Hearts On Fire

There lived a Russian-Jewish-American girl named Marnie Kalugina, who happened to work at her aunt’s bookstore. Her parents had emigrated from Odessa back in the 1970’s and had met in San Francisco State University prior to getting married four years later, but that was a different story. Anyhoo, Marnie was already a practicing Pagan and even though her aunt was positive about it, everyone else in her family wasn’t happy about it, including her grandma Riva, who always wanted her to listen to the likes of Alla Pugacheva, Fillip Kirkorov, Yosef Kobzon, Kristina Orbakaite, Lev Leschenko, Anzhelika Varum, Leonid Agutin, Viktor Rybin, and Maxim Galkin instead of Enya, Celtic Woman, Secret Garden and Loreena McKennitt combined. Grandma Riva also insisted on making latkes for Hanukkah and gefilte fish for Passover, even though Marnie kept refusing to celebrate those holidays, even preferring to celebrate Yuletide and Ostara instead.

Anyway, it was business as usual inside the bookstore and Marnie was selling different books to different customers when someone came up to the checkout desk. The customer in question was an African-American AFAB-nonbinary person with an afro that was styled into an undercut and they were wearing very cool clothes.

“Can I help you?” Marnie asked.

“Of course,“ said the customer. “First of all, my name is Olive Williams. Second of all, I’d like to buy this Maya Angelou book.“

“That’s a nice name,” Marnie smiled. “First off, I’m Marnie Kalugina. Secondly, this book will be fifteen dollars.”

Then as Marnie began the process of selling the book, that was when Olive began to make her move.

“I think you have pretty eyes,” Olive grinned as she proceeded to pay for the book, “and your smile really lights up the room.”

“Why, thank you,” Marnie smiled again. “Anyway, here’s your book. And I hope you have a good one.”

“Thank you,” Olive beamed as she left the bookstore with her new book in tow.

It wasn’t long before Olive began to become a regular at Marnie’s aunt’s bookstore and just a few weeks later, they started dating each other. This time, they were going to Hella Vegan Eats for dinner, during which they decided to get to know each other.

“So, where do you work at?” Olive asked.

“I work at my aunt’s bookstore,” Marnie answered. “And you?”

“I work at Often Wonder,” Olive said. “It’s a nice store and you might want to check it out sometime.”

“Neato!” Marnie beamed. “Where do you live?”

“I live in the Mission District,” Olive said. “What about you?”

“I live in the Richmond District with my parents and my younger sister,” Marnie stated.

“Nice!” Olive squealed. “I didn’t know you had a sister!”

“I do,” Marnie said. “Her name is Julia and she’s going to turn sixteen next week. Also, she has her own girlfriend named Fatima. I mean—-she did have a boyfriend, once, but he was always treating her like shit, so she dumped him and started dating Fatima instead.”

“Wow, I’m sorry to hear that,” Olive said. “Also, that’s nice to hear about her future birthday. How do you plan to celebrate her birthday?”

“Easy,” Marnie replied. “She’s going to have a Sweet 16 next week and she wants to have it in some new Russian restaurant called Tatiana somewhere in Geary St. I mean—- there’s been two Tatiana restaurants, with one of them being in New York and the other one in Florida, but still. You can come if you want.”

“Of course I do!” Olive grinned.

Meanwhile, there was a teen boy whom Julia once dated until his abusive treatment of her got so bad that she had to dump him for her girlfriend named Fatima, who happened to love her unconditionally.

“I can’t believe that dumb bitch would dump me!” Marcus growled to himself. “I know, maybe I can set a pretty little trap for her inside some abandoned house somewhere in the city. And nobody will know what will hit her! Bwahahahahaha!”

As one week eventually passed, Julia was getting ready for her big day. After all, her parents had just hired a band who would sing different songs (from Russian songs to Italian songs) while Grandma Riva decided to add the likes of Hora and Hava Nagila to said upcoming party. Anywhoo, she had her hair done in ringlets and she had just donned a powder blue ballgown with an off-the-shoulder/bardot neckline and a full-length bell-shaped skirt portion. Little did she know that Marcus had just broken into her room and he was already sneaking up to her prior to chloroforming her into oblivion.

Marnie, who was also getting ready, heard everything, so she ran into Julia’s room to investigate...and yet all she ever found besides the mess was a note.

If you’re reading this, the note read, I’ve just kidnapped your pretty little sister and now we’re at this abandoned mansion at 420 Castenada Ave.! If you want her back, you must go there ASAP. With love (and by love, I mean hate), Marcus MacMillan. P.S. Don’t forget to bring her moozie ass girlfriend too!

Marnie couldn’t believe what she was reading, and yet she knew she had to do something, so she called up Olive as well as Fatima, after which she told them about Julia getting kidnapped.

So when they arrived, they suddenly saw Julia, who was sleeping on a couch. Just then, Marcus came over from nowhere.

“Well, well, well,” Marcus smirked sarcastically. “Look what we have here! You decided to bring your own coon of a girlfriend! Anyway, wanna’ know what I did to Julia after I brought her here? I made her drink a potion that would put her into a deep sleep. If you want to save her, you’ll have to fight me first!”

Then as soon as he snapped his fingers, Julia’s sleeping body began to levitate all the way up to the ceiling, where she continued to float upright in her sleep.

“You monster!” Marnie yelled. “When I get my hands on you!”

With that, she charged at Marcus, who teleported to another spot, which caused her to crash onto a dining room table...and yet Fatima hit him on the head from behind.

“You disgusting creep!” Fatima snarled. “I’ll never forgive you for what you did to my girlfriend!”

Then as soon as the battle began, the girls (or, in Olive’s case, an enby) seemed to prevail until Marcus got an upper hand, so he used his magic to incapacitate Olive and Fatima, which angered Marnie, who ended up attacking him with her magic powers. It only took a while until Marnie suddenly hit Marcus with a spell that was powerful enough to knock him down.

“Marcus, we won!” Marnie said. “Now release my sister to his instant!”

“Oh yeah?!” Marcus snarled as he unleashed a fireball at a chandelier, which fell down and hit the floor prior to starting a fire inside the mansion.

“Hasta la bye bye, suckers!” Marcus roared as he fled the mansion.

“Fire! Fire!” Fatima screamed in horror.

“We’re all gonna’ die!” Olive screamed in agreement.

“No, we’re not!” Marnie yelled as she used her magic to send Julia levitating down prior to catching her. Julia looked so beautiful and so angelic as she floated down until Marnie caught her in time.

“Fatima, you take Julia and go!” Marnie instructed. “And you too, Olive! Get out of here!”

“But Marnie—“ Olive complained.

“Not buts!” Marnie argued. “Don’t worry about me! Just go!”

That was when Olive reluctantly fled from the burning house with Fatima and Julia in tow. Then as the house got too engulfed in flames to stop burning anymore, they thought that Marnie was dead...until they saw a large phoenix emerge from the house and as soon as it flew down and landed, it immediately turned back into Marnie, who then used her magic to put out the fire in the house with water.

“Marnie, you’re alright!” Olive screeched in joy as they ran up to Marnie and hugged her (and vice versa). Then as soon as they went back into Marnie’s house, Marnie gently laid Julia on the latter’s bed. Of course, Julia was still sleeping peacefully when Fatima began kissing her on the lips for ten seconds; afterwards, as they broke the kiss, that was when Julia began to wake up.

“Huh? Where am I?” Julia wondered.

“It’s alright, sis,” Marnie said softly as she gently stroked Julia’s ringlets. “You’re safe now. We just need to freshen you up and go to your party.”

Then just a few minutes later, everyone (including Marnie, Julia, Olive and Fatima combined) arrived at the new Russian restaurant party and began to dance the night away. As for Marcus, well, the cops arrested him for burning the mansion into nothing while everyone else continued to have fun celebrating Julia’s birthday party and proceeded to live happily ever after.