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Dating Twyla for the past two years is the only real practice Stevie’s gotten at being in a Serious Relationship. So, she’s no expert, but even she knows it’s bad form to sprint away at the sight of a ring.
“Bathroom!” Stevie squeaks, throwing the napkin from her lap onto the table.
“Um, okay!”
It’s a fancy restaurant, the type with individual bathrooms instead of stalls. She locks herself in one and calls David.
“There’s something weird going on with Twyla.”
There’s a long pause. “Um, hello to you too. Also, are you just now realizing or…?”
“She just pulled out a ring and—”
“Oh my fucking God,” David screeches, and then, “Patrick! Twyla just proposed to—”
“No!” Stevie says, “No. I think no?”
The scariest part is that if Twyla actually were proposing… maybe Stevie wouldn’t have freaked out. Maybe she wouldn’t be calling David from a bathroom.
Maybe she would have said yes.
“Nevermind, false alarm,” David says, presumably to Patrick. “Then what’s the issue?”
“I think it’s a magic ring.”
“Um, gross, I don’t need to know that, thanks—”
“No, David, I mean a magic ring. Like, witches and ghosts and shit.”
She can almost hear that suspicious squinty thing David does with his eyes through the phone. “Okay, well, this has been very fun, but—”
“I’m not messing with you. She made it. It’s a silver band with a ruby stone that glows when she’s thinking of me. That’s— that's magic, right?”
Another long pause. “I mean, would it be the weirdest thing about Twyla?”
No. Not weirder than how Twyla can fix a fallen souffle by singing to it. Not weirder than how the Cafe seems to decorate itself for last-minute events. Not weirder than how cats and geese follow her around like a Canadian Disney Princess. Not weirder than—
Holy shit. She’s totally magic.
She hangs up on David.
Twyla is still sitting at their table, candlelit face looking sweetly concerned as Stevie returns. She’s also still holding the ring, which is casting bits of red light across the table like a mini-disco ball. “You feelin’ okay?”
Stevie takes a deep breath and sits back down at the table. She reaches across the table to take both of Twyla’s hands in her own. “Are you a witch?”
Twyla bursts out laughing. “You’re kidding.”
Okay. Duh. This is possibly the dumbest Stevie has ever felt in her life. “Wow, yeah, no, sorry—”
“Obviously I am.” A beat. “You didn’t know?”
In retrospect, maybe there were signs.
- 1999
Stevie is too excited to sleep, so she packs her belongings into her beat-up Toyota to the midnight soundtrack of field crickets and bullfrogs. She has the university orientation pamphlet, MapQuest directions printed, and a gallon of Smarties in her passenger seat. It’s finally time to leave Schitt’s Creek, and she’s sure as hell never coming back.
Still, something is stopping her from hitting the road and leaving it all behind. She hates herself a little for it, eyes sore and head aching with sleep-deprivation. She doesn’t want to be like Gwen’s dog, which spent so long on a short chain outside Bob’s garage that it kept roaming in the same weary circles even after she and Twyla got drunk and loosened the chain.
She turns the keys in the ignition and begins to drive.
The sun is just beginning to rise in a cloudy gray sky when she arrives at Twyla’s. She parks down the block so she doesn’t wake up Ms. Sands, and sneaks around the side of the house to knock on Twyla’s bedroom window.
No response. Fuck.
The only thing sadder than leaving with no goodbyes is leaving on a failed attempt. Just as she’s about to knock one last, desperate time, she smells bread baking.
She’s spent lots of time in Twyla’s kitchen, but she has no idea which exterior window to look for until she spots a window box full of herbs.
She knocks on the window. Through the blinds, Twyla’s sleepy, confused face lights up when she sees Stevie. Twyla throws open the window, and Stevie hoists herself up clumsily, wincing as she crushes a sprig of moonwort under her knee.
“Oh my gosh! I didn’t think I’d see you before you left!” Twyla whisper-shrieks at her.
“I was planning on saying bye, obviously.”
That’s a lie. Things had changed between them the past year. Twyla got softball team captain. Stevie got a boyfriend— well, a few boyfriends. Twyla started saying she could be happy in Schitt’s Creek, working at the Cafe forever. Stevie started applying to colleges far away. They stopped talking.
It happens. People grow apart.
“Obviously,” Twyla repeats, a hint of teasing in her voice, like she knows it’s bullshit but is gonna let Stevie off the hook anyway. She always does. “Well, I’m glad you did. It’s been a while.”
Stevie rummages through the cupboards, just for something to do with her hands. The mug she always uses— a hideous pink bedazzled one proclaiming ‘coffee is my favorite magic bean’— is still front and center on the shelf, like it was when Stevie was a guest in this kitchen every other day. Twyla turns on the kettle for Stevie.
“Why are you awake?”
“Couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d need bread,” Twyla says through a yawn. It’s unclear whether she’s saying need or knead — could go either way, with Twyla. “It’ll be done in a minute. You can take some for the road.”
Twyla was always baking and giving it away, just like how she was kind to everyone with no expectations in return. “Lucky me.”
“Lucky,” Twyla sing-songs back. She knocks on the baking window like she’s getting the bread’s attention. “You’ll send Stevie on her way with some luck, won’t you?”
This is Twyla-normal. She talks to all sorts of things, like the whole world might be open to negotiation if she tries hard enough.
The oven light flickers. They both laugh.
“Smells fantastic,” Stevie says. “What is it?”
“Cranberry-orange.” Twyla blushes. The kettle screeches and she busies herself with Stevie’s tea.
Cranberry-orange was always Stevie’s favorite.
“Twyla—”
The oven timer gives a warning beep. Twyla whips around to turn it off before it can start to ring in earnest. Ratty hot-hands on— the same ones she’s had since they were kids— Twyla gets the loaf pan out of the oven.
“Looks good!” Twyla says, voice a little too high pitched. She steadies herself on the counter, back to Stevie.
Stevie steps closer. Without meaning to, she says, “I missed you too.”
Twyla turns around, and Stevie realizes how close they’re standing. Twyla holds the bread on a foil-wrapped paper plate between them. “Here.”
“I can’t take all of it.”
“It was for you.”
“Okay.” It comes out near silent. “Thank you.”
Twyla walks her to the front door. “Hug?”
Neither of them are touchy people, but it feels natural to step closer and put her arms around Twyla. Stevie’s a lot taller; Twyla’s face presses against her neck. Stevie can feel it when a single tear slips out. Stevie inhales a shuddery breath, and Twyla smells like she has since they were just kids, like baking and greenery and vanilla chapstick. The hot foil-wrapped plate in Twyla’s hand presses into Stevie’s back.
Before Stevie knows what she’s doing, she’s pressing a kiss to Twyla’s cheek. Twyla pulls away, lips parted in surprise. For a split-second, they both lean in.
Stevie jolts back. “I should go.”
“Wait—”
She races out the door, empty-handed.
A lot goes wrong in college, a full 360 degrees of mistakes that sends her circling right back to Schitt’s Creek.
Sometimes Stevie thinks it all started with leaving behind that lucky bread.
- 2004
The year after Stevie graduates and returns to work at the motel, the flu sweeps through Schitt’s Creek. Somehow Twyla is the only one who’s spared. She makes her miracle get-well-soon soup and delivers it all over town like Santa, MD.
Things are still a little weird between them, so Stevie doesn’t really expect her to bring any to the motel. Which is fine— the front desk computer has crashed with a virus, so Stevie can’t check people in, and pretty much all other aspects of her job can be done just fine from the toilet.
Also, she heard the soup has sardines in it this year, so. Gross.
She winces she hears the bells over the lobby door chime. Trying to sit up from the couch in the back office makes the world spin, so she doesn’t bother. “We’re closed! Go away!”
“It’s me!” Twyla shouts back.
“Oh, thank fuck. Come in.”
Her eyelids are too heavy to open, but she can hear Twyla walk into the room. “Wow, you look—”
“Hideous?”
“Like I came just in time,” Twyla says, generously.
Then there’s a cool hand smoothing Stevie’s sweaty hair back. It feels so good that she almost bursts into tears. “Thanks for coming.”
“Of course,” Twyla says. She presses the thermos to Stevie’s lips. “Now chug.”
Stevie knocks the soup back like cheap beer at a tailgate. Luckily, her nose is clogged enough that she can’t taste the sardines. Once she’s finished, she feels like a weighted blanket just got yanked off of her. She stretches like a cat, groaning in relief as her fever-sore muscles relax.
Stevie opens her eyes. Twyla’s smile is the first thing she sees and god, she’s gorgeous. “Holy shit. You’re magic.”
“Yep!” Twyla gets up from kneeling beside Stevie, smoothing out her skirt. “Just give me a shout if you need more!”
Stevie’s well enough to get back behind the desk after that. The best part is that her computer has also made a miraculous recovery. She didn’t even lose her progress in Solitaire.
- 2015
Ray has been trying to incorporate the motel into his business portfolio forever. Not as a buyer— “Oh, I would never invest in such a lemon. Though if you’re interested in selling I would love that commission!”— but the motel features prominently in several of his side-hustle ideas.
Stevie’s job is easiest when the motel is dead empty — like it has been for the past two weeks— so she’s never taken him up on any suggestions. Still, every few months they talk business over lunch. It’s the best way to stop his 3AM texts. Also, he always pays.
“Oh, please, I insist. My treat. Also, it’s a write-off.”
So Stevie makes her way through a combo breakfast meal, while Ray makes his way through a pitch for “filling this town’s desperate need for a rentable meeting space,” as if Ronnie didn’t have a perfectly nice living room.
Her phone rings. “One sec. Roland,” she says, by way of explanation.
“Of course,” Ray says, smile unfaltering.
“Stevie!” Roland crows through the speaker. “Here’s some exciting news for ya: there are some very important guests heading your way tonight.”
Stevie rolls her eyes. “Same room as always?”
“No, two rooms. Nicest rooms you got, for these VIPs,” Roland says. He huffs when she doesn’t respond. “Don’t you want to know—”
She can picture the petulant frown he gets when people don’t play along, but she refuses to get sucked into whatever weird roleplay thing this is. It’s bad enough that the back office shares a wall with their usual room. “You got it.”
“Are you even writing this all down, Stevie? You don’t sound like you’re taking this very seriously. These are the—”
“Mhm, yep, it’s all locked in,” Stevie says through a mouthful of food. “Charging to Damien Steele’s credit card on file.”
“What? No. Please, Stevie, you can’t charge the owners of Schitt’s Creek to stay at the Schitt’s Creek Motel,” Roland scoffs, and hangs up.
Stevie blinks at her phone. Roland calling himself the owner of the town is a new power trip, even for a mayoral dynasty. Weird.
That’s a problem to deal with later. Maybe she’ll warn Ronnie.
She pockets her phone and turns back to Ray. “Sorry. Where were we?”
“Yes, as I was saying, the business-leisure— bleisure, if you will— sector is growing rapidly—”
“Extra-large coffee for Stevie Budd,” Twyla chirps as she drops a to-go mug on their table.
“I didn’t—” Stevie begins.
“Oh, I know.” Twyla winks at Stevie. “I just had a feeling you’d need it today, that’s all.”
Stevie doesn't realize how fully she'll appreciate that coffee until Roland arrives that evening with the Roses.
- 2017
The worst part about fucking in the woods is that after the fucking ends, you’re still in the woods.
Stevie should not have worn skinny jeans, regardless of how great her ass looks in them. She has to hop around to get them back on. Jake watches, amused, from where he’s sprawled nude against the trunk of the spruce tree they just defiled, looking like a hot elf king or something.
“Enjoy the show?” Stevie tries to purr once she’s dressed, in an attempt to regain a shred of dignity. She’s like 90% sure there’s a leaf in her buttcrack.
“Always,” Jake rumbles back. Then his gaze shifts past her. “Oh— hey, Twyla!”
Stevie whips around. Twyla’s a few hundred meters away and walking closer, dressed for a hike in overalls and braids like it’s not the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. It takes another minute before Twyla notices them, she’s staring so intently at the trees.
“Wow, hi!” Twyla says, visibly struggling not to check out Jake, who is seemingly unconcerned to be talking to an acquaintance with his junk out. “Wow. Hi.”
“Whatcha up to?” Jake asks. Stevie tries to contain her groan.
Twyla pats her messenger bag. “Um, it’s the full moon so I’m looking for moss but— you know what, I’m just gonna, gonna leave you guys to it—”
As she hurries past them, she catches Stevie’s gaze and mouths oh my God. Even through her mortification, Stevie widens her eyes in agreement. Right?
“Unless… you wanna join?” Jake offers.
These woods would be a great place to hide a body. Stevie tries to convey that to Jake with her eyes.
He blinks placidly back at her.
“Oh— no thanks! Gotta— gotta moss!” Twyla says, at a volume that sends several flocks of birds into the sky. She disappears behind a clump of trees further down the tail. Stevie exhales, disappointed and very relieved all at once.
“You do you!” Jake shouts after her.
God.
Stevie really should have insisted they go to a spa.
- 2019
Stevie should be relatively unaffected by the closure of the Cafe for renovations. Now that her business meetings with Mr. Rose are phone calls at odd hours and her gossip sessions with David are catered by HelloFresh in his dining room, so Stevie hardly goes to the Cafe anyway. It’s not like she ever ate there on her own— if she wants partially defrosted junk, she’s got that at home, thanks.
Still, the two-month shutdown leaves her feeling off-kilter. She can’t figure out why, and she starts to obsess over it, poking around the edges of the absence, trying to discern its shape.
It’s not until the grand re-opening of Twyla’s Cafe Tropical that she realizes.
Duh. It’s Twyla.
The past two months are the longest she’s ever been in Schitt’s Creek without seeing Twyla since, like, that summer before tenth grade when Twyla vanished for two months. Stevie had stressed then too. Everyone else assumed Twyla was at sleepaway camp, but Stevie’s instincts were proven right when she and her mom got caught running grifts out of nearby casinos.
Stevie locks eyes with Twyla for the thousandth time since Stevie walked through the door for the Grand Re-Opening. She’s been staring at Stevie all night. Of course, Stevie’s only noticed because she’s spent just as much time— more time, maybe— staring at Twyla. But that’s not weird, because tonight everyone is staring at Twyla: giddy, glowing (like, literally at one point?), flitting in her pink dress and jeweled headband from person to person to bask in their admiration.
This time, Twyla winks.
Stevie knocks back her champagne. She hands the empty glass to David, ignoring his disgruntled squawk.
Her whole body feels sparkling like the champagne as she weaves her way across the room. It’s a dense crowd, spilling outside the Cafe down Main Street. The whole town came out tonight and even Mr. and Mrs. Rose flew back for it. The Cafe has meant something different to everyone, and the air crackles with nostalgia and excitement and pride.
Twyla’s smile grows as she gets closer.
“Congratulations, Ms. Sands.”
“Thank you, Ms. Budd!” Twyla’s talking too close and too loud in the way she always does when she’s drunk. “It’s been a while!”
Stevie steadies her with a hand on her elbow. The contact tingles like a static shock. “Is that why you keep staring, or is there something on my face?”
“It’s nothing.” Twyla sways closer and whispers, not at all quietly, “It’s a secret!”
“Wait, which one is it?” Stevie teases.
“Just had an interesting tarot card reading earlier, that’s all.” Twyla turns away with a flourish that sends the skirt of her dress flaring like something right out of a movie. As she walks away she calls over her shoulder, “Also, yes, there is something on your face.”
Fuck. Stevie checks her reflection in her phone camera and yep, that’s totally blue frosting on her cheek. Not that there’s anything embarrassing about how good that cake was. She sucks the frosting off her thumb and calls back, “My compliments to the chef!”
Another wink.
So that’s...interesting.
David’s eyes are way too bright with curiosity when she returns. “What was that?”
Innocently, Stevie says, “Just complimenting her on the event of the year!”
“Our wedding!” David and Patrick exclaim at the same time in indignant tones.
Mrs. Rose, who had been slow-dancing with Mr. Rose, crumples in his arms as though she fainted. She laments, “How quickly this town forgets the world premiere of The Crows Have Eyes, The Crowening.”
“Yeah, no, I think this is it,” Stevie says, mostly to annoy David, partly because it’s true. Mr. and Mrs. Rose have already waltzed away anyway.
David can’t quite muster up a proper scowl in response. He looks like he’s feeling some of what she’s feeling: disbelief and wonder at where they are now. Sometimes she thinks the past clings to them more than to everyone else. They both know that as great as everything turned out, none of it was ever inevitable.
Except maybe for Twyla, who saw this possibility in the Cafe from the start. It feels right that it finally belongs to her, after all these years she’s spent loving it through its flaws. It feels right that the Cafe finally gets to change too, and catch up with the rest of them.
Around midnight, Roland gets up to give his dedication speech. He can’t get more than a few words in without dissolving into tears. After a few minutes of blubbering, Moira’s alto voice rises from the back of the room and the crowd follows her into a wall-shaking rendition of Danny Boy.
Stevie’s about to tease David about it being their song— since they were high as fuck and falling into bed together the last time Moira trotted out this one— but she’s distracted by the sight of Twyla slipping out of the crowd and through the back door.
After a moment, Stevie follows her.
The sound of everyone singing Danny Boy is muffled in the alley behind the Cafe. In the dim moonlight, the brightest things are the wet sheen of Twyla’s eyes and the smoldering orange tip of the joint she’s holding.
Twyla takes a drag off the joint, head tilted back against the brick exterior of the Cafe. Her hair has started to slip from her updo and curl around her throat. “Hi! Hi, I’m not sad, I promise.”
“Overwhelmed?” Stevie guesses. She leans against the wall, shoulders brushing with Twyla. They did this all the time when they were sixteen, and sometimes at parties since: it’s an easy, practiced movement to lean in when Twyla holds the joint up to Stevie’s lips.
She inhales, holds it, exhales. As the smoke swirls in perfect spirals between them despite the breeze, Twyla finally says, “It feels different, now that it’s mine.”
Stevie understands. She resented the fuck out of the Schitt’s Creek Motel and it was still easier than loving the Rosebud. The Schitt’s Creek Motel didn’t keep her awake at night, thinking about occupancy and expansions and investors. Hell, the Schitt’s Creek Motel could barely keep her awake during her shifts.
“Twyla’s Tropical Cafe,” Stevie says, just to taste it. Twyla stares at her, eyes dark. Then she holds up the joint again. Stevie leans in, lips brushing the pads of Twyla’s fingers. It’s a struggle to keep her breath from shaking as she inhales. Holds it. Exhales.
“Powerful name, huh? Just like the Rosebud.” There’s a musical lilt in how Twyla says Rosebud. Then she turns to Stevie, their faces inches apart. There’s a stray piece of glitter on Twyla’s cheekbone. Stevie could count her eyelashes, if that was where she was looking. It’s not. She’s looking at Twyla’s lips.
“You gonna actually kiss me this time?” Twyla asks like she already knows the answer.
Stevie proves her right.
It doesn’t feel like a first kiss. It feels like the ground of the town is mapped with veins and capillaries; like all of the love Stevie has for the place and its people thrums through it and finds her here with Twyla in the beating heart.
After a moment, Stevie pulls away and just stares at Twyla’s gorgeous, kissed-stupid face. Stevie whispers, “So is that what was in your tarot cards, or do you have some other frogs to kiss tonight?”
“Shut up,” Twyla says, laughing, and kisses her again.
+1 2021
“Obviously I’m a witch.” A beat. “You didn’t know?”
Twyla has been dating Stevie for the past two years, but she’s known Stevie her whole life: it shouldn’t be a surprise that she can be this oblivious, but somehow it still is.
Stevie slumps onto the table face-first. A strand of her hair gets caught in the candle and Twyla quickly pats it out before it catches on fire. Through a mouthful of table cloth, Stevie mumbles, “No, I did not know.”
She keeps stroking Stevie’s hair, soothingly but also to eliminate further fire hazards. Though, worst-case scenario, Twyla knows at least seven people who can source human hair.
She tries to bite down her laugh as she says, “You got me new tarot cards for Christmas. We went acorn-hunting with Tennessee. You’ve met my aunt. Stevie! She runs a coven!”
Stevie picks her head up off the table. “I thought your aunt was crazy!”
“Oh, well, she totally is,” Twyla agrees, “But she’s also a witch.”
“I have so many questions.”
Twyla also has a lot of questions, like: what did you think was happening last week when we shattered four lightbulbs, or, can we still be girlfriends, yes/no/maybe? But Stevie’s looking even more overwhelmed than she does making dentist appointments and picking avocados, so Twyla can’t help but soften. “Talk about it at home?”
She beckons the waiter over. When he hands her the check, she conjures up a pen and signs it with a flourish. She starts to stand, but Stevie says, “Wait.”
“What?”
“The ring?” Stevie says, and outstretches her left hand.
Twyla’s heart just about flies out of her chest. “Are you— are you proposing?”
“You’re the one with the ring!”
Stevie is totally the one proposing, but that’s an argument they can have later. Or, like, for the rest of their lives.
Twyla slips the ring onto Stevie’s finger. The ruby glows a perfect true red, the same shade that tinges Stevie’s aura, now that it’s resting where it belongs.
There’s a mechanical groan as the power to the restaurant shorts out. A few patrons scream at the sudden dark. After a moment, the emergency lights click on. Stevie’s ring is shining brighter than all of them.
They stare at each other for an awed, dumb-struck moment. Twyla whispers, “No take-backs?”
“Holy shit,” Stevie says, and launches herself into Twyla’s arms.
It’s amazing that even with all the tarot and tea leaves in the world, Stevie never fails to surprise her. Sometimes Twyla’s pretty convinced that Stevie’s magic, too.