Chapter 25 Gwen #2
“I’ve been having these weird, like, dreams about Angeni Luna,” Gwen said.
They’d kept happening in the wee morning hours, before her body was fully awake.
They were more like visions than dreams. It was always the same scene—Gwen and Angeni Luna sitting at the kitchen table, Angeni holding Gwen’s hands and saying reassuring things that Gwen would then carry with her throughout the day.
“Like sex dreams?” Leigh said.
Gwen rolled her eyes. “No, not sex dreams. They’re just her talking to me, telling me things I need to hear.”
“Aww. That’s kind of sweet,” Leigh said.
In the latest one, she’d been helping Gwen talk through her feelings about going back to work. You’ve established such a wonderful bond with June in the past few months, she’d said. Nothing will weaken that.
“It’s weird,” Gwen said.
“I don’t think so. She’s like a fairy godmother or something.”
Gwen laughed. It was a bit like that.
“I’m just disappointed it’s not sexual. I would like to hear about that,” Leigh said.
“Sorry to disappoint.” Then, uncomfortable with her admission, Gwen shifted the conversation back to Leigh: “How are you and Nathan doing?”
Leigh shrugged. “We’re the same. We kind of hate each other, but in a lazy way that involves taking no meaningful action.”
“I think that’s called complacency.”
“Yeah. That,” Leigh said. “How are you and Jeff?”
“Meh.”
“Oh, that’s my new memoir title. Meh: A Memoir of Holy Matrimony.”
“I told him I don’t want to go back to work, and he shot me down.”
“Really? You’ve made him seem so nice.”
“He is nice,” she said.
He was. He was just uncompromising in the face of potential financial catastrophe. It wasn’t a bad trait.
“He’s thinking of the big picture,” Gwen clarified. “We can’t, like, afford our life if I don’t go back to work.”
“Then create a different life,” Leigh said, as if it were that easy.
This was, after all, the vague solution that Angeni Luna offered the world—if you can’t be the mother your child needs because of competing responsibilities, you need to abdicate those responsibilities.
She’d posted something like that and gotten lots of clapping-hands emojis in the comments.
“But this is the life Jeff wants. This is the life I said I wanted.”
Leigh sighed. “That’s why I find marriage so stifling. We make these promises to each other, banking on the fact that one person or both people don’t change in some fundamental way. Seems wildly unrealistic.”
“It’s romantic, though. Staying together despite the changes.”
“Is it?”
“Ideally,” Gwen said, her voice getting small as she started to doubt what she was saying.
Leigh placed Belle on the play mat next to June. The babies seemed to enjoy each other’s company more and more, communicating in their own special way with gurgles and grunts.
“Anyway, I’m sorry it’s been hard, sweetie,” Leigh said.
She patted the couch next to her, beckoning Gwen to sit.
Gwen left the babies on the floor and sat next to Leigh, their thighs touching.
Leigh clasped Gwen’s hand, and there was something about this touch, the simplest of human touches, that made Gwen start to cry.
She and Jeff were having sex again, but that didn’t make her cry.
The entirety of his body pressed against hers wasn’t nearly as comforting as Leigh’s palm pressed into her palm.
“I want you to have whatever kind of life you want,” Leigh said, squeezing Gwen’s hand.
Gwen cried harder. Why couldn’t Jeff say something like that to her?
“I don’t know why I’m always freaking crying around you,” she said.
“You need nurturing,” Leigh said. “You are depleted. That’s why you’re crying. That’s why you’re having dreams about Angeni Luna.”
Nurturing. She associated it with what she was doing for June on a day-to-day, minute-to-minute basis. The fact that she needed it for herself came as both a shock and a relief.
“I have an idea,” Leigh said. “Let’s get out. Do something fun.”
Gwen was immediately hesitant. She knew it was doubtful that she and Leigh had the same idea of fun.
“You are seriously looking at me like I’m going to suggest going to a strip club,” Leigh said.
“I mean, I can see you suggesting that.”
“With our babies. Now that would be a scene,” she said.
Leigh stood from the couch, looking like a woman on a mission.
“Let’s go to the movies. Dark, air-conditioned theater. The girls will nap. We can eat junk food and think about something besides motherhood for a couple hours.”
Gwen couldn’t remember the last time she’d been to the movies. When they were younger, Gwen and Jeff used to go to the movies a lot. It was an easy date. There was something romantic about cuddling up in the theater, sharing popcorn.
“The matinee price is, like, eight bucks,” Leigh said. “They’re showing this movie from a few years ago at the indie theater I love. I’ve been wanting to go, just haven’t had the courage to do it alone with Belle.”
“What movie?” Gwen asked, still mulling over the idea. Sitting in a theater did sound nice. If Belle or June lost their shit, they could just leave. It was unlikely there’d be many people in the theater to disturb.
“It’s called Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” Leigh said.
Gwen had never heard of it.
“Sounds like another title option for your memoir.”
The theater was a short walk from Leigh’s condo.
It wasn’t one of those mega-theaters with the heated recliner seats and giant screens.
It was tiny. It looked to be an old playhouse that had been converted into a theater.
There were only three screens, and they were all showing foreign-language films that Gwen had never heard of.
She had assumed her first movie theater experience with June would be a Disney film, a theater packed with raucous children.
This was a much more interesting outing.
Leigh paid for their tickets and bought enough candy for several people—Junior Mints, Red Vines, M&M’s, Milk Duds. They walked into theater 3 with the girls strapped to their chests. Both babies were quiet, probably too distracted by the newness of this place to raise much of a fuss.
There was nobody else in the theater. They sat in old, creaky seats in the exact middle. Leigh put her Converse-adorned feet up on the seat in front of her and turned Belle to face the screen.
“It’s R-rated. Would Angeni Luna approve?” Leigh said.
Gwen put her feet up on the seat in front of her and turned June to face the screen too.
“I’ll ask her the next time she appears in my dreams.”
The lights dimmed, and Leigh tore open the bag of M&M’s. She passed the bag to Gwen, and Gwen shook some of the candy into her palm.
“I cannot remember the last time I had candy,” Gwen said.
“Angeni Luna definitely wouldn’t approve. So processed. So many chemicals. What happens in the movie theater stays in the movie theater.”
The previews started, and the babies looked on, enthralled. When the opening credits of the movie started rolling, Leigh leaned over and said, “This movie is so beautiful. I think you’ll love it.”
“Wait, you’ve seen it before?” Gwen said.
Leigh smiled. “It’s a fave.”
The movie was French, subtitled. Gwen worried she’d fall asleep, but she was pulled into the story immediately.
It was set in the late eighteenth century, about a painter named Marianne who is commissioned to paint the portrait of a woman named Hélo?se, who is supposed to be married off soon to a wealthy nobleman.
She doesn’t want to marry him and refuses to sit for a proper portrait, so Marianne must observe her discreetly and paint without Hélo?se knowing.
As they spend so much time together, they develop a deep connection.
It was so beautiful and sensual that Gwen found herself weeping.
When she did, Leigh reached over, took Gwen’s hand in hers.
They sat like that, holding hands, until the end of the movie.
The babies were sleeping when the lights came up. There were tear tracks on Leigh’s face—she had cried too.
“I told you it was amazing,” Leigh said. She was still holding Gwen’s hand. Gwen didn’t know what to say. She’d never been moved to tears by a movie before. She was reluctant to stand, unsure her legs would hold her.
One of the theater employees came in with a broom and trash bag. She didn’t acknowledge the presence of Gwen, Leigh, and the babies, just went about her business, going up and down the aisles of the theater in search of a mess.
“She does realize there is nobody in here to make a mess, right?” Leigh whispered.
Gwen chuckled. “She’s being diligent!”
Leigh stood, finally releasing Gwen’s hand to snap Belle into her carrier. A wave of sadness rolled over Gwen at the loss of that hand.
You need nurturing.
It was after four o’clock when they got back to Leigh’s condo. Gwen kept Leigh company in the kitchen as she pulled things out of the fridge for their dinner. The girls sat in Bumbo seats on the floor, gurgling their version of conversation.
“Did the movie outing help get your mind off things?” Leigh asked.
It had, but just the question brought Gwen back to her sadness about returning to work.
“Yeah, it did, thank you,” she said.
“You are such a liar.”
Gwen managed a smile. “I don’t know. I get flooded with all these feelings. I feel like I’ve already let June down so much, and now I’m going back to work. I mean, how could she not feel abandoned? It’s not like she understands what having a job means.”
“Come here,” Leigh said. She extended her arms and pulled Gwen into them. They stood there, holding each other for longer than Gwen had ever stood and held someone.
When Leigh released Gwen, she went to the bench seat at the kitchen table and patted the spot next to her. Gwen sat, and Leigh put her arm around Gwen, pulled her against her body, their heads resting against each other.
“It’ll all be okay,” Leigh said.