk like normal people,” Swin suggested gently. Tamika muttered something under her breath about normality never having been a part of their lives, so why should it start now?

“No more talking!” Asjha screamed. Her voice seemed to have become stuck at that volume, and it was becoming quite unpleasant. “I’m sick of all of you, so successful and so happy and SO DAMN LUCKY! I’ve had it with that! I’ve had it with being the quiet one! No one ever noticed me before, but they’ll all notice me now!”

“AJ, we always noticed you and cared about you and all that good stuff. Other people can be really stupid, that’s all,” Tamika reassured her. “We’re your friends no matter what.” Internally, she wondered about the wisdom of being friends with someone with a gun, but she wasn’t about to say that, not when one of her friends was at the business end of that gun.

“Please, AJ, don’t do something you might regret later. Please, just put the gun down,” Swin begged her.

“Uh, please?” Sue echoed.

“SHUT UP!” Apparently this was not the right tack to take. Asjha’s finger tightened almost imperceptibly around the trigger of the gun. Swin and Tamika shared a long look. They were pretty sure that they understood what they were going to have to do. A moment passed. Swin suddenly made a move towards Asjha, and Asjha swung the gun towards Swin. That moment of distraction was just long enough for Tamika to tackle Asjha and knock the gun out of her hands. At the same moment, Swin knocked Sue out of the way, just in case Tamika couldn’t get to the gun before Asjha did.

In less than a minute, the situation was more or less defused. Asjha had broken down in tears; Tamika was sitting with her on the couch and cautiously offering her tissues. Swin was helping Sue get cleaned up while the fair girl complained about the damage done to her makeup. Suddenly Swin and Tamika’s boss called from his office, “What’s going on out there?”

Swin hit the intercom and replied, “Nothing, sir, Tamika and I got it under control. She’s disarmed.”

“Oh, another one of those? I thought Randall was going to be the last one. If you’re finished out there, I still need those letters typed.”

“Understood.” Swin released the button, tempted to just hit herself hard upside the head. “This day has sucked.”

“And how,” Tamika agreed. The gun, neglected on a table, suddenly went off. The shot went out the window and hit a seemingly unrelated passerby in the shoulder. He dropped to his knees in agony, releasing the bag of hockey equipment that he had been holding.