32. Noa
NOA
Aarti hasn’t taken a single one of my calls the past two days.
I can’t say I’m shocked. Whether it’s crisis management in her own head or with the actual network, or maybe both…
I feel ill-equipped to know what I can do right now to help her.
Despite my helplessness, all I want right now is to talk to Aarti, for us to find some reassurance in each other.
Instead, I’m sitting on the couch in Aiden’s living room, where I also slept last night, absentmindedly coloring in a picture of Anna Delvey in his Vibrant Scammers coloring book.
“Stop moping and get in the car,” Aiden commands, jangling his keys. “We’re going on an adventure.”
“I’m not moping.”
“You’re positively catatonic.” He grabs my arm. “Come on. Felix gave me the all-clear to scavenge his property. I need your muscles.”
Forty minutes later, we’re winding through Topanga Canyon in Aiden’s ancient van, windows down, the smell of sage and sun-baked earth filling the car. The recent fires left their mark here–blackened tree skeletons reaching their arms toward the sky, the underbrush eerily sparse.
“Here,” Aiden says, pulling off onto a dirt road. “We can take anything from the back acre.”
We park and he hands me work gloves. The property stretches before us, a patchwork of devastation and new growth. Tiny green shoots push through ash-darkened soil, nature’s stubborn insistence on renewal.
“What exactly are we looking for?” I ask, following him.
“Burnt wood.” He kneels beside a twisted piece of manzanita, running his fingers along its charred curves. “I’m making wind chimes for my next group show. Destruction Sounds. Repurposed objects damaged by fire.”
Of course, in my deepest moment of despair, my twin brings me here to do physical labor.
We work in companionable silence for a while, filling his canvas bags with meticulously selected pieces.
“So,” Aiden says eventually, because he can never let me process in peace. “You want to talk about your pattern?”
“What pattern?”
He gives me a look. “Noa, you’ve been prematurely putting your entire, beautiful heart in undeserving partners’ hands since freshman year of college. Remember Tandy? You were already rearranging your schedule to accommodate her pre-med courses during orientation .”
“She was gonna be really busy! It would’ve been hard to see each other–”
“And Aaron? You pet-sat his ferret for literal months after only a week of dating.”
“It was only one month. Plus Roger Ferreter was cute!”
“He ate my earbuds!” He picks up a piece of blackened oak, examining it. “And what about Carrie?”
I sigh.
“You let her borrow your car for ages when hers broke down– while she was still dating someone else .”
“I was biking a lot back then! My car was just sitting there… also I didn’t know she was dating that guy until later.”
Aiden fixes me with a capital-L Look.
I chuck a piece of wood into the bag harder than necessary. “Okay, so I have a tendency to give my all. Is that a bad thing?”
“Yes. And you’re doing it again.” He straightens, fixing me with his knowing twin-stare. “Giving Aarti your whole heart before you even know if she can hold it.”
“I know that,” I protest, kicking at a stump. “I’m trying to protect my heart here. But also…” I trail off, then force myself to continue. “How am I supposed to live my life if I don’t let myself try to love?”
Aiden freezes mid-reach for a twisted branch. “ Love ?”
“I mean, the possibility of it.” I can feel my face heating. “I don’t know.”
“Oh, god.” He drops the branch entirely. “You’re so far gone.”
“Shut up.”
“No, seriously. Love? We’re talking about love now?” He’s way more upset than he was about the Roger Ferreter incident. “With the closeted comedian who’s currently ghosting you because a supermodel and a bunch of internet forums implied you’re gay together?”
“When you put it like that–”
“It sounds insane? Because it is?” But his voice is gentler now. “Nono, I don’t want to see you get hurt again.”
“I can take care of myself, Aid, promise.”
He’s quiet for a little while, a rarity for Aiden. Then he says: “You have endless empathy for others, but when it comes to standing up for what you deserve, you’re willing to compromise every time.”
His words pierce me somewhere deep and uncomfortable and raw. I can’t tell whether the lump in my throat is impending nausea or tears, but I manage to swallow it down either way.
“Let’s just find these sticks, okay?” I manage.
He doesn’t press me further.
We continue collecting wood until the long shadows of the afternoon sun stretch into an early canyon dusk.
By the time we load everything into his car, I’m covered in ash and my heart feels just as charred.
Back at Aiden’s place, he drops the wood in his studio before emerging with an armful of clothes.
“Come on,” he says. “We’re going out. Velvet Tongue, dancing, forgetting about complicated women for a few hours.”
“Aiden, I don’t think–”
“Nope. No thinking. Only sequins.” He holds up a sparkly corset I’m pretty sure he’s worn for a drag night or twelve, then rummages around and pulls out a maroon leather skirt. “Trust your big brother.”
“We are literally twins.”
“But I have so much more testosterone. Chop, chop.”
I let him dress me up because resistance is futile when Aiden’s in caretaker mode. He finishes my eye makeup–bi pride colors blended to the gods–and we’re headed out the door when he throws his hands up in exasperation.
“Fuck!” he screeches.
“What happened?”
“ You happened, my darling devil of a sister. You stole my Polaroid camera!”
I furrow my brow. “I didn’t even know you had a Polaroid camera.”
“Whatever, I left it at your place weeks ago. We gotta grab it on the way. I told Danya I’d snap cool pics for her Soundcloud profile.”
On the drive to mine, Aiden chatters away about Danya’s set tonight and the who’s who of attendees.
My mind strays to Aarti. How she’s doing.
What she’s feeling. Does she cry over stuff like this?
Or does she not let it crack her tough exterior?
Maybe she’s just doing damage control and I’m last on the need-to-know list. Which would be a really big bummer considering we’re partners in all of this… Partners.
Barf.
Needless to say, my mind is somewhere else entirely, and I don’t know how I’m going to even slightly enjoy myself when my stomach is churning harder than the twenty-quart industrial gelato maker at work.
“Spiral, much?” Aiden whips me out of my– fine– spiral.
“Let’s just get your friggin’ camera,” I say, stepping out of the car.
Aiden stops me dead in my tracks. I look down at his arm, halting me from walking any further. And then I look up.
Aarti stands on my apartment doorstep on the second floor, hand raised, about to knock. She looks exhausted–hair messy, no makeup, donning athleisure for possibly the first time in her life.
“Hey,” Aiden calls after a beat, entirely too casual for the circumstances.
Aarti spins around, leaning over the railing to wave awkwardly down at us. “Hi.”
Aiden glances between us. “I’ll, uh, see you later maybe.” He squeezes my shoulder as he gets back in his car. “Or not. Whatever.”
And then it’s just us. Me, standing on the dirty curb. Her, waiting by my front door.
Move your legs, ding dong!
I snap myself out of it and bound up the stairs to Aarti.
“Hi,” I greet her, fumbling with my keys.
“Hi,” she repeats.
I open the door. She walks in slowly, like she’s not sure she’s welcome. She doesn’t speak for a long moment, just stands in the living room looking lost.
I lean against the far wall, unsure of what I’m meant to do.
“This is my place,” I say, nervous. “Wait, how did you know my address?”
“Madge knows everything about everyone,” she sighs. “Producers.”
I nod, fighting every instinct to fill the silence.
But she breaks it. “Madge knows about me.”
I look at her in shock. “ Knows knows?”
Aarti nods. “I owe you an apology. Apologies, plural. I’ve been completely freaking out–”
“You don’t say,” I quip, instantly regretting my glibness. I can’t help trying to lighten the mood, anything to turn Aarti’s brightness up a notch. Thankfully she doesn’t seem bothered by my attempt.
“Madge doesn’t think things are as bad as they feel in here.” She taps her head. “Apparently Gretchen hasn’t said a word.”
I try to decipher the disparity between what she’s saying and the downtroddenness of her demeanor. “That’s… all of that is good, right?”
Aarti shrugs. “I guess it is. I don’t even know what I’m doing here. We live to see another day, but in the long run, I’m ruining your life, dragging you into this horrible fishbowl of secrecy and lies and hiding–”
I cross the room in three strides and silence her with a kiss. Not gentle, not tentative.
She makes a surprised sound against my mouth, then melts into me.
“You can drag me anywhere you please,” I murmur against her lips. “I insist.”