Chapter Text
December 28th
JC sits awake in bed, watching his wife sleep, his beautiful cheating wife.
Ava, with the moon stretches across her face, is beautiful – as always – with her short brown hair a mess and soft snores and her face pressed half in the pillow. Ave, he could expect this from – almost – he is not exactly innocent in his monogamy either, but Beatrice? That stings and twists within him. They had stood together so long, cutting off the life of their parents and now look at them.
The snow drifts slowly outside, what a Christmas this has been. Beatrice had come by on Boxing Day evening, a smile on her face, pure devotion to Ava you should have seen before but were too blind to understand. She had come back tonight, her blue raincoat, the one she looks after religiously, torn just by the shoulder. A haunted look cast across her face, she looked years older and told him: “I’m in love with her.”
He had thought so.
Music drifts through the street from the jazz bar that had been of his and Ava’s haunts, back when they truly existed within each other’s sphere’s. Back when they couldn’t keep their hands off each other and lived for the hope of it all. When he still travelled for a job and she was living for the very first time. There’s no point dwelling on the past, he knows, but he yearns for the way it used to be, when it was them against the world, when is closest and oldest friend wasn’t in love with his wife.
Betrayal shoots through his body and he knows he ought to be angrier but there was something that had gone from Ava ever since Sister Frances’ trial that had returned with Beatrice’s arrival in New York. He had tried so hard to bring it back, days together, whatever she wanted, he was there, he wasn’t there, they had sex, they didn’t have sex, he did everything she wanted and it still wasn’t enough. He supposes it has something to do with the fact that they have been living more as roommates, than husband and wife. He does love her, but he must admit there is something lacking.
However that may be he cannot ignore the spear cast into his gut, this could have been avoided, they could be halfway through a divorce and there could be no affair or cheating or anything of the sort.
“Baby?” Ava’s sleep-ridden voice disturbs his thoughts. “It’s the middle of the night, why are you awake?”
“Just thinking.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Beatrice came by this evening when you were out.” He shouldn’t have said it but he can’t help it, he feels he deserves this. There’s a beat of silence, the sliver of moonlight that had lightened her face has shifted down to her neck. JC sees it bob slightly and her body stills for one moment.
“Yeah? How is she?”
It’s his turn to be silent. This game where the other knows is painful and rocky.
“We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
Her hand touches his, squeezing once before retreating and he turns over.
In the morning.
--
September 23rd
The September sun streams on Ava’s front as she is sure she looks every bit as pretentious as she feels like she’s being right now.
Really, sitting in Central Park in a tight red crop-top and ripped jeans and over-the-ear headphones blasting 1989 at full volume, was a bit much. Her joint rests loosely in between her lips, needing to be relit often, her rolling skills need a lot of work. Summer has not yet let go, the trees still green and lustrous, the gentle breeze warming instead of cooling; it relaxes her to the bones. She loves JC, but he’s struggling to understand her at the moment and every time he looks at her it’s this stifling and confused mess of pity, love and uncertainty that makes her stomach turn. The second that the villain, she supposes, of her life is in jail he walks on eggshells around her; as if she’s going to break.
Was the trail exhausting? Yes. Did it bring back things she didn’t want to remember? Yes. Would she do it again? In a heartbeat.
She knows he’s trying, badly, but he is trying, she supposes she can’t fault him for that. She loves him, loves his easy smiles and warmth, the way that he cannot cook to save his life but always follows her instructions on chopping and stays in the kitchen with her, ready to give her a glass of wine and a kiss and tidy up after her. And yet there’s just something missing, something gone that was once there. It’s safe, and normal, and easy; they’ve always been that couple, the easy one with no arguments and good-ish communication but there’s something gone. Maybe they were too young when they were married, maybe they’ve just grown at different times, either way she’ll fight until she’s bloody and blue to keep it there, but she’s not going to do it herself.
A cloud goes by above her, it looks like Mother Superion, Ava should call her, she’d want to know what happened.
She finishes the joint just as the last song plays out, she quickly starts the album again and stands up, pulling her cap a bit further down her face. The last time she was out without I on, a man came up to her and asked if she had no shame, putting an agent of God in jail; another time someone almost followed her home, wanting to see her studio. Jokes on them, her studio isn’t in her apartment, but the issue still lies within, she should wear a cap when in the city. The walk home is quick, she puts the remains of her joint in a bin and continues the walk home, enjoys the buzz she has from it. Her fingers feel a bit fuzzy, light-headed and spacy. Maybe she’ll be able to paint something other than abstract this afternoon, it’s done her well but she misses painting people, real tangible things. Her head’s been all over the place recently, but now that the trials all over, maybe she can return to it.
Ava chooses not to take the elevator when she returns, taking the steps two at a time to the twelfth floor, perhaps not her smartest choice but, again, she hasn’t been up to anything besides going to court and returning so this is her exercise before she returns to the gym. The apartment is the same as she had left it, only with JC wobbly standing in the hallway trying to get his shoes on.
“Morning! Where were you?” He asks, standing, only one of his pair of vans on his feet, making him lopsided. He’s handsome, with his hair dark curls falling forward and a smile across his face, muscles adjusting to his movements. Her heart doesn’t quicken, her stomach doesn’t fill with lust and desire, no, but she feels safe, contented.
“At the park, sorry, it’s just such a nice day.” Ava says, walking forward and kissing him on the cheek, his skin soft under her lips, his arms warm under her palms as she holds him in place.
“Nothing to apologise for.” He replies, kissing her softly, she melts slightly, relaxing into his arms.
“Where are you going, baby?” He untangles herself from her and puts on his brown Carhart jacket, it looks good on him, everything does, he’s just one of those beautiful people.
“JFK, I’m picking up Beatrice.” The name doesn’t ring any bells, she’s sure that he would have told her that one of his friends was in town, especially if he was going to the airport by himself. He hates the airport. At the look on her face, he tilts his head and levels her with a disbelieving look. “Ava, I told you last week, Beatrice? My friend from ages ago, she’s moving back stateside after working in Europe? We’re having a dinner party tonight?”
Oh. Oh, she remembers it now, he was wearing a red shirt that night, the tight button up that showed his navel when he was stretching. That was the closest she had been to dragging him into the bathrooms and kissing him senseless in years. They were at dinner, she remembers it now.
“Right, of course, yes, I remember now. I’ll go to the market; should I make paella?”
JC looks slightly frustrated, lips pursing, but relieved nonetheless. His frustration, in turn irritates her, she takes a breath and so does he, neither one of them wanting to have an argument right now. He pulls on his other shoe, which has been in his hand the entire time.
“That would be great. I need to go, you know how traffic is.”
He picks up his keys from the bowl by the door.
“Who’s coming tonight? How much am I making?”
“I was thinking ten? Including us.”
“Okay, sure, I can do that. What-“
“Ava, I have to go, can we talk about this when I get back?”
“Of course, love you.”
“Love you too.”
And with that he opens and shuts the door and Ava breathes. See, it’s not so bad Ava, he still says love you and he means it, she can tell, but it’s still not amazing. It’s like he’s waiting for her to just be better while also not having a clue how to help. She sighs. She was hoping to work this afternoon, but those plans have been derailed, she picks up her keys once again and leaves for the market.
--
JC rocks back and forth on his heels as he waits in the departures section of the airport.
It’s been seven years since he’s seen Beatrice, he wonders it she looks the same, she probably does, she’ll look all noble and kind and stoic until she suddenly goes grey and hunch-backed, he can see the two of them now in a nursing home, shouting at each other because the other’s hearing has gone. He smiles to himself, holding up the sign with a rose in between his teeth. He had missed her immensely. Their weekly calls had quickly become monthly, which in turn became every other month which fizzled into holiday calls and eventual intermittent texting. He didn’t blame her though, things come and go, it’s not like he had tried his hardest either. He is nervous, though, for her and Ava to meet, Ava is charming, loud, irreverent where Beatrice is quiet, witty and ever-conscious of everything, ever; if they don’t mix he may have to jump of the balcony of his and Ava’s apartment.
There’s a flood of people coming out of the glass doors and his hands get deeper into his pockets, that should be her, he checks his watch 12:38, a present from Zori that was far too expensive. Guilt thuds deep in his stomach and he clears his throat to himself, nothing happened, not really, well something small happened but they’re all good now. Him and Ava, they’re good, Ava and Zori, Zori and him, all as good as they can be.
Thankfully that avenue of thought is cut short at the sight of her.
She does look the same, of course she’s the kind of person who ages elegantly. With her dark hair streaked with blonde, a red and blue button up that is more open than he would anticipate it being and blue jeans, she strides toward him. He pulls the rose from his teeth and holds it out to her, she rolls her eyes.
“Have you gotten taller?” He asks, a smile broadening across his face. Beatrice rolls her eyes affectionately.
“You’re ridiculous.” She says, pulling him into a hug. They pat each other on the back and let go, she looks a lot less buttoned up than the last time he saw her. That was after a massive fight with her parents though, and she was still getting used to being her own person, it’s good to see that she’s grown into herself properly.
“It that all you got?” He gestures to her two duffle-bags and a backpack, that are now on the floor where she dropped them for a hug.
“Everything else is getting shipped over, it’ll be here in the coming weeks.” So she is moving here, great, missing her had become one of his favorite pastimes. She lifts one of the bags, he the other and he starts to walk them out to where one of the cars from the company that Ava uses is waiting for them. They get comfortable in the back when she turns to him with a small but mischievous smile, the same kind of smile she’s get after he would sneak a bottle of wine from a gala and she would finally let her walls down. It looks like Finland has done her well, in between doing groundbreaking journalism and what looks like getting various tattoos, he hopes that she’s actually lived a life outside her work and her parents thumbs.
“I’ve got a bone to pick with you.” She says, giving him a mischievous look, one that’s new across her face.
“What?”
“You’re married.”
“Yes.”
“Who is she? I just got an invitation saying ‘I’m getting married, need a witness, hurry up.’”
“And then you didn’t even come.” JC tuts at her, his smile never leaving his face. “Her name is Ava. Ava Silva, and I’m sorry that you couldn’t make it.”
“The painter?”
“You know her?”
“I saw her set of paintings depicting a lonely woman at a party, last May.” Her eyebrows furrow as she thinks back, he can see she loved them, Ava’s paintings have that way about them, so does she. “I was rather enamored with them.”
“Ah, her paintings have that effect on people. So does she, we’re having dinner tonight, all of us, you’re coming.”
“Am I? What if I had plans?”
“I know you don’t.”
“What time should I be over?”
The conversation flows easily, he knew it would. Though she stays hush on her love life, his gentle prying receives no glares but instead a swaying of the conversation into new territory which he accepts. The car travels slowly through the city, past his and Ava’s apartment and stops outside a row of brownstones, of course she bought a brownstone. He shakes his head at himself with a smile on his face before turning to her.
“C’mon let me see the place.”
“It’s unfurnished and undecorated, Jay, it’s not going to be very interesting.”
“So? I want to see it, please.” He drags out the ‘please’, knowing the she finds it both insufferable and endearing and the second that she tilts her head, ducking it to hide a smile that he’ll get to see inside.
“Fine. Fine.” She gets out the car and opens the boot, he leans forward to dismiss it and leaves to help her. They get into the house and he finds that she’s right, it is bland, but it’s also got good bones. He remembers what his Uncle told him about houses – he was a contractor and the only person in his family that he enjoyed being around – that a bad building can’t be improved with style but a tacky style can be fixed by a good building, doesn’t roll off the tongue, but it’s the kind of thing he uses for his own work now. It’s a bit musty, Beatrice opens a window and searches through her bags, which she had placed on the floor by the window, taking out two packs of something, she opens one and slots it in between her lips, lighting it immediately. It almost shocks him, she didn’t smoke before she went, but he supposes that she had been doing some pretty intense journalism, and he certainly remembered how they smoked in Spain. He doesn’t have a desire to return back to smoking, even though almost everyone he knows continues on with it.
“Oh and here you go.” She says, throwing an unopened back of cigarettes toward him, Finnish script above a picture of a child, a baby holding a cigarette, that was always one of Ava’s favorite pictures on packets. She’s always hated the throat ones, he thinks, he hates them too.
“I quit.”
“Keep it for prosperity then.”
“That’s not how you use that word.” He sing-songs.
“Which one of us is up for a Pulitzer?” She reminds him, a smile on her face as she looks around the room. She looks contented. He’s happy for her.
“I’m an art editor, not a wordsmith, Tris.”
“I’m hardly a wordsmith.” She scoffs, scuffing her feet on the hard-wood floor, suddenly shy. She’s discovered, she can only compliment herself before feeling like her ego is through the ceiling. She takes another drag and JC shakes his head, huffing out a laugh.
“Stop being humble, it suits you too well.”
“Shut up.”
He watches as she looks around the room, and his brain is full of a jumble of memories, a collage, a montage filling his head, throwing himself through these remembrances at full throttle.
“Remember when we stole a bottle of champagne from a gala and watched Jackass 3 with it?” He says and Beatrice’s head comes down from where it was staring at a crack in the ceiling, looking to him with a slightly startled expression.
“Where did that come from? Of course I remember, my Mother was very happy at the thought we were dating.”
JC laughs, bright and loud, echoing throughout the room and Beatrice soon joins in. God, Jeannette Young really thought that they were dating? That would be like dating a sister, it is the kind of thing that she would be obsessed with though. He wonders when the last time she spoke to her parents was, he knows that he is only really just talking to his Dad again, Lilith has never really lost contact, but Beatrice cut them off and left. His phone buzzes, interrupting his train of thought and he sees that something bad has happened with a set of prints at work and he needs to work his magic, he tuts, he booked this off weeks again, for fucks sake.
“Fuck, I’m getting called in, something stupid about a photoshoot. You don’t have to bring anything tonight, but please come, I know you’ll have a good time.”
“Will I now?”
“Yes you will now, love you, gotta go, come by tonight!”
Beatrice shuts the door behind him and looks at her empty space.
This could be good.
--
The apartment is full, warm and noisy and Ava loves every second of it.
Hans and Chanel are talking on the balcony, she doesn’t know how long they’ve been there but she suspects that they’ve gotten through at least half a pack. Each to their own, she guesses, her and JC quit together but she’s gotten closer and closer to taking it back up. Slowly but surely, not diving back into chain-smoking and cherrying but certainly maybe one a week, perhaps two. JC, Camila and Lilith are playing cards, Zori sitting with them but not playing. A feeling of jealousy, righteous but still irritating, fills her stomach at the sight of them together. They didn’t even do anything, but they were close to, close enough for JC to feel guilty enough to stay at Chanel and Randall’s for a week. She sighs and looks away, taking a drink of her Cuba Libre, with an extra (a lot) more rum than it should have in it. Randall is fiddling with the sound system, he had tried to explain what he was doing but she just told him to have a go, soon enough music fills the apartment, mixed well and clearer, whatever he’s done has clearly worked. Michael has yet to arrive, as has Beatrice. A debate sparks about what music to play, Randall – as always - goes for Sinatra, Camila is gunning for any Dolly Parton that’s available while Lilith snarks that she doesn’t care as long as she gets to beat JC at poker.
“Okay, you guys are being crazy. Ava, honey, what do you think?”
What does she think?
“That mixtape we made for Amsterdam. The one for our honeymoon?”
“Oh, I love you, fantastic.” He stands, lowering his cards onto the table. The three words still reverberate in her heart but they don’t do what they used to. He turns and walking a few steps backward, pointing a finger at Camila. “Don’t look at my cards, Cammy.”
“A cassette? Are we back in the 90s?” Chanel complains, coming back inside and sliding shut, Hans behind her.
“They have a good sound.” Hans argues, which devolves into a further bickering between sounds. It’s quickly joined by the sound of Boys Don’t Cry, and it fizzles out, JC deals the others in, Ava continues on setting up for dinner. A knock at the door makes JC jump out of his seat and to the door, he opens it with a cheer. She focuses on weighing out the rice when she sees two figures out the corner of her eyes.
“Ava, honey, this is Beatrice Young, Beatrice Young this is Ava.” She wipes her hands on her apron and turns to greet this new, mysterious person who is apparently not new to JC at all.
Ava is normally immune to hot people, she’s married to one, but the quiet smile that Beatrice gives her, the hair pulled back into a small bun, dexterous fingers holding a wine bottle easily between them, freckles across her face, she’s sure that she’s doomed. She’s felt attraction to others before, never acted on it, obviously, but Christ, this is, this is, too much, almost. She’s wearing a black button-up and black slacks, it’s tight along her shoulders.
Beatrice gives the bottle of wine to JC who pretends to make a big deal about what kind of wine it is and Beatrice, just laughs, a sound that itches something in her brain. She punches him on the shoulder, and he makes an exaggerated yowling sound and offers her a drink of the wine she brought. Instead they open the fridge and bring out a six-pack of beer, Ava doesn’t feel left out as she watches them interact, giddy with each other, instead it’s a nice picture, seeing JC not be the person he is around Ava; the confused, egg-shell walking person. Beatrice steps forward, raising a hand toward Ava, who takes it and shakes, once, not too hard, but certainly firm. Her hands are cold and slightly calloused, almost dry but not quite. Perfectly imperfect. Her eyes don’t search and scan Ava’s face instead they seem to stay fixated on her and intake.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, JC, has neglected to tell me anything beyond bare bones of you.” She has an accent, one that hugs harsh consonants and wraps around vowels. Almost everyone here has an accent, hers sticks in Ava’s ears, just like how Lilith’s did the first time they met; they didn’t like each other but Ava’s not blind, she knows hot people when she sees them.
“When he gets excited, he forgets things.” Ava shrugs and drops her hand, unfortunately mourning the loss.
“I know, I remember.” She says, almost wistfully before catching herself. “I have to say.” She starts, suddenly looking slightly nervous and scratching the underside of her jaw. “I loved your collection about the woman at the party, it, well, it spoke to me.”
“That’s very kind of you, they’re my favourites.”
“I understand why.”
Their eyes continue to stay trained on each other. Ava can’t hear what song it is, can’t smell the food behind her, can’t even taste her Cuba Libre anymore; it’s all this stranger.
“C’mon Tris! I’ve got some people for you!” JC shouts from the other room.
“It appears I’m being summoned. It’s been nice.” Beatrice raises her beer to Ava and leaves to join the others, she watches as she straightens her back and pulls Lilith, Lilith of all people, into a hug, how does she know Lilith? Lilith is her friend. She makes a note to ask later, probably after dinner, she doesn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. Ava finishes her Cuba Libre and make another, incredibly strong one, noting that the cassette has gone through to Up the Junction, a song that reminds her of her year abroad in London, she had gone to Clapham, she liked it more than she expected. Her mind unfortunately drifts back to Beatrice, wondering where she’s from, she sounds British, but where, Ava is immediately curious, interested in who she is. The way she does with most people she meets, she loves to dig deep into people, to understand and really look at them, to know everything there is to know, the big life changing things and the itty bitty shit that makes them them.
“May I help you with anything?” The person plaguing her mind says, leaning on the island in the middle of the kitchen, a beer her hands; Ava wonders, for a forbidden moment just how capable those hands are. Get a goddamn grip, Silva.
“What? Of course not, have fun.” She scoffs, she lets JC help because he knows her limits and what not to do, she doesn’t even let Camila help though they can actually cook. It’s the only time that she has complete and utter control over a situation, she doesn’t particularly like or enjoy exercising it but when she’s cooking, it’s all hers.
“Please.” She steps forward and Ava gets the scent of some kind of cologne that makes her slightly dizzy. “I like to be useful, and, I’m afraid I’m not good around groups of people for a while.”
Ava feels for her, and she assumes that Beatrice is less of a talker and more of a do-er when it comes to making friends, the little she’s heard about her from JC backs that up. She steps back and wipes her hand on her apron, a stupid one that says ‘kiss the cook’ that JC got for her years ago, its faded and stained but it works and it reminds her of when they were younger.
“Well, it that case, would you rather chop shit or measure shit?”
That makes a smile fall out of her, one that seems to come against her will, it makes something bubble in Ava’s gut. This is bad.
“Chopping would be fine with me.” Ava watches as Beatrice flicks her sleeves up her arm, folding them tightly until they rest on her bicep, flexing as she picks up the knife next to the chopping board.
“Perfect.”
Beatrice is usure about how to act around Ava, she’s almost always unsure about how to act around new people. The others were nice and they asked the right number of questions without prying too hard but she just, just, can’t talk too long without getting a headache. She was happy to watch them talking amongst themselves, gaining information in throwaway jokes and how each of them fall into each other. JC had made a conscious effort to stay on the side of his chair furthest from a woman called Zori, she’ll ask him about that later, most likely alone. Lilith was close to a woman called Camila, kind and smiling, with a wicked sense of humor that doesn’t match her appearance and yet made perfect sense. The others she can get a hold of but Ava, Ava is special. She’s the person who JC has chosen to spend the rest of his life with. She’s beautiful, distractingly so, with a taught jaw and surprising muscles tightening underneath the lights of the kitchen. Beatrice wishes she knew about her more but the questions die on her tongue, she had used up all of her social energy on the group in the living room and the first time they had met. She clicks her neck and starts to focus on chopping the three red peppers next to the board.
“Chunks or julienne?” She asks, in lieu of anything actually important.
“Julienne?” Ava teases and Beatrice fights the tendency to hide her face and blush, instead she lets her face flush red and rolls her eyes, the same way she would with JC.
“Thin strips.” Beatrice answers, though she’s sure that Ava already knew that.
“Thin strips is perfect. How do you know Lilith?” Ava asks, the question comes out of nowhere, but then Beatrice remembers the open-plan aspect of the flat and the fact that Ava must have seen her pull Lilith into a tight hug. She hasn’t talked to her since she left London at seventeen, having skipped a year and completed secondary school early; Beatrice has thought them close enough to remain in contact, but at that point her spine was about as strong as a matchstick and she did understand why she had stopped communication completely. The most recent contact she had gotten was a postcard delivered to her office congratulating her on her nomination for the Pulitzer, with an apology and a phone number. She had no idea the other woman had talked to JC earlier, that did hurt, but he did cut ties with his family earlier she supposes. She’ll let bygones be bygones, she had missed her, now all she needs is to get dinner with Mary and Shannon and she’ll firmly be back in the States.
“We went to school together, ran in the same circles as me and JC. She left home early, so we lost contact with her.” She says, keeping it simple. Many things have changed but it’s obvious that Lilith is still an incredibly private person who wouldn’t want that kind of information shared. “How do you know her?”
“Same University, hated me when we first met, I am not a very tidy person and she did not like that.” Ava speaks quickly, charmingly, almost tripping over her words as a smile stretches over her face, she lets out a bark of a laugh at the end that makes Beatrice, in turn, smile slightly.
“That sounds like Lilith, how did you win her over?”
“Our friend cannot cook for shit, she burnt ramen to a charred crisp. And I can’t do much-“
“Don’t put yourself down, Ava.” She immediately interjects, Ava continues on, as if not hearing her but Beatrice sees as she jolts in slight surprise at the sentence.
“-but I can cook.”
“Then I will follow your lead.” Beatrice says, after a moment of silence, and Ava somehow relaxes at the statement. She walks to another cupboard and grabs a second chopping board and starts on the chorizo before pushing of the counter and stirring a pan of mushrooms on the stove.
“Woah, Ava Silva letting someone help? In the kitchen? I can’t believe my eyes.” Chanel drawls, and Ava points the knife at her and threatens something that Beatrice can’t quite catch. The others crowd on the other side of the island, where Beatrice is chopping up the next thing she was given, chicken breasts.
“The last time I tried that she towel whipped me so hard that it left a mark.” Randall says and they all laugh, she takes a drink of her beer with her non-chickeny hand, JC looking at her. A knock at the door signals someone new, JC jumps up to the door and cheers a loud ‘Mikey!’ at the person entering.
“I apologize for being so late, I hope this will make up for it?” He holds up a square bottle of clear liquid that makes Ava chortle with joy and almost run across the kitchen to him. “You’re going to make your Ava special, yeah?”
“No, I want to be able to feel my body when I go to sleep tonight.” She replies, taking the bottle with some reverence. Though Beatrice is clearly missing out on the joke that’s making a smatter of laughter appear throughout the flat, she doesn’t feel like a fly on the wall, left out at all, just watching them.
“Who’s this?” The man, tall and thick, tousled blonde hair on his head, shaking off his jacket and putting it on a series of pegs with practiced eased. He says it and nods toward Beatrice, who steels herself for yet another introductory conversation.
“This is Beatrice, a friend of JC’s.” Ava says, over her shoulder, pouring a few hefty glasses of the clear liquid and adding cloudy lemonade to it; it’s odd, after spending so long in Europe, seeing lemonade like that once again.
“Well, any friend of JC’s is a friend of mine.” He smiles, coming toward her with an outreached hand, shaking hers once, twice, they’re soft, as if they’ve only ever been kept inside gloves and on pillows and have never touched a harsh New York Winter or a thorn from a flower. “I’m Michael.” He’s British and it makes her feel slightly more at ease, she has nothing against Americans, she’s spent most of her adult life surrounded by them, but she doesn’t half mind hearing a fellow Brit.
“Bea! Is it okay if I call you Bea?” Ava asks, giving a glass of drink to Michael, her warm and slightly dry hand falling onto Beatrice’s forearm. She wants to say no, it’s what her Father called her when he still enjoyed her company, but it sounds so joyous from her that she immediately gives in.
“Of course.” She takes a look at the cloudy drink, in a tall glass with lines cut across it in a check pattern, not to dissimilar to the Greene King pub glasses of your youth. “What is it?”
“This is the finest tequila you’ll ever have, seriously, no hangover in sight with this shit.” Ava smiles, taking a drink and humming slightly from it. “Have I mentioned that I love you, Michael?”
“Not nearly recent enough.” He gives her a kiss on the cheek and pulls her into a quick hug. “Now I have to go kiss my husband.”
With that he’s gone, giving Hans – the tall, Swiss bartender that was happy when she spoke to him in quick German – a sound kiss on the lips before joining the others around the table. It’s sweet, and Beatrice almost wishes for that kind of sweetness with someone. It’s not exactly missing from JC and Ava, but something there isn’t quite right. Speaking of, Ava picks up her chopping board and adds the chicken to the steaming pan, it shouldn’t be much longer now.
The cassette drifts few a couple more songs and Ava hums along, dancing in a dorky way that makes Beatrice smile. There are a couple of times that she tries to get Beatrice involved but she simply points to her glass as if dancing will make her spill her almost finished drink, when in reality she’s just enjoying Ava being Ava, and she’s not sure that Beatrice’s own dancing will fit in, she doesn’t really dance; too afraid of eyes, too afraid of where to put her hands, where to look. So instead she watches on and take a drink form her, admittedly, delicious tequila. A pinger dings and Ava smiles, opening the over.
“Are you hungry you filthy animals?” Ava says, her tone tilting into an impression of the movie from Home Alone and JC smiles, Ava is so beautiful when she’s being an idiot, when she laughs at her own jokes and comes into the kitchen with a massive pan of paella, oven gloves on to hold it. Michael moves forward to touch it but she smacks his hand away. “Not yet, and it’s hot, don’t be a dick.”
It’s a sort of organized chaos once they’re all seated, JC hands out as much as possible to everyone, Hans is opening a new bottle of wine while arguing with Chanel in German, Beatrice intercepting a few times and Hans motions his hand toward her as if she’s agreeing with his point. She’s fit in like a puzzle piece, right in the top left where a bit of sky looks the same as every other tile but it takes forever to get them right. As always, there’s a five minute break where everyone just enjoys Ava’s cooking, there are a few mumbled ‘amazing as always Ava’ through full mouths but apart from that, just chewing and the scraping of plates.
Ava looks at her friends and feels a sense of calm wash over her, this is good, this is lovely, this takes her mind off all the bad immediately. She has another mouthful and sees that everyone is almost halfway through their first plates, which means the five minutes of silence are almost up and the conversation will be ignited once again.
“Ava! Any new paintings on the way? You know the abstracts sell well.” Randall asks, a cheery grin across his face. She takes a gulp of her drink, the tequila warming her as it makes its way to her stomach. The truth is, she hasn’t, not since the trial. A few scribbled-out abstracts that came from a place of rage, anger at everything, the kind that even the justice of seeing Sister Frances’ smug face behind bars couldn’t wash away. She wants to paint something tangible, something that reminds her of being human, feeling completely full again.
“There’s always something on the way.” She teases, hoping that coy will mean that she can wiggle her way out of this. The others whoop slightly at her and she shrugs, pretending that her heart is hammering and stammering in her chest.
“Well, I certainly can’t wait to see them.”
“Hear, hear.” Hans laughs, raising his glass. “To Ava, and the wonderful food she always gives us.”
“You guys don’t have to-“
“Hush darling, let us like you.” Chanel interrupts her protestations and raises her glass, just as the others do.
“To Ava.” They chorus, clinking, drinking and dropping. And then it’s like the spell of food has suddenly gone, everyone back into their little conversations, low-level buzzing and laughing that can help leave Ava’s blissfully empty.
“I read your Pulitzer article, I have to say, it was pretty intense.” Zori says, leaning back in her chair. JC watches as Beatrice’s chewing doesn’t stop for a second, though it’s clear the question has made her slightly uncomfortable, the same way that any mention of her work in Finland does.
“I will take that as a compliment.” She replies, taking a drink.
“How did you find all that out? I mean, you literally got a group of pe-“
“I went undercover because money was being siphoned out of a company, I went undercover for an embezzlement charge; I found out a lot more.” She cuts Zori off, finality in her tone. He had read the article too, of course, everyone who knows Beatrice has, even her parents talked about it, albeit briefly, in their monthly newsletter that he has never been able to get out of. He knows that she uncovered deplorable things from a group of sleazy CEOs in a Finnish company, he knows that she had found the pictures, and to find pictures like those, you have to look hard, and you have to see them. “That’s it.”
It's unquestionably an ending to the conversation.
“So what else did you get up to in Finland? Besides getting nominated for a Pulitzer?” JC asks, skirting the idea of the last seven years without talking about work.
“Yeah, Tris, any lovers?” Chanel asks, wiggling her eyebrows and shoulders in a way that gets a chuckle from Beatrice. JC lets out a short breath in relief, Zori is a one, but she’s a one that stays ever present in his head; blonde curled hair that he remembers being bed-mused, dark eyes that he has spent a long time getting lost in. His eyes snap to Ava, who looks in between the two of them and looks to his best friend, face saying nothing, he’ll find out later he guesses. Christ, his life is a mess.
“I wouldn’t say, lovers Chanel, you always romanticize my life.”
“So you’ve been screwing around?”
“There have been nights. And dates, and someone who I thought I was dating but it turns out we were not.”
The conversation moves quicker after that, JC notices that Ava slows down her drinking after they eat and he follows suit. Beatrice looks at ease, she talks to everyone barring Zori and if she notices then she doesn’t say anything. Beatrice also insists on cleaning the dishes, it takes him, Ava and Lilith to tell her to sit down, he can tell she’s getting anxious so he helps her clear away at least, that’ll calm her a bit. They leave the plates in the sink, he’ll do it later when Ava’s gone to bed, and go back to the table. He sits and watches as she pats her pockets, bringing out a packet of cigarettes, taking a moment before turning to Ava.
“Do you smoke?” She asks Ava, Ava who hasn’t picked up a cigarette in months, his Ava who he wants Beatrice to get on so well with.
“I’ll come out with you.” Ava says, he’s glad they’re getting along, for a moment he was worried that they wouldn’t. He takes a drink of his wine and zones in on a conversation between Randall and Chanel, ignoring the fact that Zori is laughing at something Camila says and her hand falls onto his thigh when she loses balance on the chair slightly. He ignores how it jolts warmth up his thigh, he moves his thigh and feels her hand fall and misses the touch. He downs his drink.
Beatrice shuts the sliding door and pulls out a cigarette, watching as Ava shivers slightly. She wishes she had something to make her warmer. There’s a question waiting on her tongue, her and JC had sure talked but it was purely surface level stuff. He’s an open book of a man, but he’s hardly unearthed the things that have ultimately changed his life from the last time the two of them had spoken in person. She’s known about him getting, married – but not to who, she’s known about his promotion and the things but not how he’s felt about it. She lights the cigarette, taking a deep breath and exhaling through her nose. She scratches at the underside of her jaw.
Ava watches the motions, how she holds the cigarette and takes a drag, how she scratches at herself, not out of necessity but out of thought. She knows that she is often qualified as a bit too much, eccentric even, often; but she’s more perceptive than others give her the credit for. In the only semester of College she went to, there was a psych 101 class dedicated to the idea of how someone smokes, how it defined them. Lilith rolls her own, quickly and efficiently, hardly any tobacco and holds it similar to how Ava did, locked in between the two phalanxes at the ends of her index and middle fingers. The only difference being that Lilith keeps her hands tense, straight, where Ava’s flopped around, normally being window dressing to a wild story of her past. And this is how Ava knew that the class was bullshit, because, according to 1950s psychology, that would mean that Lilith was a dreamer and Ava was pessimistic. Which, although there are touches of dreams and pessimism within the both of them, that is not how Ava would describe each other at all. Hans holds his in between his third and fourth finger (‘the European way Ava!’) and JC held his in an okay, a remnant of his pot days, clarifying him as a ‘tense individual’, once again incorrect.
The way Beatrice holds hers though, trapped right in the knuckle in between her first and second fingers, the way she takes her right hand and smokes out the left side of her mouth, virtually covering the bottom half of her face; the skeptic. A journalist, skeptic of those around her, it’s the only one that makes sense. The way she quickly inhales and exhales first, keeping it only in her mouth before taking in a long drag that she ghosts and traps to her lungs. She has a sneaking suspicion that Beatrice would look good in abstract.
“Has he been alright?” Her voices draws Ava out of her ramblings, maybe those Cuba Libres were a bit too strong after all.
“What do you mean?”
“JC, he, I- he’s never been the best at sharing his emotions, especially the big ones. So I was just wondering if there’s anything big I missed. Well, besides you.”
Ava is struck by the woman.
“Nothing massive, besides the wedding, he is better on the anniversary of his Mom, is on texting terms with his Dad again. Though, he hasn’t been forthcoming on anything recently.” She doesn’t really know why, she said the last part to this random person she’s just met. Well, she supposes Beatrice is close to him, and there’s something so, easy about the other woman that just makes Ava feel like she can say anything.
“Why is that?”
“I had to be a witness in a trial, it was pretty big for me, like put his life on hold big.” She says, curling into herself slightly. Despite her earlier thoughts, she doesn’t exactly want to talk about that part of her life, not just yet. Beatrice just nods, clearly at a loss as to what to say but Ava doesn’t mind, it’s much better than pity.
They finish in silence, Beatrice putting out the cigarette in the boring plastic ashtray that Ava once stole from a bar down the street and before they got back inside Beatrice catches a hold of her.
“Thank you, for looking after him, but don’t forget to look after yourself too.”
Oh. Oh.
--
“What did you think?” JC asks, later on that night, as they get ready for bed. Ava still taking off the remnants of her makeup and him already in bed, a book resting on his lap. The others hadn’t left too long ago, drinking like fish, losing at cards and Beatrice joining along with them. It felt slightly surreal, and yet like it’s the perfect thing, like it’s just what they’ve been missing.
“What?” Ava almost yells back, not able to hear him over the bathroom fan.
“Of Beatrice? Did you like her?” He asks again, louder.
JC watches as she takes a second, stilling in the mirror before nodding.
“Yes.”
He doesn’t know what it means.
--
25th September
Come over, we need to talk x
Isn’t really the text that you want to receive from your ex-almost-mistress. JC sighs and runs a hand through his hair, he needs to wash it. It’s also not the text he wants to have while talking to his wife over breakfast about their plans for the coming week. Ava’s frustrated about her painter’s block, he rests his hand on hers and she relaxes.
“It’ll be okay Ava, it always has been and it always will.”
“I love you.” She says and it jerks his heart, even after all this time, it makes his heart beat and worries melt.
“I love you too, baby.” He answers, leaning over to give her a kiss. “I have to go, work’s calling me in early, I’ll see you tonight?”
“Of course.
And that’s how he ends up in front of Zori’s bright red front door. Her apartment is 1990s beatnik with Stevie Nicks and Bob Dylan plastered everywhere. There are bottles of wine with half-burnt candles on them, incense everywhere, and the curtains forever closed, the light and thin nature of them leaving orange patterns flat against her corduroy sofas and renovated 1950s furniture. She makes him a cup of coffee and sets it down without a coaster on the coffee table, leaving a circular mark, he takes a drink and gets straight to business.
“What do we need to talk about?”
“Can’t old friends just catch up?” She says, coy and teasing, as if the whole thing is a joke, as if it’s not something that gnaws him up inside.
“Zori.”
“Fine.” She puts down her cup of tea and sits next to him on the sofa, arm on the back, lips tempting. “I’m here to convince you to have an affair.”
She’s never been so upfront about it, it was always just glances and brushing of hands and a few clandestine stares, none of it he’s proud of, none of it he wants to repeat, but the allure, the tantalizing nature of secrets, it calls to him. Zori is a siren and he has to stuff wax into his ears and drown her out, no matter how much he wants to fall into this.
“For fucks sake Zori, I won’t, and I should tell Ava about this.” He slams his hand on the table and stands, pacing in front of the table.
“And where does she think you are right now?” He grits his teeth, not answering. “Exactly, you’re already lying to her.”
“I’m not going through this again, we are not having an affair, we are just friends, nothing more. I have a wife, who I love, I don’t need anything else.”
“Why can’t you have both? Have your cake and eat it? We’re good together JC, and you and Ava have been falling apart for a while now, don’t lie to her, don’t lie to yourself and most importantly, don’t lie to me.”
JC’s not going to take this, he starts toward the front door and hears her footsteps behind him.
“I chose her, she is my wife, I love her.” He throws over his shoulder, opening the door.
“Fine, but just so you know, my door is never locked.”
He slams her door and heads to work.
--
Ava doesn’t plan her day-to-day, routine bores her and when she’s bored she becomes a flight risk, so she allows a routine to come and flow naturally. She has her headphones on again, some ambient stuff at full volume to drown out the sounds of the world but not enough that she can’t think. Her and JC won’t be struggling for money for a few months, but she wants to paint, she can’t sit by a canvas one more time and watch the hours dwindle while she has nothing, nothing, from the tips of her toes to the top of her head, nothing.
“Ava?” She hears and she turns to see Beatrice, JC’s Beatrice, too hot for her own good Beatrice standing there, in the middle of the street looking like she doesn’t know what to do with herself after she said Ava’s name. Goddamn it, she’s cute too, shit. Ava pulls off her headphones to talk to her. She’s in jeans this time and a flannel that’s done tightly on her forearms and open so low that Ava can see her sternum.
“Beatrice, hey, how are you doing?”
“I’m good, the weather’s surprisingly nice.” Beatrice replies, taking a look around and if Ava looks at her jaw too long, no she doesn’t. Her hair is down, dyed at the tips and pushed back with sunglasses.
“Yeah, just wait, there’ll be no Fall, just immediate Winter.”
“Oh Christ, that doesn’t sound nice.” She grimaces and Ava holds back a smile
“Eh you get used to it.” There’s a lull in the conversation and Ava takes a jump. “Do you wanna grab a coffee?”
“Sure.”
They walk side to side in silence, elbows bumping each other with every step. Ava wishes she could say something but it feels like words fail her, thankfully it doesn’t feel forced, or bad, just simply a thing that exists and that calms her. They stand outside the coffee shop in silence and suddenly, she doesn’t want one. Beatrice seems to hesitate too, one of her hands moves from deep in her pocket to fiddle with her sunglasses, taking them off and then fixing them.
Maybe she wouldn’t be good in abstract, maybe Ava count paint her as she is, free yet stoic, kind but concerned, and nice. There doesn’t seem to be a cruel bone in Beatrice’s body, unless you count the ones that are ensnaring Ava with every step, every interaction. She needs to stop thinking like this, stop allowing herself, it’s not allowed, it’s not her place, it’s not.
“Do you want to go to the park? Bask in the sun?” Beatrice asks and it feels, for some reason, relieving. Ava lets out a sigh, a breath that had been held without her knowledge.
“I’d love to.”
The park isn’t too far away and they get there quickly, the sun watching their every step. They end up on a bench under a tree, the sun spilling and dripping through the lush green leaves and suddenly Ava has the feeling to draw them as they are. She sighs to herself, and Beatrice lights a cigarette and they remain in silence, a kind silence that doesn’t make her overthink, it just lets her mind wander nicely over thoughts and feelings, not getting sunken into them. The truth is, Ava’s had enough, enough of almost everything, she just wants to paint a person, a landscape, shapes that have meaning beyond a theory, she want to do what she enjoys again. And she wants to stop being known as the star witness in the Sister Frances and St. Michael’s orphanage trial, she wants to be Ava Silva, painter.
“I’m just sick of it.” Ava says, out of no where and she realises that while she just thought all of that in her head, Beatrice just heard those five words. To her credit, she doesn’t laugh or make fun of her, she just nods and takes a sip of coffee.
“Of what?”
“All I’ve gotten are interviews about the trial, about that, all I want it to paint again and for people to care about that, not that kind of shit.” She says it in one large tumble and Beatrice stares at her, looking so intensely Ava fears she sees every part of her mind.
“I understand. I did this big piece, this important and good thing that I did but, I don’t want to do it again. I just want to write something that people will enjoy, something fluffy.”
An idea rolls into Ava’s mind, the kind of idea that could very easily make the both of them very happy. She turns to Beatrice, who is mid-drag and smiles, Beatrice looks a bit confused but smile back nonetheless.
“This is kinda stupid but, you want to write a puff piece, right?”
“I’m sure it’s not, but yes, go on.” Ava rolls her eyes at Beatrice, who speaks so earnest and open that it makes Ava crack open a bit, and feel like she’s been seen a bit too much.
“And I want people to stop talking to me about Sister Frances, right?” She continues, before she can think about that too much.
“You want me to write a piece on you.” Beatrice realises, a smile burning it’s way onto her face, a twin one making it’s way onto Ava’s, she feels the way it pushes her cheeks and begins to ache the muscles.
“Yeah! What do you think?”
“Alright. Excellent. When would be good for you?”
“Next week?”
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.”
Notes:
the book mentioned is Written on The Body by Jeanette Winterson, cannot recommend this book enough, it is absolutely amazing