Midnight
It came as no surprise to Audrey that the lights were still on in Jennifer’s trailer, nor did it come as any surprise that the response she received when she knocked on the door was a clear, “Fuck off, Audrey.”
“I thought you’d want to know that I got the Doris situation sorted.”
“And in less than two hours. How blisteringly efficient of you.”
Audrey stood on the steps facing a blank expanse of caravan with a-not-taking-this-shit expression that, as an inanimate object, it was in no place to appreciate. “If you’re going to insult me, could you at least do me the courtesy of not doing it through a door?”
“Best way to insult somebody. It means you don’t have to put up with their sulky faces.”
“I do not have a sulky face.”
“Sweetheart, you’re all sulky face.” Jennifer’s voice was a little louder now, as if she was moving about inside.
“You did nothing in your mercifully short tenure on my show except whine about things. Oh boo hoo, you’re sexualising a teenager.
Boo hoo, an old woman has to go for a bit of a walk.
Boo hoo, you won’t let me publish my affirming story about two hot lesbians in the forties. ”
Audrey knew when she was being baited, but she hoped that like the wily octopus, she’d learned to hook the bait out of the trap without actually getting caught by it.
“Firstly, at least two of those were actually very bad things you did need to stop doing, and the last one I’m at peace with even though I still think it’s a good story.
Anyway, I just came to tell you I’d done what you asked, and I have so”—she gave a kind of flustered exhalation that was part sigh part general yargh—“so good night I guess. Sleep well. I’ll talk to Alanis in the morning. ”
Having said her piece and not wanting to stand around like a fool, Audrey turned and walked slowly away. Very slowly Hopefully slowly.
“You know if you were really leaving, you’d have got much further by now,” said Jennifer’s voice from behind her.
Turning back, Audrey saw a very awake, somewhat dishevelled, mildly irate Jennifer Hallet standing in the now-open doorway.
There was, she thought, something about Jennifer that was made to be seen the wrong side of midnight.
Something about the way her hair, normally pulled into a severe ponytail, spilled loose over her shoulders.
The way the shadows fell across her eyes and cheekbones like she was some kind of highly caffeinated vampire.
She danced that line between overworked and wanton, and if Audrey’d had more energy she would have pretended she wasn’t into it.
“If you were really going to let me,” Audrey replied after just slightly too long a pause, “you wouldn’t have looked.”
“Maybe I was just going for a walk.”
Honestly, Audrey had expected better. Or at least more vulgar. “That seems unlikely. You don’t seem like the moonlit-stroll type.”
“Then maybe I just wanted to remind you, to your smug face, that you don’t actually have anywhere to sleep because you’re not on the show anymore, so you don’t have a room assigned.”
“Well, if you were,” retorted Audrey, “that would make you both a dick and bad at your job. And I’m pretty sure you’re only one of those.”
“You’re right,” Jennifer grudgingly admitted. “Colin’ll sort you out.”
Which resolved the question of sleeping arrangements. Which left Audrey with no other reason to stay. But she hovered anyway. And so did Jennifer. “Unless…” Audrey began.
Jennifer sneered in a way Audrey was at least hoping constituted protesting too much. “Unless what—unless I wanted to make you a better offer? Sorry to disappoint, sugartits, I don’t shit where I eat or fuck where I work.”
That was the thing about midnight. It wasn’t just Jennifer Hallet it was kind to.
Audrey didn’t believe in magic, but there was something about this witching hour that made bad ideas look like good ideas.
She took a step forwards. “You say that, but you called me up to solve a problem you could perfectly well have solved yourself.”
“I delegated.”
“And I could have said, ‘No, go fuck yourself,’ but instead I drove for nearly three hours to come and help you out.”
“So you’re either a soft touch or you’ve got a crush on me. Not sure why either of those are my problem.”
That almost stung. Because there was a grim chance that yes this whole thing was one-sided. And she’d been in enough one-sided relationships to know that they stopped being fun long, long before they just stopped being. Although in this case “enough” was actually “one”.
But this did feel different. Sure, Jennifer was a horrible, driven, objectively gorgeous woman with a high-end media job, and that did look the tiniest bit like a pattern, but Natalie had always swept Audrey along, never pushed her back.
Which meant towards the end she’d almost given up trying to work out what she wanted on her own account and what was just the echo of somebody more remarkable than she was.
Jennifer, she was bitterly, resentfully certain she wanted entirely on her own terms.
“You know what,” she said, “fine. Yeah. I’ll cop to that. I’ve got a weird, probably deeply ill-advised crush on you that somehow didn’t go away when you kicked me off a TV show for ethically dubious reasons.”
“If you didn’t want to get kicked off a TV show for ethically dubious reasons, you should have baked a better pie.”
“Right. And you didn’t in any way imply that part of the reason you got rid of me was that you secretly want to get all up on this.”
“In my defence, who wouldn’t?”
“Well…” Audrey looked down at herself. The thing was, you could have all the positive self-image you liked—and she worked hard to maintain a positive self-image—but that didn’t actually change what anyone else thought.
Or mean that normative beauty standards weren’t, like, a thing. “Quite a few people honestly.”
Jennifer was giving her a flat stare.
“Oh come on. I look like a young Dawn French.”
“Fuck me.” Jennifer Hallet took a deep breath. “I knew you were a mess, Lane, but I didn’t realise you were that much of a mess. Also, Dawn French is a very attractive woman.”
Audrey could put up with a lot of shit about a lot of things, but this was straying into areas where she had a no bullshit policy. “Don’t, that’s beneath you.”
Now it was Jennifer’s turn to step forwards. “Sorry, are you really suggesting that you think the only reason why you’re not over my desk with your legs in the air and my tongue where it counts is because you trend slightly more Penelope Featherington than Daphne Bridgerton?”
The words legs and tongue circled Audrey’s head like cartoon birds. “Okay”—she opted to focus on the other half of the sentence—“that wasn’t the cultural touchstone I was expecting from you.”
“Because you think an important part of my job is not knowing what key demographics are watching on television?”
Audrey shuffled, still very much caught in legs/tongue/desk space. “Just didn’t have you pegged for a fan.”
“I’ve got hidden depths.”
That seemed like as good a time as any to reset the conversation. “Nice to know. So…umm…I guess just forget that I made a colossal prat of myself if that’s okay?”
Jennifer Hallet probably wasn’t capable of looking kind, but for a moment she looked less like she actively wanted to disembowel everybody around her. “You didn’t make a prat of yourself.”
“Thanks, but—hang on, why are you being nice to me? Why aren’t you calling me a rancid sack of fox vomit or something?”
“I didn’t say you weren’t a rancid sack of fox vomit. Just that I didn’t think you’d made a prat of yourself. About this anyway.”
This was very slightly messing with Audrey’s head. “Is this just you being contrarian? Are you so stubborn that your first instinct to somebody talking themselves down is to tell them they’re wrong about that as well?”
“Why do you think I get such good results out of Colin?”
This was feeling a lot like a gah situation. But Audrey was fresh out of gah. “How do you ever get laid?”
“I’m hot, successful, and emotionally withholding. It’s not difficult.”
“Well,” Audrey pointed out in exasperation, “for someone who insists she doesn’t find me unattractive, you’re making it quite difficult at the moment.”
“You’re not unattractive. You’re just not my type.”
“That’s code for unattractive.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Jennifer turned her eyes skywards. “You’re not my type because you’re a quilt-making, nose-poking, heart-bleeding pile of feelings and teddy bears. You’ll want to talk about shit and snuggle afterwards.”
As assessments of Audrey’s character went, this was depressingly fair. “Right now, I mainly want you to shut up.”
“And can you maintain that focus for a twenty-minute fuck session?”
Audrey glared up at her. “I can maintain it for a forty-minute fuck session.”
“Well, okay then,” said Jennifer Hallet. “Get in and get your pants off.”
She was bluffing. She was clearly bluffing.
And Audrey always resented people for thinking they could bluff her.
It was fairly dark in the carpark and there was no one around.
So if, hypothetically, she wanted to whip her knickers off, just to prove the point, she totally could.
She totally did. “All right.” She waved her cute-but-not-entirely-sexy stripy briefs in Jennifer’s direction. “They’re off.”
Jennifer glanced from Audrey to the pants and back to Audrey. “You’re a fucking madwoman.”
“This was your idea.”
“I said inside. Not in a field surrounded by bored techs who are professionally required to carry recording equipment.”
“Nobody is filming. All that’s happening here is that you’re stalling. Because you, Jennifer-Whatever-Your-Middle-Name-Is-Hallet, are all talk.”
Reaching down from the top step, Jennifer hooked her fingers around the strap of Audrey’s sundress. “Get the fuck in here.”
So Audrey got the fuck in, still holding her pants, still not entirely certain what was going on.