Episode 2
Ellisandre
“My lady?” Ellisandre set their bag on the chair just inside Linda Reevesworth’s condo door.
Linda was nowhere in sight, but the shower ran in the distance.
What sounded like a kids’ movie was playing in the guest room that had been recently renovated into young Dana’s personal space.
Children. Perhaps they were inevitable. Alice’s voice came through the door, commenting on the show—the nineteen-year-old who had rescued and was now Dana’s primary attachment figure—so Dana was well occupied and watched.
Ellisandre meandered towards the sound of the running shower in Linda’s room.
They pushed open the door to the master suite.
Linda’s suit from the previous day lay over the back of the fainting couch.
The covers of the bed were rumpled and pulled back.
Shoes were scattered across the floor where Linda had kicked them off.
Two of her briefcases and three of her purses were grouped together by the desk.
Six sets of nearly identical eyeshadow pallets, all in muted neutrals, displayed themselves like sunbathers across the vanity.
Ellisandre sighed. They started on the bed first, straightening the sheets and pulling up the duvet.
The shoes went back into the massive walk-in closet and the suit on a hanger, ready to be sent to the dry cleaners.
They sorted through the makeup, tossing a broken brush in the trash and making a note to have it replaced.
The drawer for eye shadow pallets was full.
Ellisandre checked for duplicates, finding two and an old pallet that had been opened but never truly used.
Perhaps Alice could use them. Come to think of it, a few of Linda’s old suits could be tailored down a few sizes to fit the teenager.
Room set mostly to rights, except for the purses and briefcases, Ellisandre let themselves into the bathroom.
The room was full of steam. Linda was dancing by herself under the shower.
The glass garbled the details of her bare body beneath the water, but there was no hiding her movements, the way her hands waved above her head and her hips swayed back and forth.
Snatches of song came through the spray at intervals.
Ellisandre crossed their arms and watched for a moment.
For all that Linda was forty-one, in private she was still a child.
Or perhaps it was better said that she’d finally allowed herself to start being a child. In private. In stolen moments. Once she’d given up being anyone’s woman.
Ellisandre chose a towel from the rods on the wall and set it on the warmer, turning up the temperature to hurry it along.
The counter around the sinks were in the same state the bedroom had been. A few moments of organizing cleared the flat spaces and returned serums, lotions, and brushes to their places. Empty face mask packets went into the rubbish bin. The water turned off and the shower door opened.
Ellisandre reached for the warmed towel.
“Elli.” Linda stopped in the entrance to the shower, water running in trails over the swell of her chest, down her belly and over her hips.
Perfect, unblemished skin. It hadn’t always been that way. But whatever marks had been left were now gone. None of them had lasted, not like Sevastyan’s.
“Elli?”
Ellisandre dragged themselves away from contemplating Linda’s soft, protected surface. “Your towel, my lady.”
Linda took the towel from Ellisandre’s hand. “You didn’t have to clean up.”
Elli raised an eyebrow.
Linda’s shoulders slumped. “I was getting to it.”
Ellisandre narrowed their eyes.
Linda wrapped the towel around her torso like it could protect her from any accusations. “I was.”
“You were getting to it next year. Which is saying something. This year is three days old.”
Linda snorted. “Baby year.”
“The infants are out there.” Ellisandre tilted their head in the direction of Dana and Alice.
“They’re fed.”
“Alice fed all of you. With takeout.”
Linda fluttered her eyes. “I paid for it.”
Ellisandre shook their head, a reluctant smile tugging at the side of their mouth. “You were going through spreadsheets again.”
“Maybe.” Linda started drying off. “The partnership in Indianapolis is looking promising. Oh, and I wrote my speech for next month. It’s shared.”
“I’ll check it.” Ellisandre took the towel back from Linda and hung it up.
Linda wandered into the bedroom and flung herself down on the bed, then shivered.
Ellisandre followed and tossed Linda’s favorite fuzzy bathrobe at her.
Linda grinned and wrapped herself in it.
“I really like the numbers. And the diversity is solid, good mix of different venues. It meets all our requirements. And with Richard putting in the train line, we should exceed the required profit margins.”
“And you think the artist mockups are pretty.”
Linda giggled. “They are pretty. I’m going to make them plant cherry blossom trees down the center concourse. Then we can add a local cherry blossom festival. We’ll put them right inside the upper porches for the cafes.
Ellisandre sat on the edge of the bed and took one of Linda’s feet in their hand, digging their thumb into the arch of Linda’s foot where the tension always gathered after hours in her heels.
Linda rolled onto her back and groaned. “How did you know?”
Ellisandre snorted, delicately. After all their years together, there was little about Linda they did not know.
And many things that Linda did not know concerning them.
It was better this way. Linda was their bright and shining object, the glow that lit up the endless night, a reminder of why wars were fought and blood was shed: so that someone else, somewhere else, would not need to bleed.
Linda’s world wasn’t a fantasy, but it was a portal space in a darker hellscape. She was generous with it, letting Ellisandre run in her world with a smile and a laugh.
And whoever took that laugh or that smile from her disappeared. If not from the world entirely, then from her orbit.
Linda was watching them, sighing now and then as Ellisandre worked the tension from her arches, but she was distracted by something. She wasn’t melting into her mattress the way a foot massage usually dropped her.
“You’re different,” Linda said. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
Linda snorted, a good imitation of Ellisandre’s own form of dismissal.
Ellisandre’s lips twitched. They shot Linda a mock glare. Linda pulled on her foot, sitting up. The bathrobe gaped open. “Spill.”
“No.” Ellisandre retrieved Linda’s foot and continued their work.
Linda crossed her arms. “Is it something to do with Damian’s person?”
Ellisandre narrowed their eyes and gave Linda a stern look. “Wouldn’t Richard tell you that?”
Linda dropped back on the bed. “You know things before he does, sometimes.”
Ellisandre chuckled. “Richard isn’t me.”
“No, you’re the enigma. All knowing. All seeing. All judging.”
Ellisandre grabbed Linda’s other ankle and jerked her down on the bed, then stood, and started maneuvering her under the sheets. “You’re talking like you’re five. That means you need sleep.”
She wasn’t, really, but it was a common enough accusation between them.
Linda glowered, not struggling as Ellisandre tucked her in, bathrobe and all. “Still not an answer.”
Ellisandre threw themselves down on top of the covers beside Linda and took her hand. Beautiful hands. They petted the back, letting Linda grab onto their fingers. “And you’re being childish.”
“I know.” Linda looked down at their hands tangled together.
“Seeing Damian with someone makes me feel old. I think . . . this is it for me. You. Alice. Dana. Richard’s men.
I spent all these years building things and trying and now .
. .” Linda sighed, looking for a moment all of her forty-one years.
“I keep telling myself it’s a good life.
That you’ll never leave. But what if you do?
What if you have to? Who’s going to stay? ”
Ellisandre squeezed Linda’s hand. “Everything you’ve built. All the lives you’ve helped. Everything you know and you’ve done. That stays. Even if I’m dead and gone.”
Linda studied their conjoined hands. “Usually you tell me something like I’m being foolish. That was a real answer.”
Ellisandre squeezed Linda’s palm in their fingers. “You’re only forty-one. And not a single cat in sight.”
“You are the cat.” Linda poked Ellisandre’s shoulder with her free hand. “That’s why I don’t have any other cats. You take up all the cat space there is.”
Ellisandre purred in the back of their throat, enjoying Linda’s mock rage.
“Seriously, though, Elli. You’re the only relationship I’ve managed to keep, other than my brother. And that doesn’t count. Not like . . . not like that.”
Ellisandre squeezed Linda’s hand again. Linda’s taste in men was certifiably terrible. Fortunately, getting rid of them was usually easy. At least for Ellisandre.
Sevastyan