10. Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
“I don’t understand why this is happening,” Camille complained, drifting behind Hope into her small kitchen. “I don’t even understand why you want to be friends with her at all. She already told you she’s not going to fuck you.”
“Yes,” Hope agreed. “Hence the friendship part.” She pulled out a bottle of her and Camille’s favourite rosé from the fridge and reached past her friend to pull two glasses from the cupboard beside her head. Camille didn’t shift out of the way, watching her closely with her huge blue eyes. She wore a white slip that was closer to a negligee than a dress, three-quarter white leggings above her bare feet. On anyone else it would look ridiculous, but Camille always had that slightly dreamy fairy princess vibe that meant she somehow carried it off. “I like her. And she’s interesting,” Hope explained.
“You keep using that word about her,” Camille said flatly. “I didn’t know you were so into morally grey as a character trait. ”
“ Camille!” Hope nearly over-poured the glass before she jerked her hand back. “You don’t even know her.”
“Neither do you. But we both know she lied on the witness stand to protect her corrupt husband.”
“That was television. ”
“Based on real life, Hope. That part happened.”
“We don’t know the ins and outs of it. We don’t know her motivation. Can you even imagine how terrifying it all must have been?” Hope put her hands on her hips. “Just… give her a chance, okay?” She made puppy eyes at Camille. “For me?”
Camille’s shoulders dropped.
“Stop that,” she said.
“No.” Hope made her eyes even bigger. “If you love me…”
“You know I love you,” Camille said softly. She grabbed hold of the wineglass Hope extended to her and took a large mouthful. “Which is why I’m concerned,” she said firmly. “This woman could be dangerous. ”
Hope laughed.
“Dangerous to my libido,” she agreed. “I think I probably need to get laid. Speaking of,” she looked up at Camille, “how’s the backpacker?”
“Done,” Camille said quickly. “Off to Darwin.”
“Chew ‘em up and spit ‘em out,” Hope observed with a smirk. “Never change, Milly.” She opened the fridge again, pulling out a bright yellow capsicum and a large leafy bunch of coriander. She held it to her face and took a deep breath in, inhaling the fresh scent of the herb.
“I could want more than that,” Camille said suddenly. Her face was slightly pink. Hope’s mouth dropped open.
“Babe,” she said gently. “I know that. It wasn’t an accusation. I just like teasing you, you know that.”
“Mmhm.” Camille seemed off balance tonight. The set of her lovely face was tense, her fingers clenched around the stem of the glass.
“Are you okay?” Hope dropped the ingredients on the bench and looked at her friend anew. There was genuine longing swimming in Camille’s ocean-coloured eyes. “Oh god, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you actually liked this one. ”
“I-” Camille swallowed. She took a large sip of wine and then another. “Well, you know. Sometimes feelings just surprise you.”
“That’s why you’re mad at me for skipping date night tonight for a whole group hangout,” Hope realised.
“I love our date night.” Camille sounded slightly fragile. “I like getting you to myself once in a while.”
“We’ll reschedule,” Hope promised. “I love my Milly time.” She tugged Camille into her arms and hugged her tight. Her friend stayed uncharacteristically rigid before she sighed and melted just a little into the embrace. Hope smiled above her shoulder, squeezing her harder. It was so unlike Camille to actually develop feelings for one of her many admirers. “I want to hear all about him,” she assured her. Camille pulled back.
“No,” she said abruptly. Hope cocked her head. Camille’s face was still flushed but she straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin and all but forced a smile at Hope. “You know me: out of sight, out of mind.” Hope grinned at her conspiratorially and slowly the smile reached those eyes. Camille was back. “Ugh, fine, put me to work,” her friend rolled her eyes, “cooking dinner for your fucking mafia wife crush.”
“Oh my god!” Hope spluttered. She glared at her bestie. “I prefer ‘underworld-adjacent friend,’” she said with fake dignity .
By the time they’d cooked up a storm together and the rest of the gang had slowly drifted in - Magnus taking over the playlist with something melancholy and dreamy, Flynn balancing six bottles of wine in his arms, Prisha practically running into the house gasping about her clinic running late - Hope had a warm happy buzz running through her from the rosé. When she heard her doorbell chime she dropped her knife on the bench to beat a path to the front door and whipped it open to tug the dark-haired drink of water poised on her doorstep into a quick embrace.
“Hi.” Alison sounded slightly surprised at the warm welcome.
“Hi!” Hope pulled back to look at her. For three full seconds her brain went blank. Alison’s hair was down. She’d never seen her like this; even in her goddamned bathrobe Alison was always so formal, pulled together with her glossy locks swept up or back as if to keep it all contained. Seeing it spilling luxuriously over her shoulders like some kind of soft, casual, touchable human made her go quite dizzy. Alison was searching her face, waiting for her to behave like a normal person at a dinner party and Hope rapidly pulled herself together. “Come in!”
Alison shrugged out of her coat in the warm hallway and Hope took it from her to hang on a spare wall hook. She didn’t remember a time she’d done that for a visitor before - all her friends just treated her house like their own - but something about Alison made her want to perform these little acts of service. She swallowed at her own reactions and made herself smile brightly at her, even as she took in Alison’s whole appearance. High-waisted, hip-hugging, slender-fitting, dark designer jeans - jeans, for god’s sake - a short-sleeved, black, fine- woollen top, the neckline just enough to showcase her lovely collarbones. And heels. Of course.
“Do you want a tour?” Hope blurted, turning quickly away.
“That sounds lovely,” Alison said, her tone exactly that of a visiting dignitary.
“It’s… brief,” Hope let her know. The right place to go first was the living room, but Hope knew with absolute clarity that she needed two minutes to settle back in with Alison before her friends were watching her face. She led her down the wooden floorboards of the hall in the opposite direction. This was stupid. “It’s an original miner’s cottage,” she started. “With some additions. Like my sunroom,” she gestured into the small, glass-panelled room that was a straight-up tropical greenhouse in summer and an unlit, icy-cold fridge box about now. “It’s usable for about three months of the year,” she admitted.
Alison wandered in, running her elegant fingers over the low wooden bookcase and gazing around at the dark windows, the outline of waving tree branches casting flickering shadows from the moonlight.
“It’s lovely,” she said. You are, thought Hope, thinking of the massive, luxurious mansion on the lake. She turned quickly, and led her back out .
“The bathroom.” She flicked on a light. Alison took in the old clawfoot bath under the big picture window and the half-melted tea-light candles on the edge of the tub. She sunk her teeth into her plump lower lip. Hope could smell the scent of her own fruity body-wash still fresh in the air.
“The botanical garden of bathrooms,” Alison decreed, observing the multiple rows of leafy trailing houseplants draping their way down the shelves. “You’re a green thumb.”
“Hardly,” Hope disagreed. “Literally anyone could keep Devil’s Ivy alive.”
“I beg to differ,” Alison told her wryly.
Hope told herself to at least try to be chill as she steeled herself, gesturing toward the next door.
“The bedroom,” she said. Alison looked up at the words and, meeting Hope’s eye for a full second, she stepped all the way inside Hope’s bedroom. She cast her eyes around the space. It didn’t take long. Hope’s bedroom was precisely large enough to house a cream-panelled, built-in wardrobe, an antique full-length mirror, and her bed. The small lamp on her bedside table was on, next to the book she’d been reading. On the otherwise empty bedside table opposite stood a vintage brown glass bottle she’d filled with golden fairy lights, like a little jar of fireflies. The bed sat alongside the wooden-paned French doors, that in warmer weather, she left open to the night. Her bedding was a soft sage green .
Alison took it all in. This had been the point, of course - to make Alison feel like she had enough of a glimpse into Hope’s life to even the scales between them - but this felt almost unbearably intimate. Hope caught sight of the two of them in the bedroom mirror, within touching distance of each other, Alison’s legs in those heels, her gaze still on Hope’s bed.
“Anyway!” Hope’s voice came out slightly high. “Come down and meet the gang.”
She quickly led Alison out of her bedroom, wishing her heart wasn’t pounding at such a basic interaction. She’d get there though. Soon enough they’d be friends and she’d look back at this and laugh.
Laughter was pouring out of the living room now as they approached the other end of the short hall. Alison seemed to stall, just slightly, at the open doorway, and instinctively, Hope touched her fingers to the small of the other woman’s back, both to steady her and encourage her in. This only caused Alison to pause more fully; Hope swore, for a second, that she saw her shiver.
So that was who walked in the room to face all four of Hope’s best friends: Alison with her teeth sunk fully into her lower lip, and Hope, flushed with wine and pointless desire.
“Everyone,” she said, “this is Alison. Alison, everyone. ”
Everyone paused and went silent. Hope didn’t blame them; Alison was kind of show-stopping. Magnus, with a sideways glance at Hope, quickly grasped that someone needed to act.
“Magnus.” He introduced himself in his soft voice, pushing back a lock of his shaggy brown hair. Then he pointed around the room. “Flynn,” he gestured to the lanky ginger pouring chips into a bowl at the kitchen counter. Flynn quirked his eyebrows in greeting and raised his hand. “Camille,” Magnus nodded towards the honeyed blonde seated on a bar stool near the bench. Camille simply crossed one leg over the other and observed their entry blankly. “Prisha,” Magnus concluded, looking over to where Prisha stood with her back to the fireplace.
“Fire,” gestured Prisha with a welcoming smile and Alison, clearly sensing a lifeline, crossed the room towards her and raised her hands to the warm glow of the crackling log fire in Hope’s hearth.
“Wine?” Hope offered, tearing herself away to the kitchen and holding up a red and a white option.
“Yes please,” Alison agreed quickly. “The red.”
Hope wondered how long it had been since Alison had been at a function where that was how the wine options had been presented, if, in fact, ever. Something about that conversely made her relax a fraction. Hope’s house, with her little crew of humanity, was far warmer than anything depicted in the fictional version of Alison’s life and Hope decided to go with it as fact .
By the time she crossed back with a wine glass in each hand, Alison was talking easily with Prisha about life as a country doctor, her voice warm and steady. Hope handed Alison her glass and their eyes met. It was, it must be said, physically impossible to hand over a wine glass without your fingers touching the recipient’s, at least slightly. For a second, Hope hovered, before she realised she was slipping almost unthinkingly into date mode. She abandoned Alison to the interaction - the woman had been a goddamned socialite for god’s sake - and crossed back to the kitchen.
“Play nice,” she murmured to Camille as she passed, touching her warm, bare shoulder just briefly on her way into the kitchen.
“I’m always nice,” Camille replied lightly and Hope caught Flynn giving Camille a cautious glance as he ferried snacks into the living room. A moment later Camille hopped off her stool and came to help her as she put the finishing touches on dinner. Hope still felt uncharacteristically flustered at the situation she’d literally concocted: all her friends and Alison in one room. It had made sense in her head; these were her friends, Alison was going to be her friend, ergo, dinner. She just hadn’t quite expected it to feel like this.
“Relax,” Camille whispered into her ear. She moved behind Hope and gave her shoulders a soft massage, making clear that Hope wasn’t quite passing herself off as cool just now, at least to the people who knew her best. She let herself enjoy the tenderness of her friend’s touch, grateful to be loved by people that didn’t care how uncool she was at times. She glanced up to see that Alison was watching them surprisingly closely before her grey eyes flicked back to her conversation with Prisha.
Dinner was casual; Hope wasn’t delusional enough to want them all sitting around a dining table, conversing formally. Instead, she and Camille spread big bowls of taco fillings and toppings from one end of the coffee table to the other and they all created their own concoctions, draping themselves over Hope’s furniture or eating where they stood. Hope argued with herself that since she’d invited Alison here, it only made sense for her to seat herself next to the woman on the couch. She tried not to enjoy too much the entirely sensational experience of watching the refined socialite perch with a dinner plate on her knees while eating with her hands.
The conversation was free-flowing and easy; Hope shouldn’t have been surprised. Her friends were all smart, loquacious individuals and Alison was basically a professional at this kind of thing. Hope watched as she all but sparkled under the attention, winning over everyone with warm words and steady focus. She could speak architecture with Magnus and environmental law with Flynn. She paid extra attention to Camille, drawing her out of her reticence by asking insightful questions about her inspirations and process.
“So what are you going to do with your life now?” Prisha asked Alison easily, as if the implied second-half of the question - now that your life has been destroyed and consumed by the public - wasn’t hanging in the air. Hope felt Alison go still beside her. When had they ended up sitting so close?
“Well,” Alison said, “I’ve honestly not quite decided.”
“Money’s obviously not a barrier then,” Camille said lightly and five sets of eyes zeroed in on her .
“Not especially,” Alison replied smoothly, as if the question hadn’t been incredibly pointy. “I could just do absolutely nothing with my life,” she said with a small shrug. Camille conceded her point with a dainty tilt of her head.
“Would you go back to law?” Flynn asked. Hope frowned in confusion but Alison shook her head slowly.
“I’d like to,” she said softly. “But being a widely noted perjurer rather set my career on the back foot.”
The words hung in the air for a long moment.
“You were practicing?” Hope asked her. She felt oddly embarrassed. She’d believed Alison had been as depicted: purely a society wife. Alison turned to look at her, with a faint trace of amusement in her grey eyes. She’d clearly caught the surprise in Hope’s voice.
“Yes,” she said. “Family law. Helping women disentangle themselves from unpleasant partners, ironically enough.”
“Oh.” Hope was actually just staring now, as her perception of Alison shifted yet again. Alison, clearly noting this, smirked at her just slightly. Oh, fuck. Her smirk was confident, with the smallest hint of sass. Hope’s stomach swooped as their gazes tangled .
“You were fired,” Camille guessed aloud. All eyes shot back to her again.
“Yes, as a matter of fact I was.” Alison agreed with the painful fact like she was telling Camille the time.
“Well, we’ve all been there,” said Prisha quickly. Hope could have hugged her.
“Oh, really? ” She smiled at her gorgeous friend, knowing full well Prisha had done nothing but gather glowing commendations since the instant she’d entered med school. Prisha’s dark eyes sparkled and she tucked back a lock of silky black hair.
“In year eleven I was fired from my job at my local frozen yoghurt bar,” Prisha announced. “For serving my friends for free. Would you believe that’s technically classed as theft? ”
Hope actually giggled as the tension broke. Even Camille looked softened, her eyes on her housemate’s face.
“Since when are you such a rebel, Preesh?”
Prisha looked over at her, her eyes going serious as she focussed on Camille’s teasing face .
“I’m actually,” she paused, “incredibly dark and mysterious.”
Everyone in the room chuckled, even Alison, who’d known her less than an hour. Prisha sighed.
“You don’t know me,” she warned them all, shaking her head like they were fools. Magnus wrapped his arm around her shoulder.
“You’re terrifying and very bad,” he reassured her gently. Prisha looked at him gratefully.
“You forgot to add wildly sexy to that,” she complained.
“No one could miss that,” Camille said fondly. Prisha’s eyes blew wide for the space of a heartbeat. Then she got abruptly to her feet and started collecting everyone’s plates and ferrying them into the kitchen. Everyone sprang into action to clear up. Hope dragged herself up to help and to her surprise, Alison joined her.
“You don’t have to-” Hope protested.
“Yet again,” Alison murmured, “I’m surprisingly capable.”
“I don’t have a dishwasher,” Hope warned her, as they navigated around each other in the small space, both placing plates on the sink with noted care not to touch each other .
“That’s barbaric,” Alison’s jaw dropped. “Why ever not? Some kind of moral disinclination I could never comprehend?”
“No.” Hope rolled her eyes. “My landlord apparently didn’t deem it necessary.” Alison was silent for a beat and Hope nearly laughed. “You’ve heard of renting, right?”
“I once rented a chalet, ” Alison returned and Hope elbowed her out of the way as she began to run the sink.
“Let me.” Alison used her hip to nudge her sideways, making Hope nearly bite through her tongue. “You should dry since I don’t know where anything goes,” Alison explained. Hope leaned one hand on the benchtop and observed her movements.
“The dish soap goes in with the hot water,” she instructed slowly, “then you use the little scrubby thing to clean the plates.”
Alison turned her whole body to look at her. She tucked one long lock of hair behind her shoulder, then leaned in close and spoke softly.
“ Fuck. Off.”
Hope decided to believe that the full body flush that came over her at that could be explained by the laughter that spilled from her, or the wine, or the heat in her small house from the fire, or anything other than Alison whispering profanities to her with eyes blazing with both annoyance and amusement.
Hope picked up a tea towel and the two of them took their time cleaning the kitchen while her friends floated in and out. She got a little giddier every time she glanced at Alison in her black designer top, her heels, and Hope’s bright yellow dishwashing gloves.
“You two squabble like an old married couple,” Camille informed them ten minutes later with an arched eyebrow as she slid their dessert into the oven. Hope tried not to flush. Camille seemed intent on making things uncomfortable this evening. She remembered her friend’s clear misery as they’d hung out earlier and tried to give her some grace.
She wasn’t the only one. She saw Flynn quietly reach out for Camille’s hand as she left the kitchen and pull her firmly into his chest for a hug, dropping a kiss on the top of her head and murmuring something into her ear that made her shoulders sag. Hope felt herself relax. Her friends were all so in tune with each other and it made her feel deeply and ridiculously safe.