Chapter 12 December - Audrey, Jameson & Vi （Neve’s Birthday Party）
DECEMBER: AUDREY, JAMESON & VI (NEVE’S BIRTHDAY PARTY)
“Why are there so many of them?”
“The better question, Walker, is do we even dare to read what is written on the bulbs, because I only peeked at one and I think I’ll never be the same.” Vi closed her eyes theatrically and waved her hands in front of her face.
“Oh?” Jamie reached for the first bulb. “I can’t quite make it out. First letter is F, then I can’t tell what follows. Then the last STING. F? STING?”
Jamie dropped the string as if scorched. Vi laughed. Audrey glowered.
“Can we please get to the task at hand?” She cringed inwardly at her own choice of words.
“I mean, you sure got to the task at hand in January, girl.” Vi’s laughter was louder now, infectious and the three of them dissolved into a fit of giggles.
“Listen, back in January when I came up with this idea, I had no clue the lot of you would be at my house helping me re-do the porch lights.” Audrey juggled the string and the hammer in her hands, trying not to fall off the ladder.
“Why are we redoing them anyway? What was wrong with them, the awful penmanship notwithstanding, though I also have to commend it because my eyes couldn’t have survived reading the entirety of that particular F word.
” Jamie held on to the ladder and reached for the lengthy string now coiled on the floor of the porch.
“Because we made more than are currently on display, and I wanted to surprise Neve by having all of them up and lit. It’s her birthday, after all.”
Vi shrugged and helped untangle some of the bulbs.
“What I appreciate most about this is that we are all tacitly aware that every year we come to Malibu for December 25th and it’s never for Christmas.”
Audrey smiled.
“It’s tough to share a birthday with Neve Blackthorne, I admit. Even Jesus struggles with competition like that.”
Laughter rang out again, and Audrey hugged the hammer to her chest. Her mostly introverted self rarely appreciated being surrounded by people, having every room in their house full of noise and crowds, but this one week a year?
These people? She looked forward to the holiday all year.
Very soon, the doorbell would ring again, and it would be Livia, or Secretary Nox and Sam.
People she loved, people she cared about, her people.
She felt her eyes well up, and Jamie’s arms were immediately on her legs, holding her up with Vi dumping the lights and now being the one propping up the ladder.
“Hey, hey, hey! I swear I didn’t mean to judge your sexual proclivities, Avens! Like, I don’t care. Fisting might not be my thing, but I get the logic behind it, the full possession of someone, the complete surrender, the—”
“Absolutely not listening to this!” Vi shook her head but did not let go of the ladder.
“A, you need to stop her from talking and tell us why you are crying, so we can move on past you railing Blackthorne. I have a photoshoot with her next month, and I absolutely do not need all these images in my head!”
Audrey sniffed.
“Actually, she was the one who was railing—”
“OH MY GOD! Why are you doing this to me?”
Still holding on to the ladder, Vi squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head more vigorously. Jamie smirked.
“Well, well, well, and here I took you for a top.”
Audrey felt a bubble of uncontrollable laughter work itself up her throat and wondered whether she should perhaps get down before she fell and broke her neck. Neve would not approve.
“You didn’t take me for anything, Walker. And you, Courtenay, that sink in the second floor bathroom is still crooked from where you were doing whatever it was you were doing with Chiara. Or should I just say from when you were doing Chiara?”
Vi had the decency to stop shaking her head and look sheepish.
“And you, Walker. Should I remind you why you and Vivian are no longer accepted at the whatsit restaurant in Soho? Because I can. You were so damn loud, the entire front of house heard you. I bet both of you marked those occasions with light bulbs.”
Jamie and Vi exchanged a look, then shrugged in unison. In the ensuing silence, the ocean waves crashed against the rocks surrounding Neve’s private beach. Audrey lifted her chin and finally got down from the ladder.
“You know, to anyone on the outside it might seem that all the damn light bulbs are sex-related, which I am not judging…”
Vi said and took a sip of her now warm beer, making a face.
“Nothing wrong with that. But this one here,” Audrey reached for a small green light, winking merrily at her, “this one is for Neve recovering from her surgery. She was cranky and tired and bored and not allowed to do much, and I loved every single second of her being in that bed upstairs, cursing and complaining. I was so scared through the entire procedure and recovery, I’d have given my arm to have her safe and home and bitching about Armand visiting her drenched in that stinky cologne of his.
Or him breathing too loudly. Or Sheppard chewing too noisily. ”
“I sense a pattern there.” Vi smiled, and they stood in companionable silence now, watching the ocean, the strings of light scattered all over the porch boards.
“But she recovered, and you clearly made many more of those sex bulbs.” Jamie guffawed, and Audrey leaned into her, arm wrapping around shaking shoulders.
“Walker, you really shouldn’t be the one talking.”
“I really shouldn’t, but honestly, this year has fucking sucked.
Like, bone-deep suckitude. I can’t describe it.
Every December we make these wishes and resolutions and have these plans and these hopes…
And sure as sunrise, the new year comes and wrecks them all to smithereens.
But nothing hit quite like this one. It was just a slap after another, then an uppercut, then a straight gut punch. ”
Vi sighed next to them and set her now empty bottle down.
“I am in a constant battle between wanting to be informed and wanting to stay sane. Chiara has days of watching every piece of news and then not touching the TV at all. I remember the good ole days of her having it on in the workshop in the background. If she has it on now, all she does is ruin fabric and yell. Even Brioche doesn’t come into a room with a TV anymore. ”
“Smart cat. And I can’t blame you.” Jamie shuddered, jostling Audrey’s head on her shoulder.
“Avens here, and I were planning on a series of podcasts, and we keep getting stumped by the sheer immensity of the injustices that require attention and spotlight shed on them. The daily deluge of new disasters, new abject cruelties is relentless. So we keep jumping from one thing to the next to the next, and in the end, we still have not decided.”
“Maybe you should do something uplifting for once. Sorry, I couldn’t listen to your last one about humanitarian aid being cut off.
I cried my eyes out on the very first episode, and that was it for me.
” Vi balled her hands and looked resolutely into the distance.
Audrey could tell she was fighting tears.
“Maybe. Maybe we should, Goddess knows there have been plenty of small and big acts of humanity that shone through even when everything tried to dim their light. What do you say, Walker?”
“As long as it will keep all of you from talking about sex bulbs, I’m game.”
“What sex bulbs?” Neve stepped onto the porch, and Audrey felt her heart lift. Resplendent in a forest green knitted dress, Chiara’s latest creation, Neve Blackthorne was breathtaking. Moving with the grace of a panther, Neve simply lifted an eyebrow at the mess of lights on the floor.
“I’d rather eat them than talk about them, Neve.” Vi sidestepped the newcomer carefully before offering her a cold beer from the cooler in the corner. Neve accepted with a magnanimous nod, her long throat working as she took the first sip, and Audrey felt suddenly hot under the collar.
“I’d say that is smart, all things considered, Courtney. That photoshoot and all that, just the two of us and all that time for me to ask you about—”
“Absolutely not. We are definitely not talking about any of the things I might’ve read on some fucking bulbs.” Vi threw her hands up in the air just as Chiara waltzed onto the porch.
“Cara, fucking bulbs? Whatever are you all discussing?” She gave Vi a gentle peck on the cheek and looked around questioningly. Audrey could see the sneaky twinkle in her eyes.
“The last thing we need right now is DeVor coming in questioning…” Vi trailed off as Vivian made her entrance. Jamie smacked herself on the forehead.
“Were you all just standing on the other side of the wall listening to us discuss world matters?”
“World matters? All I heard was fisting and how Audrey is not a top, darling.” Vivian patted Jamie’s now crimson cheek and accepted a bottle from Vi, who was trying desperately to avoid her eyes.
“I am very much a top!” Audrey felt compelled to speak up, then realized what she had been goaded into saying and shut her mouth with a snap of her teeth.
“Sure you are, darling. And now that this matter has been cleared up and since there is nowhere to go from here but the gutter, I propose a change of subject.” Neve squeezed Audrey’s fingers, her voice warm.
“And here I thought we would get to the bottom of things.” Vivian’s smile was positively evil.
“If this is some twisted anal joke—” Vi’s tone was horrified.
“Cara, nothing twisted about anal. I mean, you of all people…” Chiara trailed off, and Vi’s face paled.
“Honestly, I absolutely refuse to believe you talk like this when it’s just you three together!” Jamie gestured to Neve, Vivian and Chiara.
Vivian smirked. “Well, I guess you will never know, unless that biographer of ours writes a book about it, because we aren’t saying.” Neve joined in the smirking, and Chiara sighed contentedly before speaking.
“Jokes aside, I am so happy to be here with all of you. With this family we have made together. It’s rare, and it’s precious, and it gives us these opportunities to tease you.”
“Oh yes, I love that my birthday is being used to make Walker and Courtenay stand around avoiding my eyes.” Neve took another sip of her beer and grimaced. “Why am I drinking this swill? All the whiskey in this house.” She shook her head and handed Audrey her half-finished bottle.
“Ah, now this is love.” Audrey winked and blew her wife a kiss.
“Of course it is. This and tolerating being the subject matter of your bickering with your friends. And accepting Livia Sabran-McMillan in my house for holidays when I know I will be the butt of all her jokes. She’s going to be late, she texted, something about meeting someone. You know how she is.”
“Oh, I do. She meets people three times a day and twice for dinner. Is it a special someone?” Audrey questioned.
“No clue. Is anyone truly special to her? I don’t know why we keep letting her into our home.”
“You love her, Blackthorne. You love us all, don’t even pretend. You have friends now, isn’t that a wonder?”
Audrey watched as, instead of snapping at Vivian, Neve simply smiled, a warm, gentle smile of a content person. It made her heart beat faster.
“No wonder, some of you are funny, I guess.” They laughed, waking Sheppard, who was dozing in the sand a few feet away. The elderly dog barked, shook himself off before settling down closer, his eyes full of adoration.
After a few good minutes of silence where the only sound was the ocean battling the shore, Vivian’s voice broke the detente. “I hope next year is gentler. I don’t even want anything. I just want it to be gentler. Just a little bit. Is that too much to ask?”
Neve patted her on the shoulder. “No, not too much. But also, I appreciate how you started that sentence. I think that’s really all I have for next year. Hope.”
Audrey came closer to her wife, wrapping an arm around her waist.
“That’s all I want too. Hope. And no, that’s not too much. We made it this far. And the only way is through. So as long as we have hope, we will be standing here next December, with more lights, and more people on their way to celebrate the holiday.”
“Oh yes, that’s what we need in this house. More people.” Neve made a face, and everyone laughed again.
“Well, you never know who Sabran-McMillan might drag in with her. And honestly, as long as she doesn’t bring her string of bulbs, which I know are exclusively sex ones, I’m good.”
Audrey shuddered theatrically at Vi’s words, and Sheppard barked again.
“Jokes aside,” Neve plucked the bottle from Audrey’s fingers and lifted it in a toast. “I am grateful you are all here, and I am grateful we made it through this wretched year. And I hope… I hope. That’s all I got for the next twelve months.
” Bottles and glasses were lifted, and Audrey felt tears sting her eyes yet again, but these were warm ones, ones of togetherness, of gratitude.
For her wife, for these women, for the ones running late, for Harlan playing video games in his room, for the dog digging a hole in the sand, for the community that always came together, no matter how many blows it was dealt.
They were here, and they weren’t going anywhere. Not now, not next year, not ever.