chapter fifteen
After Nick left, Laurie went into that larger bedroom she’d rented out ever since she first came to San Francisco. She’d signed the place for those East-facing windows that let in what little there was of the city’s sunlight, but she’d never lived there herself.
She ought to rent it out again, but she couldn’t. Something in her resisted sharing that beautiful, sunlit room. A desperate need for space, maybe, or for clear edges around her.
She moved her easel and all her art supplies into the large room, converting it into an art studio. Why shouldn’t she have this? With what the Darling paid her, she could cover the rent herself if she was careful, or she could rent out her own, smaller, room.
One month . Just one month to myself, then I’ll see.
· · ·
There was a message from Mal on her phone: Can you give me a range? Are we talking weeks, months, or was that your polite way of saying never?
Mal was still busy untangling Tara’s situation, but she’d asked when they could talk, and Laurie had asked her to give her some time. She’d heard from the rumor mill at the office that Mal was doing well, that something had made her more focused than ever, and she was in line for another promotion. Only Laurie knew that meant Mal wasn’t doing well at all. Sometimes, in the chat window they had open, she’d see Mal typing a message, the three dots dancing enticingly at the bottom for several minutes before going still.
Weeks, I think. Not years, she typed . Definitely not never.
Thank you. If you need anything, just ask.
Same to you. Keep me posted about Tara.
A few days later, Laurie went to see her in juvenile court. Together, Mal and Laurie stood behind Tara, who trembled in front of the judge but bravely admitted her guilt and apologized.
“It was my first time drinking,” Tara said, “and I didn’t know I was drunk. I thought I was fine because I’d only had one glass. I didn’t know that vodka was that strong. But I shouldn’t have been drinking at all, and I shouldn’t have been driving afterwards. I’m sorry, and it’ll never happen again.”
She accepted her sentence of four years of misdemeanor probation with a stoic nod, and insisted on paying the fine of one thousand five hundred dollars out of her own work-study earnings.
“Proud of you,” Mal said.
Tara nodded, and her eyes flitted uncertainly to her mother. “Mom.”
Aditi was ashen, as if she were committing a crime simply by being in a courtroom. She turned to the lawyer. “You said she’d get jail time.”
“I needed to prepare you for it,” he said. “Most kids get jail time. But most kids aren’t as articulate or as obviously contrite as your daughter.”
Aditi nodded, then convulsed into sobs, as she finally allowed relief to soften her.
“ Mom !” Tara cried, embarrassed.
“Let’s go home,” Mal said.
Laurie nudged her and whispered, “Empathy, Mal. Empathy.”
Mal looked at her and followed her gaze to Aditi. For a moment she looked confused, then she gave her sister an awkward hug. Aditi leaned into it gratefully.
“Okay, now let’s go home.”
“Can we eat something first?” Tara asked. “I haven’t eaten all day, I was so nervous. I didn’t want to throw up in front of the judge.”
“Of course,” Mal said. “My treat.”
“Laurie, will you please join us?” Aditi asked, wiping her eyes.
Laurie was too surprised that the request was coming from her rather than from Mal or Tara to refuse it. They went to Dosa on Valencia, where they ordered comfort carbs in every variety, eating as if they hadn’t for weeks.
“I wanted to apologize for my mother,” Aditi said to Laurie. “For all of us.”
“It was a stressful time for you,” she said.
“I’d like to believe that who I was that day isn’t who I am, not really,” Aditi said, “but neither stress nor alcohol turns you into a different person. It just brings out the worst.”
“Really, it’s all right.”
“No, it isn’t,” Aditi said. She blinked away tears and gestured at Tara. “I can’t watch my daughter accept responsibility for her actions and not do the same myself. You’re the one Tara called when she needed help. You earned her trust where I’d failed her.”
Tara and Laurie both looked down at their plates. Laurie was glad of the interruption of the waiter asking about desserts.
“Mahesh…” Aditi swallowed. “It’ll take him some time. He’s too proud.”
“He just can’t stand having a juvenile delinquent for a daughter,” Tara muttered.
Laurie must have looked confused, because Mal explained, “He’s cutting Tara off.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Aditi said, patting Tara’s hand. “Our mother got cut off too, because hers was a love marriage at a time when that wasn’t done. But as soon as Ashwin was born, she got welcomed back with open arms.”
“Great, all I need to do to earn my father’s supposedly unconditional love is to have a boy child?” Tara asked. “Amazing. Dad of the year.”
They ordered dessert, found the few empty places left inside themselves to fill up with, and left the restaurant. Tara was still staying with Mal, so Aditi was going to spend some time there before heading home. Tara took Laurie aside for a few minutes and hugged her close.
“No matter what, you can always call me,” Laurie said.
Tara gave her a knowing look. “Whatever’s going on with you and my aunt, don’t let her off the hook too easily. Sometimes she just needs to be told where to jump, and she’ll take a leap of faith.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, half the reason my mother’s so mad at her is that she was always allowed to do homework rather than housework. Oh, brilliant, genius Mal, fluent in three languages, doing trigonometry since she was eight, she’s too much in her own world to bother with us mere mortals. Why make her clean up her own messes or do her own laundry? I’m telling you, she can change. She’s just never been asked to.”
“You think I’m angry with her?”
“You kicked her out of the house, didn’t you?”
“Tara!” Mal called. “Are you coming?”
“Just a minute!” Tara turned back to her, looking surprised. “Laurie, I live with her. She’s a fucking mess. She thinks I don’t notice when she’s staring off into space looking like a kicked puppy. Whatever she did, you have to let her know so she can apologize.”
Laurie was too stunned to answer, and Tara left to join her family. She wanted to talk to Ariel, but when she started to explain the situation over the phone, Ariel said, “Hold up. I’m not nearly sauced enough for this conversation, and besides, who talks over the phone these days? Get your ass in gear and meet me at The Café.”
Laurie hesitated.
“Tell me you know The Café, and you didn’t think I meant a coffee shop,” Ariel groaned.
“I’ve been there before,” she said archly.
“Have you now? I want that story first.”
She wore the Armani Exchange sequined coral dress she’d found at the Buffalo Exchange for five dollars, and took the MUNI over to the Castro. At once the thumpa thumpa of the dance clubs and gyms reverberated around her, and the rainbow flags that had greeted her when she first got to San Francisco electrified and pumped her heart, boosting her courage if not her mood.
Ariel shuffled from one heeled foot to another at the entrance to The Café. She was wearing fake eyelashes that seemed to curve right up into her eyebrows and bright turquoise eye-shadow. In her iridescent dress she seemed almost like a mermaid. They climbed up the stairs to the dance floor. Within minutes they each had a gin and tonic and found a seat at the edge.
“So, you’ve been here before?”
“Yes, before the remodel.”
“Ahh,” Ariel said knowingly, sipping at her drink. Waiting for Laurie to say it. The Café had been taken over by gay men, but had started out as a lesbian club.
“Fine, I was here on a date with a woman.”
Ariel smacked her lips, miraculously leaving their glittered shine intact. “Tell Ariel everything .”
“It was mortifying. We met at Ritual, or rather she saw me at Ritual and asked me out and I was too shell-shocked to say no. I mean, I’d only been looking at her because she’d been looking at me, but she thought I was checking her out and—stop laughing!”
“You’re such a disaster,” Ariel said. “Go on.”
“Anyway, she insisted on driving me here, and it’s only a ten-minute drive, but we made it in six. She raced up and down the hills to make the timed lights. I was nearly sick by the time we got here, and I’m fairly sure the wheels left the ground once. Then she brought me here and ordered a whisky sour for me, even though I told her I can’t stand the smell. It makes me sneeze.”
Ariel shook her head. “If you wanted to date a man in a woman’s body—”
“Yes! Exactly! That’s what it was! Anyway, we drank and talked, just as you and I are doing now. Then she grabbed my hand and started pulling me towards the dance floor. I said I needed to pee first, and…”
Ariel waited expectantly, then her jaw dropped. “You panicked.”
“I panicked.”
“No, you didn’t. Tell me you didn’t just cut and run and then ghost her.”
“I didn’t stop running until I got to Tartine.”
“ Laurie .”
“I know,” she sighed. “I know . I’m a terrible, awful person.”
“You really are.”
“I cheated on Nick, twice over if you consider not telling him about Sophia, and I’m the reason Mal’s now spiraling out of control.”
“Wow.”
“I know.”
“No, wow, as in, most people are wondering if they dare disturb the universe, and here you’re convinced you’re some sort of Casanova, wrecking people’s lives willy-nilly, as if they’re not grown-ass people making their own decisions.”
Laurie looked up at her, confused.
“Let’s dance,” Ariel said. “Before you decide to pee again.”
Laurie followed her to the dance floor, where go-go boys danced with their groins at eye-level, folded twenty-dollar bills lacing their thongs.
“I chose the wrong profession,” Laurie said ruefully.
“Add that to your list of crimes.”
“So what do I do?”
“What do you want from Mal? A declaration?”
She cringed. If Mal said she loved her, would she even believe it?
“What then?”
She tried to answer after another drink, when she was giggling over nothing and far too buzzed to care. Still, it didn’t feel wholly right. “I want her to see me the way I see her. She’s so annoying . Every day is a surprise. It’s been five… no, six? At least five years. And I can’t stop thinking about her. I want—”
“To annoy her just as much?” Ariel asked, smirking.
“Yes! Why can’t I be annoying? I’m like a pillow.” She flapped her hands, searching for the word. “If I’m not careful I get smashed by other people.”
“Well, you’re certainly smashed now. Let’s get you home.”
They stumbled back towards Laurie’s apartment on foot, bracing against each other. The streetlights on Guerrero fell golden and soft, and she hummed appreciatively.
“I want to go to Amsterdam,” she said.
“Don’t worry, we’re going to legalize weed here soon.”
“That’s not why. I want to see Van Gogh and Vermeer.”
“Only you would blather about German artists when you’re drunk.”
“Dutch,” Laurie said. “I want to see the Dresden letter reader. It’s a study in yearning. The artist wants to know what’s on the woman’s mind, but she’s reading a letter, completely unaware of him. The painting is so mathematically precise, but its soul… its soul is unknowable…”
“Wow,” Ariel said, “you don’t even need weed.”
“How do you know when love is real?” she asked. “Never mind me. How are you so sure of Zahida? How is she so sure of you that she doesn’t mind that you’re going to crash on my couch tonight?”
Ariel’s face took on a fond look. “She loved me before I transitioned. She saw me—the real me—even before I saw myself. We’re forever.”
“Mal sees me as an affogato.”
At Ariel’s perplexed look, she started giggling again, and they got home. Laurie brought out pillows and a duvet for her. Deep down, she couldn’t help but think maybe Mal had always seen her too. She just couldn’t be sure if she’d liked what she’d seen.
Let’s talk tomorrow , she texted Mal.
One way or another, she had to know.
Forever.
That was what she wanted. She started laughing again, this time at herself. How, in this ephemeral city that went through earthquakes and fires and dotcom busts, where every young woman had had to learn the plural of apocalypse, did she dare fathom the word?
Then again, this was also the land of role-playing games and virtual reality, of artificial intelligence and spiritual transcendence, where people spoke just as seriously of going to Mars as they did of achieving godhood. Of course she’d grown used to desiring the impossible, to living only fictions.
· · ·
Someone was ringing the doorbell. Had she ordered something from Amazon and forgotten about it? Laurie stepped out of her room, startling when she saw Ariel before she remembered she’d spent the night. Ariel blinked awake from the couch.
Laurie answered the door. “Who is it?”
“It’s me.”
What was Mal doing here? Ariel glared at her and Laurie threw up her hands.
“Are you going to let me up or are you coming down?”
Ariel folded her arms.
“Uh, just a minute.” Laurie replaced the receiver and ran to her room. What was the last text she’d sent?
Let’s talk tomorrow.
Foreign Cinema at 11?
Yes.
She didn’t remember sending that last text. And now it was already ten-forty, and she wasn’t dressed. She couldn’t make Mal wait on the street so she let her up. Mal bounded up the stairs, coming to a sudden stop when she saw Ariel in the hallway.
“Oh, I didn’t realize you had a new roommate.”
“I’m not her roommate. I just stayed over. I’m Ariel.”
“Ah, the activist,” Mal said. “Laurie’s told me a lot about you.”
“I’ll get dressed,” Laurie said, heading into her room. “Sorry, we had a late night.”
“No worries,” she heard through the door.
“She’s told me a lot about you too,” Ariel said, her tone dripping with insinuation. What was she doing, starting a fight?
“Cool,” Mal said, missing the bait entirely.
“Laurie, I think I’ll head out,” Ariel called loudly. “Take care, all right? It does no one any good to be in a state of prolonged thirst , however warranted.”
Laurie glared at the closed door. Her friends. Always looking for ways to embarrass her.
“Yeah, it’s important to hydrate after a late night out,” Mal said. “Can I get you some water before you go?”
“Wow,” Ariel said, and headed out without a reply. The door closed softly behind her. Laurie glanced at the mirror. Was her face beet-red again? Yes, it was. Did she have green concealer to hide it a little? Yes, in both bulk and travel size. When embarrassment met eczema, it became a necessity.
They got to Foreign Cinema around 11:30, when it would ordinarily be impossible to get a table without an hour’s wait, but of course the staff saw Mal and pulled them aside. They ordered, then they both looked awkwardly at their laps, like children at detention.
Was this a date? Could you go on a first date after living together for years?
“We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” Mal said. “When I suggested we meet here, I wasn’t thinking about how we’d be out in public. I was going to suggest a change of venue, but then you said yes and I didn’t want to chance you changing your mind.”
She was rambling nervously, her leg twitching a hundred beats per minute below the table. Laurie wanted to reach out to touch her hand on the table, to calm her down, but she didn’t dare. In the weeks they’d been apart she’d forgotten exactly how magnetic Mal was, practically sparking with coiled up electricity that made it impossible to look away from her fingertips.
“Can you just…” Mal took a breath and slowed down. “Would you mind telling me why the Ithaca house made you so angry? I thought you liked it. It’s been driving me crazy. Things changed after that, but I don’t know why.”
“It was a beautiful house,” Laurie acknowledged. “But it also made me realize how different our positions are. If I get kicked out of my apartment, I’d be priced out of San Francisco. You can buy a house for cash and pay a studio rent here besides.”
“But the money has never bothered you before.”
“It has, but I never said anything.” When Mal looked hurt, she added hastily, “Not all the time. I love that I don’t have to ask, that you’ll pay the bills when we go out, that you spoiled me all the time with wine and ice-cream and spa appointments.”
“So what was so different about the house?”
Their waiter served them their brunch. He seemed to recognize that all was not well, because he didn’t make the usual small talk about the omelette that advertised itself as robust, or the new wave of oat milk that was quickly replacing soy.
“I guess it brought home that this —” Laurie gestured between them expansively, including the impressive array of fancy food—“was temporary. One day, you’d leave. If I asked you to go, it would at least be on my terms. I wouldn’t be caught off guard.”
“I still don’t understand. What do you mean, I’d leave?”
“To your house in Ithaca.”
Mal blinked in confusion. “Laurie, I bought the house for us. So we’d have a summer getaway, and you could visit your mother more often.”
The matchstick fry in her hand fell to the floor.
“I asked you what you thought and you said you could paint for hours in the light from the windows. I wanted to give you something special. What did you think I was doing? Rubbing your face in a house you couldn’t share? You think I’d do that?”
Mal was staring at her, eyes glistening, desperately wide. Needing her to answer, but she couldn’t. She felt sick, at once second-guessing every conversation they’d ever had and trying to think of how to respond now.
She’d taken too long to answer. As usual. Mal got up and walked to the bathroom while Laurie stayed and stared at her meal, unable to take a bite.
Mal came back eventually, a fake smile stretched over her face that never reached her eyes. They picked at their meals, neither of them willing to speak any more.