Chapter Text
October 2nd
Ava doesn’t normally let interviews take place in her studio. No one really is meant to be in here apart from her; she does interviews in a gallery or a local coffee shop, occasionally Central Park but not in her studio.
Her studio is hers and hers alone.
But today she lets it happen. She gets up earlier than normal, JC grumbling in bed but ceasing after she give him a kiss on the cheek, he tugs her back into bed for another kiss and she laughs, feeling free, feeling light, it feels more like it used to. She falls into his warmth, still boiling from sleep, his smooth chest and muscular arms around her and she collapses into his kiss, soft lips, slightly scratchy face, it’s like coming home after a long day.
“I have an interview, with Beatrice, and I get the feeling she won’t appreciate me being late.” She says as he pulls away to kiss down her neck lightly. He bends back, adorably confused expression on his face.
“Tris is interviewing you?”
“Yeah, I told you the other day, remember?” She reminds him gently, it was in passing, she didn’t want to show him how excited she was for it; to be interviewed just for her and to see Beatrice again. She feels dirty, like she shouldn’t be doing this, but they aren’t even flirting, just getting along, just enjoying each other’s company, two friends, just friends, nothing more.
“Yes, sorry, someone woke me up early.” He teases and it feels safe, she rolls her eyes and pushes him back onto the bed.
“I’ll make it up to you.”
“Oh yeah?” He says out the corner of his mouth, which is twisted into the kind of smirk that used to get Ava to stay in bed for hours but she puts her hand on his muscled and warm chest, shaking her head.
“I haven’t made that pasta you like in a while?”
JC’s face lights up, Ava hates making vongole, it’s not much effort but at the same time it entirely is but he loves the meal and Ava loves him, she wants him to smile and laugh and live around her, not be afraid. She has to try. That’s one of the problems, she thinks, the fact that she’s just let him try and fail and wallow for as long as possible.
“You’ll make vongole?”
“Yes, but only if you let me go shower and go to this interview.” His hands let go of her waist, but not after kissing him once more on the lips, pushing her hands through his curls, they’re soft, he must have washed them recently. She loves his hair, the way it falls and curls, she wants to paint it, she wants to have it immortalised forever. Ava doesn’t know where the sudden burst of inspiration has come from (she does, she just refuses to admit it). She gets off from where she was straddling him and starts to move to the bathroom, taking off her sleep shirt and underwear as she does.
“Just because you’ve got a day off doesn’t mean that you should stay in bed all day.” She says, turning on the shower to let it get warm.
“You see, I disagree.” He smiles and she shakes her head, laughing to herself. Idiot, handsome, idiot, trying to convince her to come back to bed.
“I’m not coming back to bed.”
“How about I join you in the shower?”
“This interview starts at ten, which means I have to get there at nine and it’s eight right now JC, it’s not going to happen.” She sing-songs and JC laughs slightly, Ava shuts the door and she hears him opening the blind and moving around the bedroom.
Their shower is something expensive that came with the place, the kind of thing Ava would never have thought would need to be expensive and yet it feels so good. With harsh water pressure and the kind of heat that makes JC yelp, it’s absolutely perfect. She wets her hair and pushes it out of her face, thinking about JC’s request. Does she want him in the shower with her? Does she want to feel his naked body next to hers? Does she want them to fuck?
She doesn’t know.
He’s attractive, he’s good in bed, why wouldn’t she?
Ava tries to imagine his shape behind her, his large hands on her waist, his soft lips on the side of her neck, his hair sending water droplets down the side of her body and her back. It doesn’t entice her the way she wants it to, she tries to remember the days where all they would do is stay in bed, that doesn’t excite her, not for a moment. For a forbidden second she thinks of choosing to imagine someone else but she stops it before she can get too far. She washes herself quickly and efficiently after that, Ava scrubs hard at her fingernails and her body, washing her hair and then comes out of the shower, where steam and droplets can obscure her thoughts of indiscretion.
Clothes.
It was Beatrice’s idea to do the interview while she paints, and while she never allows interviews, or people really, inside her studio, but she’s letting it happen this time. There’s something about Beatrice that makes Ava feel like she can allow herself this, that she won’t judge, make fun, or take advantage of her work, so she lets it happen. When she paints she normally has this baggy black shirt that she stole from Michael years ago and a pair of jersey shorts christened the ‘little boy shorts’ by JC. It’s not the kind of outfit she wants to Beatrice to see her in. It’s stupid, she knows how stupid it is, but she can’t help it. It’s not attractive, Ava cuts off that thought before it can go any further. No. She puts on the paint splattered baggy shirt and a pair of worn jeans she doesn’t mind getting covered in splatters of paint. Ava also wades into the bathroom and puts on a light sheen of makeup that she says is for herself, for her first interview for months, when she knows exactly why she pulls her hair up to make her jawline pop, and the kinda blush that accentuates her cheekbones.
This is ridiculous, scratch that, this is insane, this is borderline emotional cheating; but she has no feelings for the other woman, she just wants to look nice. That’s it, she wants to be friends, yes, these are the kind of feelings she got with Chanel, with Camila, the desire to impress, yes, but not the way that her stomach clenches at the thought of the other woman.
Ava decides, just now, that this is enough, she’s primped and primed herself enough, anymore and she’ll be genuinely insane. JC is nowhere to be seen and she looks around the apartment to find him, but he’s just gone. Ava thinks through the day, about what to talk about, what will Beatrice ask? What? Why? How? Where? The front door opens and closes and he walks in, hair still messy, in a pair of sweatpants and his Carhart jacket that don’t go together at all, with two coffees in his hands and a brown paper bag hanging off his fingers, he puts one coffee on the counter and jumps a bit in surprise at seeing Ava ready already.
“Coffee, hot, sugary and a Danish.” He checks the slightly greasy bag, balancing the two things in one hand somehow. “Ah, and a bear claw.”
And that takes off half an hour of her route, making her life feeling a lot less stressful. He’s so goddamn good, why doesn’t he make her feel good?
“Have I mentioned I love you?” She breathes out and JC smiles, kinda like a cocky kid and it makes curl inside herself slightly, the sudden feeling that he’s not attractive, but she shakes herself out of it. God, what is with her today?
“Always love to hear it baby”
“I love you.”
“Love you too, now go. You’re going to crush it, I promise.”
It’s at times like these where Ava wonders if there’s even any problems between them, if she’s just imagining it all. Her headphones rest over her ears as always, taking the elevator down the stairs and pressing repeat on 1989 for what must be the thousandth, millionth time in her life. She wonders if she would have worn through the tape if she had it on cassette, the way she did with the Dirty Dancing soundtrack that Diego hid in his pillowcase for her. Even thinking about him almost sets her over the edge, she schools herself, sniffing and wiping her eyes. The elevator opens and she walks toward her studio. It’s one of those walks that’s slightly too long, but too short to take any transport and of course not a car, what a waste of gas, not to mention the parking. She takes a sip of her too sugary coffee and a bite of the Danish, just what she needs right now. There are clouds starting to for today, the week has remained sunny, but today is insists on hiding away now and again, leaving little pockets of shadow on the pavement and road, now and again making the side of a building four different shades of grey at once.
Ava stops in her walk toward her studio to stare at the building; the way that some of the glass shimmers and glimmers, also blinding, the way that a small cloud creates a grey blob across a few floors. Around the grey is where the sun is most gleaming, almost making the God rays that stupefied her when Mother Superion took her to the Met, and the ones that would spend hours trying to replicate in the notebook she keeps in her bedside table when she needs reminding that she wants to paint.
That’s it. Today, with that interview, that’s what she’ll paint. Not abstract, simple, it’ll work. It won’t turn into a horrendous mix of Pollock and Kandinsky, there is no way she’ll let it happen. Please today, let her paint something she actually wants. She finishes her pastry and coffee while staring at the building, figuring out it’s curves, the way the sky looks in the background, the way it looks reflected on it, how she can see the people closer to the ground but the further away they get.
The studio is as it always is, with large windows that do nothing to keep the heat in, plants that glow in the sunlight and a white, dusty bit of cloth strewn across the floor, covered with all sorts, just as the walls are. There’s a kitchenette stuffed in the corner, the mini-fridge less than stocked she’s sure, but at least she knows that she can offer Beatrice some water, and maybe a snack of something. It’s just past half-nine when she arrives. There are her recent works strewn across the place, the abstracts. Some from paint flicks, some forming boxes and circles concentrically, connecting and disconnecting, some just white with something she had started but never finished, paint dripping down it, those ones she’s sure she could sell for a pretty penny. They mean nothing for her, nothing for Ava at all, but people look at it and draw their own conclusions, which is fine, she guesses; they’re happy and she’s rich, but it means nothing for her. She wants to pour her heart onto these canvases, she wants people to feel visceral when they see them, not have to think about what they mean. It’s nothing against abstract, some people do it well, just not her.
Ava puts on the radio, just a local alternative station, nothing too fancy and starts to set up a new canvas, setting up her paint and relaxing. The DJ’s voice is a bit obnoxious, given the time, but she zones him out and sits in front of the canvas. So, this is it. She puts a chair with a back next to her, so Beatrice doesn’t have to perch on a stool like her, and then she puts an IKEA bedside table that she uses as a normal table and to store weed with an ashtray on top. There’s a moment when she debates underpainting now or start with Beatrice, but before she make up her mind the doorbell rings, she looks at her phone to see 10:01 exactly. Ava tries not to run to answer it, tries not to let the ball of anxiety and excitement make her giddy as she opens the door. There stands Beatrice, tall and proud, hair pulled back into a bun, another button up on, Ava wonders if she owns any other kind of clothes.
Beatrice feels nervous, something that she doesn’t often feel in regards to journalism, but this is so different to what she’s been doing for seven years. She’s had to research Ava, yes, but not to the degree as the pigs in Finland, she doesn’t have to be aggressive, all of the answers will be open, will come to hers. Ava’s a vision and the ring on her fourth finger gleams in the sunlight so she collects her thoughts. Her smile is wide and inviting, easy. They walk through to the studio, the door shutting behind quietly them. This is first time Beatrice would ever say she was alone with the other woman, with the radio wailing some indie-rock song from the 2000s and the room smelling like dried paint and dust and Ava’s perfume, it makes sense.
“I don’t have much-“ Beatrice bites her tongue from telling her to stop putting herself down. “But I can offer you some tea, coffee, water, most liquids really.”
Her mouth is dry, it was hotter than she expected it to be and she hadn’t thought to bring water with her, she clears her throat and looks into Ava’s dark eyes. Her jaw clenches at the way her eyes look in the light, those light, dancing eyes that see her, that dart across her face and body quickly, not missing a single beat but moving fast nonetheless.
“Some water wouldn’t go amiss.”
Ava’s head dips and she walks toward the kitchenette in the corner, a small thing, with painted green panels and a high quality microwave.
“Water, you got it.”
The glass is small and blue, it feels dwarfed in her hands as she holds it and they stand together, both nervous. Beatrice is charmed by her, she’s hardly ever charmed by people but there’s a way that Ava exists just as Ava that draws her in. She’d spent a lot of her life not existing as herself, but now she does, yet sometimes meeting someone like Ava is so refreshing is blows her back slightly.
“I’m not going to pry in anything you don’t want to speak about, and if you want anything off the record I will.” She says, finally vocalising why they’re here in this room.
“Thank you.” Ava pours herself a glass – this one the same shape as hers but red, Beatrice files away all this information for her article, little things to add colour to the piece. Secretly, she does this to remember every aspect of this interaction, for some reason it feels like it’s important to. “I don’t let people into my studio, I think you’re only the fifth person I’ve had in here.” She admits, turning her back to Beatrice and sitting on a stool by a canvas. She follows and sits on a wooden chair, without a pillow, prepared for her.
“Well, thank you for the honour.” She jokes, to make Ava feel more at ease but she stares at her fingers laced together, suddenly a bit more into herself and Beatrice adjusts herself to correct her mistake.
“It’s hardly an-“
“It’s special to you?”
Ava looks surprised at her interjection and her jaw clenches again, Ava looks away and clears her throat quietly.
“More than special.” Is said just above a whisper, but Beatrice hears it nonetheless, she moves her head to find Ava’s eyes so that she knows that she means every word.
“Then of course it’s an honour.”
They stay in silence for a moment, eyes taking each other in, Beatrice’s heart begins to echo in her ears until she breaks it and she takes a drink of her water. She hadn’t realised how dry her mouth had become. She finished most of it in one gulp.
“By the way you can smoke in here.” Ava says and just like that the conversation from before is gone, but their connection is stronger. She motions toward the ashtray on the table that Beatrice had somehow completely missed. Ava stretches, the sleeves of her large shirt falling to her shoulders and her muscles contract, the overhead lighting causing deep shadows across them.
“Are you sure?” She asks to distract from Ava, who’s arms are now by her side before reaching toward a pile of oil paints and brushes, picking up a series on neutral colours. She seems to change her mind and put them back down, deciding on a pencil instead.
“I smoke in here all the time, mostly joints but you know.” Ava shrugs as she starts to trace thin lines across the canvas. They haven’t even officially started the interview yet and Beatrice feels like she could write a three-thousand word article on her already, how important this space is to her, the practised and relaxed manner that she works. Everything. The way she offered drinks immediately, the way the space has already been set up for her, the way that she’s willing to be so emotionally available already. She brings out her packet from her rucksack and quickly lights it in the same practised way that Ava decided to sketch something out. Beatrice should feel like a voyeur, she almost does, it feels intimate, and yet it feels perfectly fine. She stops sketching and catches Beatrice in the middle of an inhale.
Ava’s eyes zero in on Beatrice’s hand, the way it covers half her face again, and then her lips, the way they purse and tense and let little smoke go. She knows she said that abstract would suit her, but any form would, she’s sure that she would work in the cubist fractures and abstract splashes but also a portrait of oil, a large dark background and a realistic but not quite right face, in popart, in almost anything. She has a face of old, and a face of new. Her eyebrows furrow in an unsaid question.
“Can I have a drag?” She asks and Beatrice jerks in response. She knew the JC smoked and quit, but not that Ava did. The reminder of her best friend makes her school her thoughts and actions.
“I didn’t know you smoked.”
“I quit with JC a while ago but it’s been a stressful few months and there’s only so much a joint can take away.” Ava says, putting the pencil back in its place, Beatrice only sees the movement in her periphery, Ava taking all of her vision. She narrows her eyes and teases the other woman.
“I feel like I shouldn’t be allowing this.”
“Allowing?” Her eyebrow raises and Beatrice’s head tilts.
“Condoning.” She amends and Ava smiles, victorious.
“It’s my lungs.”
“But I feel a duty, as a friend, to not condone the action of smoking once you’ve quit.”
“Please.”
“Fine. Fine.”
Ava takes the cigarette, held at the end of her two fingers in a way that she somehow makes look practised and artistic. Beatrice won’t include this in the article, she decides, this she will keep to herself; this memory of Ava, so new to her but like she has known her forever.
She looks to Beatrice, looking at how she’s just sitting there. She hasn’t asked Ava any questions yet, hasn’t set up any recording stuff yet. This is unlike any interview she’s had, it doesn’t feel at all like one, they’re normally eager and pushing, trying to find out about her and JC, the stories behind her paintings, into her life, but Beatrice seems to be letting her relax, so earnest in every word.
“Is like the underpainting for the interview?” She asks and Beatrice is jolted back to reality, she lets out a short laugh and shakes her head.
“You caught me.” Ava hands her the cigarette back. “But, in my defence, we fell into conversation.” Beatrice takes a drag and leans back in the chair, finding her recorder, pad and pencil. “Would you like to start?”
Not particularly, but Ava nods nonetheless, making a grabbing motion at the cigarette, inhaling once again before handing it back to Beatrice. She reaches over to press record and settles into her chair.
“So, why do you paint?”
Ava laughs, straight for the jugular. She’s answered that question a million times, that big question that’s always been asked. It started all the way back with Sister Frances shouting at her, to Chanel asking with gentle reverence at one of her early works, to JC just asking because he could. Beatrice asks it matter of fact, like she’s asking about the weather and it throws Ava for a loop, suddenly all of those answers vacate her head.
“Jesus, Bea, going for the big ones already?” She says steering away from the question, secretly hoping that they can return to the question later on down the line but she looks to Beatrice, and her kind eyes, she looks to her like she trusts her to say whatever she wants.
“I like to start broad and narrow them down.” Beatrice shrugs, self-assured. There’s an unspoken we can move on if you want, but Ava swallows and picks up her pencil to continue sketching the outline of the building she saw earlier.
“Why do I paint?” She repeats to get the question in her head.
“Why do you paint?” Beatrice says again, as if it’s the easiest thing in the world.
She takes a drink of her water, cigarette getting close to burning her fingers. Beatrice drops the cigarette into the ashtray, watching as the ambers begin to flicker frantically and fade. She looks back to Ava who is thinking, arm moving with great reverence for the canvas.
“It used to be because I felt like it, because it was something I could do but then, it became everything, everywhere I looked I saw things I wanted to recreate in paint, memories, ideas, across a canvas for everyone to see.”
Ava feels Beatrice’s gaze on her face and turns, is she being scrutinized or seen? Most definitely seen, maybe even looked through.
“Do you like to be seen? Or your art?”
“A little too close to the trial, Beatrice.” She bows her head and scribbles something on her pad, something starlike, along with other lines that make no sense to her whatsoever but Beatrice seems to understand. Ava wants to understand her the way that she understands those strange pencil markings on the paper. Stop. Stop, this isn’t what friends do, friends don’t obsess like this.
“I apologise.”
“I like my art to be seen. Art is meant to be seen.”
“Is that the only meaning of art? To be seen?”
“It’s meant to bring a feeling in you that you can’t explain, it’s meant to be visceral and painful, it’s meant to bring you nostalgia and guilt and regret and face-numbing happiness. And it’s all entirely personal, what I think is art could be garbage to you and vice versa.”
Ava’s completely forgotten about the canvas in front of her, the pencil trapped in between her index, middle finger and thumb as her hands move about, her head no longer making eye contact with Beatrice, instead looking just next to her shoulder as she speaks. So passionate, so intense, if their eyes were to meet again she’s sure she would be burnt alive.
“Hm. That’s a beautiful sentiment.” Beatrice writes down Ava’s enthusiasm, the way that she knows exactly what word to place next to each other, that quick wit and smartness presented so easily. “What are you painting today? Will it evoke such emotions in me?”
“Off the record?”
“Off the record.”
“I hate abstract.”
It’s so abrupt that it makes Beatrice laugh, Ava’s lips quirk up into a little smile that Beatrice imprints onto her mind. Her eyes jump around the room to the various abstract canvases surrounding them.
“Oh really? The way Randall was talking about it, I thought you liked them.” She asks, despite herself, Ava makes her forget herself, her nerves, her fears.
“Well, they make me money, but I’ve only been painting them because I’ve been stuck. They’re the only thing that my brain’s let me paint.”
“So, will I get to see a famous Ava Silva abstract today?” Beatrice teases and Ava gives her a look that makes her laugh again.
“On the record, I’m trying to get back into landscapes.”
“Yes?”
“The offices on the way? They really shone in the light, and with the clouds and the trees and that insane glass where you can’t see inside, I just thought about how cool it would be to paint that kinda shit again, you know? And maybe it won’t shock or evoke anything big in people, but it’ll be pretty and it will calm them, and that’s one hell of an ability that oil on cotton can do. Sorry, I’m rambling.”
Ava looks at her hands when she realises she’s been talking for a while but before that she was staring at the canvas, as if she was manifesting her painting to come about.
“No, please continue.” Beatrice can’t help but speak softly, Ava’s words reverberating throughout her head and body.
She had read some other of Ava’s interviews before turning up today. They all focused on her youth, her beauty, her husband, some are so pretentious that she barely hears Ava’s words through the text. Beatrice hesitates to call herself important enough to hear them, but also hopes that she does them justice so they’re not just normal and run of the mill.
“I think I’m done.”
“Okay.”
They rest in silence for a few seconds, Beatrice not wanting to ruin Ava’s concentration, Ava waiting for another question. Ava stares at her canvas, almost finishing the sketch, she refuses to overwork any initial sketch, once it’s on the canvas, that is what it will be, even if it’s awful. She can work with awful, mould it to whatever she wants. Her eyes drift to Beatrice, who’s writing once again, from this angle, she can just see her bowed head, tilted slightly to the left. Her jaw jumps as she thinks, clenching and unclenching, her penciled hand coming to scratch it in thought, the way she did on her balcony. Ava fights to bring her gaze away from the other woman, for the first time in four years of marriage her ring feels slightly heavy on her finger. She lets out a breath and puts the pencil down.
Ava knows that her work isn’t as important as a doctors, as a surgeons, but sometimes when she sees the canvas in front of her with a sketch all laid out, she feels as if she should ask Beatrice to give her a scalpel and begin.
Time to underpaint.
“I thought the point of an interview is to ask questions.” Ava says and Beatrice lets out a huff of laugh, shaking her head slightly.
“We’re not under a time limit, why not just let things happen naturally?”
“You seem the type to have the day perfectly planned out and colour coded.”
She feels her face flush from the way she’s been so perfectly seen, she lifts her eyes from her pad to Ava, who is already looking at her.
“I normally am, but you’re not.”
“What gave it away? Was it the bohemian artist aesthetic?” She teases, and it’s just so easy to reply.
“Of course, of course.” Beatrice clears her throat and takes a sip of her water. “I’m curious.” She says before she can stop herself.
“About?”
“Do you paint to feel better? Or does it simply balance you?”
“Oh no, I paint because I enjoy it, it doesn’t help me feel better, I suppose it does balance me. But, I have a technique to feeling better.”
“What is it? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Now this doesn’t work on everybody, but it works pretty damn well on me.” Ava sits up straight and closes her eyes. “I just remind myself, I am as I always am and as I will always be – I will be happy.” She opens her eyes and grins. “Sometimes it doesn’t work, but if I’m in a sadness of my own making, then it pulls me up out of it.”
Beatrice’s pencil hovers over the pad, it suddenly feels too personal to be putting in an interview, in a puff piece of all things.
“You can put that in there, if you like.”
“But do you want me to put it in there?”
Ava doesn’t speak for a moment, she sees her think it over in her mind, weighing it out with those metal weight in old-fashioned butchers, head tilting as she does. She starts mixing some paints together, some browns that match her eyes.
“Yes. I do.”
She writes it down in shorthand. Ava continues painting, Beatrice watches as she moves with confidence, with pure knowledge of art. Her parents took great value in art, buying black market Picasso’s and ending up with other bits scattered throughout their various houses and estates, they did not take value in their child being an artist though. Not that Beatrice had much talent in artistic talent, they enjoyed her learning cello and piano and various sports (until they thought that it would impact her sexuality), but the thought was there. At the very whisper of her enjoying art classes (there was a very pretty girl in art) they would shout until she relented and moved to do another language. She’s stopped writing. Beatrice looks back to her pad and writes a little more about the way Ava paints and the way she was speaking earlier. She stretches once again, wiping her hands on her trousers, leaving a smudge of brown and beige on the thigh of her jeans.
“Should we get some beers at the bodega down the street? I feel like some beers would go well with this.”
And Beatrice nods, she never says no to beers. Ava watches as Beatrice stands, stretching, her shirt rides up, revealing some skin, taught with planes of muscle; not separate abs, but clearly muscular. She looks away and stands, taking a drink from her glass, Beatrice offers a palm which points toward the hallway to the door.
“Lead the way.” She smiles and Ava fiddles with her ring for a moment. “This’ll be completely off the record, by the way.” Beatrice reassures as she opens the door for Ava and they walk onto the warm street. Ava checks her phone to see that it’s almost 2pm, they’ve been talking for hours and she didn’t even notice. They walk to the corner, where Niko sits behind the counter, watching a TV show on his phone.
“Ava!”
“Niko!”
They always talk to each other, their conversations saying nothing but they understand each other, she needs tobacco for weed, he needs extra money for his Mom (and will resolutely not except any of the money that Ava has far too much of), they get each other. This is one of the bodegas with a lot more beer to offer than they should really have, the kind with words like cwtch or Cobra written across the front, the kind that Ava remembers in Swansea and Clapham and definitely not here. She grabs two of the bigger bottles that are so much better than the Muller or Coors shit that she’s had way too much of in her life. Beatrice is careful as she walks, turning as she walks to make sure that she doesn’t hit anything as she goes. Ava watches her fluidity, swiftness, and clear spatial knowledge with every movement. She goes over to Nika, leaving Beatrice to give the cat (she calls him Mr. Tom, but has no idea if that’s his real name) some attention.
“Who’s that?”
“Beatrice, she’s a friend.”
“A cute friend.”
“You’re not her type.”
“I’m everyone’s type.”
“Not her type.”
“Oh, got it. $5, man.”
“Thanks Niko.”
“See you soon, Ava.”
She takes the two bag covered beers, handing one to Beatrice who shakes her head at the bottle, a look of quiet amusement on her face.
“It’s illegal to drink in public in Finland too.” She explains at Ava questioned expression. They end up on a bench near her studio, sharing another cigarette and taking sips of their beers. It’s still a lovely day, slightly warmer, the sun lower in the sky, but still nice and warm, the air not yet dropping to the cold. The quietness is nice, relaxed, Ava watches as Beatrice closes her eyes in the sun, basking slightly. Her freckles are on display, her jaw less taught; she looks calm with her eyes shut, she could be easily asleep from her deep and slow breaths.
“Why’d you leave for seven years?” She asks and Beatrice’s eyes open, a beautiful shade from the sun, she takes a drag from the cigarette and hands it to Ava.
“Is it my turn for the interview?”
“I’m just being curious.”
“You tend to be curious don’t you?”
“Perhaps.”
“I got a job offer.” Beatrice shrugs, she’s not entirely sure why she stops herself there, but something is stopping the rest of her reason from coming out. She gets given the cigarette back from Ava and takes a longer drag, the kind of drag that makes her perfectly lightheaded.
“Okay.” Ava says softly, it’s not really a reply but Beatrice gets what she’s doing. She’s giving her the space to speak it out.
“I thought that I had nothing here and I left. The second I touched down in Finland I missed JC and called him. It was difficult to start again, JC did all of the work for me here.” It comes out in a jumble, she shrugs and scratches her jaw, staring at the ground.
“You seem to be doing just fine.”
“Well I knew half of them before.”
“You’re doing good with me.” Ava laughs and she sees Beatrice blush slightly. Something tells Ava that she’s not very good with getting compliments, or rather, she’s not very good at receiving them when they’re like this.
“I’ve improved since then.” She takes a drag and looks as if she’s contemplating something. “And you’re very charming.”
“Huh, never been called charming before, I like it.”
They spend a second in silence, the conversation lulling as they continue having a drink until Beatrice breaks is with a:
“Shall we get back too it?”
--
October 6th
JC stares at the sky, there is no way that there are stars up there, he swears he hasn’t seen a single star in years. Beatrice next to him lets out a plume of smoke, taking a drink of something that’s not called a Manhattan but basically is one. God, it’s nice to have Beatrice back. She has this ability to allow silence without it being pressing. They’ve been in silence for at least five minutes now.
“What did you do with the desert?” He asks, breaking the silence. He had forgotten about the house Beatrice had built upstate. She spent one Summer there with contractors, building half of it herself before starting to work at the Times and worked on it remotely. When she had finished it they spent a week away there, just getting drunk, swimming in the nearby lake and trying their very best to get along with Beatrice’s neighbours and failing spectacularly. Except maybe the young couple nearby who just asked them not to be too loud around their property because of the baby, yeah he didn’t mind them.
“I hate it when you call it that.” Beatrice tuts, somehow condescending and loving at the same time.
“I can’t help it! I tried to talk to two people there and I swear it was like trying to eat a packet of Saltines without water, it was goddamn impossible.”
“It’s still a nice place, they can’t help it if they’re boring. And I’ve been renting it out, that’s what I’ve been doing.” She’s not wrong, they can’t help it if they’re boring, but also, why even try if they’re not even going to get along? He takes a drink and shrugs. “I have to go down in a few days to sort it out, make sure that everything’s the way it should be, you know?”
“Yeah. I know we’re adults and whatever, but tell me about your love life in Finland, I’ve gotta know that you’ve been treated right.” He says and Beatrice laughs at him, the kind of laugh that’s kind of a huff and a noise all pressed into one.
“It’s not very interesting.” She says, as if he hasn’t seen her talk her way into many dates without even realising. Beatrice has this ability to get women to gravitate toward her without even realising, Lilith thinks it’s because of low self-esteem, he reckons it’s the Catholic School education, they can agree to disagree with that until the cows come home but he knows virtually nothing about the last seven years of Beatrice, he knows about her career and not about anything else.
“C’mon, give me something, you’re my only single friend who I haven’t been around in forever.”
“Well, I had a couple of nights, and that was it. There was Lucia, for a year and a half.”
“Dating?”
“I thought so, well I thought so for the last six months, I was wrong.”
“Oh shit Tris.”
“Yeah, but it’s okay.” She shrugs, even though it’s not okay at all. Beatrice is one of those people that he feels lucky to know, one of the people that he would go to for advice and that would give it to him straight.
“You’re lucky I don’t get a plane to Finland and fight her right now.”
Okay, so he’s drunk. His vision isn’t swimming or spinning and he is largely in control of his mouth, but he is definitely drunk, he wouldn’t threaten violence if he wasn’t. Beatrice laughs at him so hard that she snorts, which makes him laugh more and then she laughs more and it pretty much devolves into them laughing at each other.
“I haven’t laughed that hard in a while.” Beatrice says, wiping her eyes. “My love life is nothing remarkable, JC. You are incredibly lucky to have Ava.”
He lets out a sigh at the remembrance of his wife. He loves her, or at least being with her still feels amazing and safe and wonderful, something is a little off though. Not too much, not enough where he feels he has to say something, but also he knows that it’s not the same as it was. They used to spend hours talking, hours in silence, hours in each other’s arms; and they still talk, they still sit in silence but something is different. He watches as Beatrice puts her cigarette in the ashtray exhaling yet another plume of smoke.
“I am lucky to have her, but-“ He takes a drink of his beer (his tenth of the night). “I need some advice.”
“I’m not really the best to talk about relationship issues with, JC.” Beatrice says, taking a large drink of her cocktail. JC should be asking her advice because they’re friends, but also he resolutely should not because she’s slowly but surely gaining feelings for his wife.
“You used to give the best advice!”
“I used to tell you to dump them.” She reminds him and JC waves his arm in response, at that time of his life, he needed someone telling him to dump people. It had started with kissing girls in closets at Galas and Beatrice telling him to be careful before someone catches him, or he catches feelings, and then it carried on to him dating these girls and Beatrice – ever observant and justice-driven Beatrice – would tell him to dump them when they ditched him for the third time.
“That was really good advice.” He shrugs, slightly annoyed that she diminished the fact that she basically acted like a sister to him when he was being young and dumb and self-destructive.
“That advice worked when we were in our twenties, JC. We’re in our thirties now.”
“We’re hardly in our thirties.” JC says even though he knows that they are completely in their thirties, he and Ava had a massive part to commemorate the death of their twenties. Ava said is was ridiculous but fabulous and he hid the fact that the idea of growing old was slightly terrifying to him, she’s always so fearless, and he just can’t keep up with it.
“I’m turning thirty three in two months, we’re in our thirties.” Beatrice reminds him and he notes down her birthday so that they can do something for it. Maybe in the past seven years she’s learnt to enjoy her own birthday.
“Fine, we’re in out thirties, you win. I still need advice.” He gives in, as if he was going to argue with her any further on this.
“Fine. Fine, what do you need advice on?”
JC thinks for a moment. He almost wants to ask about what to do with Zori, the fact that she asked to have an affair with him, the fact that he’ll never admit it out loud but he considered it for half a second, a microcosm of a moment, and yet he still thought about it. Is it just because he shouldn’t? Or because things aren’t entirely working? He takes another sip of his beer and decides against it, Beatrice wouldn’t understand, she would never tell him to give in, he asks about Ava instead.
“What do I do with Ava? Why does it feel weird sometimes?”
“You have to talk to her, but like you used to. She went through this big thing but she doesn’t need to be reminded every time you talk to her, she needs to move on, and the only way to do that is to treat her like normal.”
Beatrice is goddamn wise, it makes perfect sense, the kind of thing that he should have thought of. Sometimes it’s the most obvious shit that completely evades him.
“I knew it was a good thing to ask you.”
She smiles at him and hides the guilt that is starting to rise bile up her throat.
--
October 7th
Beatrice has been working on this article for twelve hours now, she started at ten and has been staring at the screen for so long her eyes are starting to hurt. Now and again she thinks about JC and him asking about Ava, she really shouldn’t have answered, shouldn’t have started, shouldn’t have even considered it, but she couldn’t not, it’s JC, he was her person, still is her person? She doesn’t know anymore. She has a hefty glass of Disaronno which has kept her going for the past few hours, steadily sipping at it as the minutes pass. It has to be perfect. It can’t be too enamoured with Ava, though it’s becoming difficult not to write like that, can’t be too critical, can’t make her seem to blasé after the trial but also can’t make her seem more heartbroken than she is. She doesn’t want to let Ava down, she’s put a lot of faith in her, she can’t do that.
However, there comes a moment where one can no longer carry on working on something, to overwork an article can be just as bad as underworking it. She finishes her final line and reads it through. It’s not perfect, but to make it perfect would take out the essence of what makes Ava Ava. She takes a larger gulp of her drink and sighs, she has nothing to lose. Beatrice opens her email and sends it over to Ava, before she can overthink it.
Beatrice texts Ava, palms sweating and jaw clenching from nerves. If she doesn’t like it, it won’t be the end of the world, she hasn’t sent it in yet, but also, this feels good, she can’t not like it, surely.
I’ve finished it.
She throws the phone onto her bed, not baring the way that she will be seen. The reply is quicker than she anticipates, a ping from her phone beckons her from the other room.
Already?
Writing you is easy, Ava.
I sent it to your email.
I’m nervous
So am I – I promise I have tried my hardest to tell the truth.
I’ll text you when I’ve read it
Ava, having just finished her glass of wine she had with dinner, kitchen spotless from JC helping without even asking. They interact without thinking, they know each other so well, and yet he had just kissed on the cheek and said goodnight, not thinking of anything else to do together. She opens her email to find it and opens before she can convince herself not to.
“I am as I always am and as I will always be – I will be happy.”
An exclusive on the brightest artist in the States, by Beatrice Young
At 10am on a bright September day, Ava Silva lets me into her studio, a rare feat apparently, with a blinding smile of her face; paint splattered black t-shirt and a pair of baggy jeans. Her face is radiant and excited as she offers me beverages quickly, a bounce in her step, her joy is contagious.
Ava carries on reading, greedily drinking in every single word that she can. Beatrice’s words are kind, caring and ever so respectful. She doesn’t add in the personal nitty-gritty they got into over their break, she doesn’t mention the shared cigarette between them and feels joy filling her at the thought of Beatrice wanting to keep it a secret from the world, or maybe a secret just for herself. No, of course not, but Ava wishes that she did. Her phone is so close to her face that her eyes hurt but she doesn’t want to take it away from her, can’t stand to.
It's clear that Silva cares greatly about painting, about art, her hands move and gesticulate as she speaks about what art is meant to be.
AS: It’s meant to bring a feeling in you that you can’t explain, it’s meant to be visceral and-
Something coils slightly in her gut, something she hasn’t properly felt in a while.
It’s clear that Ava Silva is a bright, intelligent and empathetic person as well as an artist.
Shit, she’s goddamn turned on by words, by Beatrice’s words, and they’re not even the whole story, how would she write about their smaller moments that she’s kept hidden away from everyone else. She walks to their bedroom and looks to JC as he reads in bed, like he does every evening. Ava watches as he turns a page and wonders how he thinks of her, if he still loves her as he did. A buzz from her phone brings her out of her reverie.
So? What did you think?
Beatrice had been impatiently waiting, she paced until she counted to one-hundred and took another gulp of her drink. Ava chew her thumbnail and walks back to the living room, she can’t put it into words, not for a moment.
Can I call you?
Across the city, Beatrice jolts she wasn’t expecting that at all.
“Am I really so out of practise with puff pieces that you had to call?” Is what she says the second Ava picks up and she lets out a laugh that bruises the insides of her from the way it echoes and reverberates.
“No Beatrice this is, wow, this is, thank you.” Her voice is almost breathless, joyful and it makes Beatrice float, she kicks at the floor, suddenly shy and nervous.
“It’s nothing, really, I just had to write what I saw.”
“Is this really what you think of me?”
“Oh Ava, I think you’re extraordinary.” She admits, against her better judgement.
Ava’s breath hitches down the line and Beatrice fears she’s gone too far, until a hushed thank you comes down the line before Ava hangs up. On her side of the city, she finishes her Disaronno in one gulp, turns off her lamp and goes to sleep, on the other side, Ava is clutching a towel to her mouth in the shared bathroom of her apartment while the other works furiously between her legs.
--
October 12th
Ava makes the executive decision to avoid Beatrice.
It’s not hard, they’ve hardly met, and yet, yet, yet, yet.
She’s avoiding her. In four years of marriage, seven years of being together, her gaze has never strayed, she’s eyes the menu, but never ordered, never even considered it. Hell, her and JC even joke about looking at other people, well they used to joke about it, ever since Zori they never do, ever since the trial it feels like they hardly talk. Did he think like this about Zori? Does he still think like this about her?
Ava looks at the building, she never finished it on the 2nd, she spent for too long being distracted by Beatrice’s smile and jokes and the way that she- please stop, for the love of God stop thinking about her like this. The painting looks just about how she imagined it would be, a little darker on the shadows, but the effect is still there. Calming.
She hasn’t done anything wrong, not really, she didn’t come to the thought of Beatrice, just her words.
Coffee? My treat?
She texts before she can stop herself.
Of course.
--
Beatrice had gotten there early, because of course she has. She has the feeling that she went too far on the phone, maybe in her article – which the Times is asking after more and more every day, but she’s holding back, using the clout of being nominated for a Pulitzer to giver herself time to understand just why she needed Ava to like it, to understand why she said what she said. Ava had said four, and she’s here ten minutes early.
Ava had summoned her to an independent coffee shop not too far from her studio. It fits Ava’s energy, with low lighting and wooden floors, the coffee seems to be pretty cheap and the milk substitutes are free. The music is some low level bosa nova that makes her relax into her chair, the wooden slats digging into her back slightly. The time flows slowly, she taps the table and scratches her jaw so much that she’s afraid that she’ll break the skin. The looks out the big window to the side of her, watching everyone go about their business. What would they say if they knew her mind, her feelings? How she feels like she’s betraying her best friend while also feeling so good that she can forget when she looks into Ava’s eyes for too long. The bell above the door rings and Ava stands in front of her.
“Hi.” She says, slightly breathless, looking nervous, gnawing on her lip, but also joyful, her eyes shining slightly.
“Hey.” Beatrice replies, not breathless but somehow feeling devoid of the ability to breathe, he lungs struggling to keep up with her heart. Ava still hasn’t sat down, instead her hand rests on the back of the chair opposite her.
“Coffee?”
“Yes please.”
“How’d you take it?”
“White, one sugar.”
“You got it, I’ll grab one for you.”
She lets out a breath when Ava leaves, why does she feel so stressed so suddenly? Ava normally makes her feel so relaxed. The whole situation reminds Beatrice of a book that Lucia gave her, Lucia who she had thought she was in a relationship with, an exclusive one, it turns out she was wrong. Written on the Body, a book where the narrator has a habit of sleeping with married women over and over again. She picked it up and, followed the words she had underlined and found herself falling into a trap, instead of seeing Louise’s red hair and Australian accent, she sees Ava’s short dark bob, her American accent learnt in Europe, their quick turn of phrase and bluntness. This was last night, when she was trying to remind herself not to catch feelings for her best friends wife. She was rereading it, had started it when she was reminded of it through her own emotions.
When I try to read it’s you I’m reading.
Her book was calling her out, an inanimate object written twenty years ago, and it was calling her out.
When I sit down to eat it’s you I’m eating.
She’s not that obsessed, not just yet, she doesn’t think about how Ava tastes, or how she’d look in the throes. Beatrice wants to know everything about her, trying to imagine that it’s because she wants to be her friend, but she imagines kissing her.
When he touches me I think about you.
That’s too far. That’s when she set the book down and turned off her light and tried to sleep. It took hours to even close her eyes, and then she fell asleep just when the sky started to lighten.
In the book Louise brazenly asks the narrator if they’re going to have an affair. In the book Louise is simply Louise, not her best friend’s wife, not the anchor of their circle of friends. Perhaps they’re an evergreen lot, perhaps if she took a dive into the serene and still waters of Ava Silva they wouldn’t be. Christ what has her world come to? Contemplating affairs and drinking coffee in the middle of the afternoon, absolute madness.
And now she’s here, getting a coffee with someone who she should be normal about getting a coffee with and yet she’s entirely not. Ava laughs at something the barista says, body thrumming with joy, head getting thrown back, the way she tries to speak but she can’t from laughter. Beatrice’s heart aches. She wants. How quickly her world can get tilted on an axis, she’s met the woman five times now and yet she’s falling and falling and falling and wanting. She’s tried to convince herself it’s the fact that Ava is someone she resolutely cannot have and yet, that’s not it at all.
She sits down, pushing a mug of coffee toward her.
“Can I send the Times the article?” Beatrice asks, suddenly, she feels off kilter all of a sudden.
“You haven’t done that yet?”
“No, I- I was unsure of how we left things, the phone call ended so abruptly and I waited until you were ready, I didn’t want to push.”
“Because of the trial?” Ava says quickly, voice slightly harsh and hurt and Beatrice’s mind works overtime to correct any pain caused by her words. She had truly not meant to harm her, not for a moment, she had not even thought about it.
“Because of the vulnerable nature of the things we talked about, because that day meant more to me than just a puff piece, because you are allowed to retract it.”
“Oh.” Ava takes a drink of her coffee, she evades eye contact, instead staring at the table next to them. “Thank you. You can, by the way, send it.”
Ava watches Beatrice as she takes a drink of her coffee, the way that her body is angles away from Ava, the way that she’s fighting herself on something. Her hand rests on the table, tapping the table a couple of times before stilling. She does that a lot, Ava has noticed, moments of restlessness before quieting. Before she can stop herself she puts her hand next to Beatrice’s, taking a deep breath, this she should not do, not for a second. This close, she can feel Beatrice’s warmth, she can imagine feeling her skin, feeling the softness, her callouses, her.
“I have a house upstate, I built it before I left, have been renting it out ever since. I’m meant to be driving up on the 17th and I could use some company.”
It’s an offer she, realistically, shouldn’t give.
And it’s an offer that Ava, realistically, shouldn’t take.
“I’d love to.”