Chapter Ten
Bette woke the next morning with more company than she had energy to handle.
Natalia was beneath the sheet beside her, in her shirt and knickers from the night before. Next to her, Bette was in full pajamas, top and trousers, which she only ever did when she was staying away from home. It was an uncomfortable juxtaposition. They had opened more wine when they’d arrived home, then talked on the sofa. For hours. They had kissed too. So much kissing. But something about the walk had cooled the heat of the party. The decision to take the wine to the front room had been the final nail in the coffin. It wasn’t platonic, but it also wasn’t in any way casual. A couple of times, Bette tried to move the kissing in a distinctly more sexual direction—at the very least toward her bedroom—but it hadn’t felt right. There had been a moment, when Natalia was straddling her on the sofa, when Bette was holding tightly at her thigh, a hand buried in her hair, when things finally felt like they might be going that way. But Natalia had leaned back, looked down at her with an intensity that was mortifying, traced her thumb along Bette’s lip and told her she was beautiful. Natalia wanted to get to know her. She asked about Bette’s family, and accepted her deflections. They shared coming-out stories. Natalia talked about growing up with lots of siblings, about her plans to have children, about wanting at least three. She was pretty sure there had been a moment when Natalia said I really like you, as if that was a reasonable thing to say, as if it was okay to lay your heart bare and open on the first night. And then Bette thought of Mei, of the things she’d said to her the first night. She felt sick with guilt that Natalia thought it was that kind of night. There was no doubt that she’d fucked up.
There had probably been a moment when it might have been possible to draw a line under it all, to lay out what it was she wanted. But instead Natalia had asked to borrow a toothbrush, and Bette didn’t say no. She was staying the night. It made sense, Bette supposed, given that it was close to dawn.
There was nothing much to say as they brushed their teeth and crawled beneath the sheets. Natalia kissed her once they were horizontal, her tongue fresh and minty, no trace of the gloss left. And then she rolled over and was breathing heavily almost immediately. Anxiety clawed at Bette. She should have said something, that much was blindingly clear. She should have told her that this was one night. That this was about sex. Sex they, crucially, hadn’t even had. She should have mentioned that they probably wouldn’t see each other again, at least not deliberately. That the whole point here was not to sleep over. Not to get attached. Seeing Natalia with a toothbrush in her mouth, making eye contact with her in the mirror above the sink, felt so like a relationship that Bette had looked away.
She managed to sleep around seven, a result of tiredness rather than any easing of her guilt. And when she awoke a couple of hours later Natalia was still there, lazy and affectionate in her sleep-addled state, curling herself around Bette’s back, her hand resting on Bette’s hip, tracing patterns over her skin where her pajamas had ridden down.
No.
No no no no. She couldn’t allow it to happen. Sex after sharing a bed, kissing after sharing a bed, would be a terrible way to lead in to the conversation she knew they had to have. It would be taking advantage of the situation in a way she couldn’t stomach.
“Tea?” she burst out loudly, sitting up on the edge of the bed and reaching for a robe to pull over her pajama set—a sort of aggressive opposite of nudity. She was uncomfortably warm, instantly sweating beneath her pajamas. “Coffee? Juice? I’m not sure we have juice, actually, because my flatmate’s away. And it’s really only her who drinks it.”
“Tea is good,” Natalia said, her voice a little bemused, still only half awake. “But you don’t need to—there’s no rush.”
“No, I love tea. I’m desperate for one. Let’s get up now,” Bette said, before Natalia could suggest returning to bed with the mugs. She stood, cursing white wine and her churning stomach. There was time to boil the kettle, plunge her hand into the near-empty box to retrieve two dusty tea pyramids and pour the water into two mugs before Natalia arrived, her party clothes incongruous in the morning light.
“Great, you’re dressed! What’s your plan for today?” Bette asked, bright and chatty and angling for “not at all hungover.”
“Oh I didn’t really have one,” Natalia replied, reaching for the mug Bette passed her, adding the milk herself. “But if you’re keen to get rid of me before your next girl arrives, I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I finish this.”
She laughed easily, as if the idea of leaving was ridiculous, and Bette forced out a laugh in response. Natalia was still squeezing her tea bag against the side of the mug but at the sound of Bette’s laugh looked up in surprise.
“Unless—oh—okay. Maybe you—I don’t know, maybe you regret—? I’ll just—”
“Shit, no, it’s not that. No regrets at all. You were great. It was fun. I just—I’m not looking for anything serious, and I guess I really should have said that last night. I’m worried I should have told you that. Before. Before I brought you back here.”
She was rambling, tripping over words and sentences as though she were back on the obstacle course she’d been useless at in primary school.
“Oh,” Natalia said, nodding a bit too enthusiastically as she gulped down her scalding tea. She covered a little choking cough with her hand. There was probably tea in her lung now, which was something else Bette could feel bad about. “No, of course. I mean—there’s no—no expectations. Of course.”
“I’m really sorry,” Bette said quietly, and she meant it. Natalia’s face had fallen, and she was making only awkward, stilted eye contact. This conversation was better, surely, than dodging her texts in the days to come. Better than dragging things out. But Bette still felt horrible about it. They could have avoided this altogether if she had been clear from the outset.
“Okay—so I’m just—” Natalia said, putting her mug down on the kitchen counter. “I’ll just go. If that’s—?”
“It was really nice to meet you,” Bette said lamely, and wondered whether she should walk her to the door. Or whether that felt too much like a date thing. Staying in the kitchen cemented this as a hookup; walking her to the door—either side of it—left her open to the Notting Hill accidental-unexpected-kiss thing. Or Chandler’s “This was great! I’ll give you a call! Let’s do it again sometime!” thing he did to Rachel’s mascara goop boss. And there was really no way back from that. She couldn’t kiss Natalia again, after making things so uncomfortable. She couldn’t be that person.
The door slammed. While she had been working out whether or not to walk Natalia to the door, Natalia had made the journey herself. It hadn’t seemed like a long moment of thought. She must be more hungover than she thought; her brain working at half capacity. Bette leaned against the kitchen counter, feeling sick with regret and furious with Ash for being out, and Ruth for inviting her in the first place, and Heather for blithely leaving her in the vicinity of hot women who ended up snogging her, and Mei for the whole stupid thing.
And with herself, most of all.
Bette had barely moved over the course of the day. She’d decided against returning to bed, not wanting to climb back into the sheets she and Natalia had spent the night between. Realistically, she was going to have to strip them before bedtime because they still smelled of Natalia’s perfume, but she was putting off the guilt spiral the scent would induce. She was already considering sleeping on the sofa just to avoid the task. Rather than dealing with any part of the situation, she had dozed in front of Married at First Sight Australia, held Marge against her until she finally stalked off in disgust, drank eight half-cups of tepid tea, and had eaten endless rounds of Marmite on buttered toast. If there hadn’t been bread in the house, there was a real chance she might have starved.
All the things she had been saving for Sunday—her laundry, a long-overdue call to her parents, the reorganization of her closet—had fallen by the wayside in favor of being horizontal and feeling sorry for herself. The hangover had faded by 3 p.m. but the shame hadn’t, and both feelings roiled her belly in exactly the same way.
She had, all things considered, rarely been happier to hear Ash’s key turn in the lock. The relief hit her as though it were physical, and she could feel tears pricking at her eyes. It wasn’t what she wanted, was impossibly frustrating, but by the time Ash was standing in the door to the sitting room, the tears were trickling down her cheeks. All she had been waiting for, apparently, was Ash leaning against the door frame, a look of affection clear beneath the judgment.
“Have you moved at all today?” Ash asked. There seemed no point in lying; it wasn’t a question so much as it was a well-formed assumption based on clear evidence.
“No. I think I might have a bedsore on my hip.”
“You don’t have a bedsore.”
“I might.”
“Okay, well then I think you should get off your hip, put some outdoor clothes on, and come for a walk. It smells like a brewery in here. I refuse to spend my Sunday evening on a sofa that smells like this. There’s a reason I don’t go to pubs with carpet. It’s a hard limit. We need to air the house out.”
“Can’t you just open a window and then I could stay here?”
“No,” Ash threw over her shoulder as she carried her weekend bag down the hall. She returned a moment later, while Bette was still resolutely in the same position. “If you lie there any longer you’re going to fuse to the sofa. And I’m attached to you being able to get up to go to work and pay your half of the rent. I’m attached to the sofa too.”
“That’s…fair,” Bette admitted reluctantly. “Give me five minutes.”
It was ten minutes, at least, before she left her bedroom in leggings and a long T-shirt. Fifteen before she put her shoes on. Ash waited impatiently, leaning against the hallway wall, rolling her eyes at Bette’s grumbles, tsk-ing in an uncanny impression of Bette’s mother while she laced up her shoes.
Annoyingly and inevitably, the fresh air felt good on her face and in her lungs. She gulped in big breaths of it, as if she hadn’t properly taken in oxygen since before the party. It cleared away the last vestiges of her hangover. The guilt, she worried, was probably there to stay.
“So come on.” Ash nudged her shoulder against Bette’s. “This isn’t just a hangover, is it? We’re not that old yet, right? We can still have a good Saturday night without wanting to die the next day? Right?”
“It’s not just a hangover,” Bette replied. She stopped at the edge of the footpath, waiting for a clear run across the street, even as Ash scooted around a car.
Ash stopped midway through crossing the street and looked back at her expectantly. “Well?”
Bette shrugged, and pushed herself to jog for a moment to catch up. It was torture. Her body hated her.
“I brought someone home last night. She seemed great at the party—like the right person to bring home. For this—whatever. But I probably should have been a bit clearer about things. Before we got to the kissing bit.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah, I told her this morning that I wasn’t looking for a relationship, and she didn’t seem thrilled about it.”
“So you Ruth-ed her. After the fact. Which is probably worse.”
Bette didn’t appreciate her date with Ruth becoming a verb. “Ugh, fuck. Yeah. Yeah, I suppose I did. Fuck. I feel awful.”
“Was there not a moment it would have made sense to have the conversation?”
“Of course there was, Ash,” Bette said, her voice climbing a register both in pitch and volume. “Obviously. There were so many moments I should have mentioned it. I get it. I’m the worst.”
“Not the worst,” Ash said, her voice kinder. She always seemed to struggle with playing bad cop when Bette did such an effective job of it herself. “But it’s not ideal behavior.”
“She’s a friend of Ruth’s too, I think.” Bette paused, realizing she had no idea what Natalia’s connection to the party was. “Or Heather’s, I suppose. Or Jody’s. I have no idea. I probably should know but I wasn’t really listening. The headline is that I should have told her and I might run into her again and I fucked it up. I was a bit drunk, and she was just so beautiful…”
“Yeah, but you think everyone is beautiful.” Ash was smirking.
“Look, I just…really like women,” Bette said lamely.
“I just think they’re neat!” Ash parroted, a perfect imitation of Marge Simpson holding up a potato.
“Oh shut up.”
They were quiet as they walked down into Perrett Park. The heat of the summer, and the rain they had had in the past week, meant that the grass was lush and green underfoot. The sun had almost disappeared from the sky, the faintest pink glow still visible along the horizon, the evening suddenly cool. The park was empty but for a handful of guys on their backs, cans in their hands, and a few joggers doing laps around its perimeter.
“You know I’m always going to cheerlead you getting exactly what you want. I want you to be happy. I spent two weekends watching you try on jeans to find those black ones you love. I queued with you overnight, Bette. For Coldplay tickets,” Ash said, her voice unusually gentle. “And so if this is what you want you know I’ll shut up. I’m on board. I’ll do whatever you need. But you waking up filled with regret and feeling terrible—Bette, I don’t think that’s…I don’t know…”
She wanted Ash to keep laughing, to poke fun. To imitate Marge Simpson. To commit to the full bit and whinge about the Coldplay queue, ten years after the cursed night in question. She didn’t want the concern and mothering and attempt at understanding. It felt sticky and saccharine; honey poured over the horrible mess of Bette’s life. Instead of soothing and reassuring her it made Bette prickle and bristle, as if her body wanted something bitter to course through her, something to cut through the sweet.
“I want Mei,” Bette said firmly, cringing slightly at the words even as they left her mouth. “And this is the way to have Mei.”
“I just—I’m not sure—”
“Look, I fucked up last night, but I’m still figuring out how to manage hookups. It’s not like I’ve had a lot of practice. I’ll do it better next time. I don’t need to have some big existential crisis about it. I’m fine.”
“Okay,” Ash said. “But I—”
“It’s fine, Ash.” Bette spoke over her with a note of finality in her voice that she hoped could draw a line underneath everything. “I’m fine. What do you want for dinner? My shout.”
She pulled out her phone and started scrolling through the Deliveroo options. And, mercifully, Ash let her.
By the time they finished their lap of the park and returned home, Bette’s feelings had softened. An irresponsible amount of curry was arriving imminently, which made everything a little better and a little easier, as an extravagant takeaway was always wont to do. Once back through the front door, Ash disappeared to put her pajamas on and Bette set up Grey’s Anatomy on her laptop. As she scrolled down season two, preparing her argument for watching “It’s the End of the World” again, her phone buzzed in her pocket.
Ruth:So!!
Ruth:Successful night for you then?!?!
The overuse of punctuation was entirely un-Ruth. Ruth was deliberate and clear with her punctuation and capital letters, in a way that made Bette feel every bit of the three-year age difference between them. Ruth used full stops as if they were appropriate in texts, as if they meant the same thing they did in a book.
Bette:ha
Bette:exactly as you’d promised
Bette:it was fun!
Bette:heather’s great
It occurred to her that she hadn’t seen much of Ruth at all after she had left the kitchen. She wondered how the night might have progressed if she’d found Ruth instead, in that moment of searching. Probably a lot less complicatedly.
Bette:thanks so much for inviting me
Ruth:Of course!! Glad it went well.
Ruth:(It went well, right?! Did I see you leave with Nat????)
The punctuation marks. Unbelievable. It was as though Ruth had been kidnapped, as though someone who didn’t know her was texting in her place.
Bette:you did
Bette:she’s lovely
Ruth:She’s fantastic! We were at university together!
Shit. She should have known Natalia would be Ruth’s friend. Avoidance seemed like her only option.
Bette:of course! I think she mentioned
Bette:how was your night?
Ruth:It was good—lots of people I haven’t seen in ages, so that was nice. And I think Jody had fun, which really was the whole point.
Ruth:And so did you by the sound of things?!
She was relentless. Bette wasn’t going to be able to avoid it. She needed to be vague. Noncommittal.
Bette:yeah, it was good!
Bette:thank you again
Bette:couldn’t have imagined better wing women than you and heather
There was a beat, long enough that Bette started to put her phone down.
Ruth:Hey, I have a spare ticket to a dinner next weekend if you want to
come with me?
She should be planning another date, really. A stranger this time, another Charlie. But—
Bette:msg me the details
Bette:I’ll be there