I loved watching Nozlee eat. She opened her mouth very wide and put huge forkfuls of veggies or pasta in, she chewed silently but with exaggerated motions. She really enjoyed herself, no matter what it was that she was eating. She stuffed an entire scallop in her mouth and dedicated her entire body to eating it, while I slathered a triangle of toasted naan in unfortunately grainy hummus and took little bites of it, watching her.
Nozlee put a hand over her face and said with a full mouth, “What are you looking at?”
“I love watching you eat,” I said.
She moved her hand away and opened her mouth, made an obnoxious ahhhh noise, I could see little white bits of the scallop on her tongue and between her teeth. She made the filthy elegant somehow. I giggled, a lot, and took down the last of my wine. I scrambled up to grab more and she shouted after me, “Bring the bottle over!” We were feasting. When had I eaten last? Real food, not chips while driving to ward off a daytime hangover? Enchiladas with Lydia, a million years ago? Would I ever have enchiladas with Georgie again?
“Oh my god, can we talk about the ghosts around here?” Noz asked, mouth full of fried cauliflower.
“It’s like they’re humming,” I said. “They’re so happy, they’re not even people anymore they’re so happy.”
I watched Nozlee dip her tender small pinkie finger into the baba ganoush and suck the tip of her finger into her mouth and pop it out again all bright and spitty.
“I had imagined this really calming, almost blissful weekend, connecting to myself, connecting to my magic, you know what I mean.” Noz gestured at me with her wine glass and I lifted mine, and together we sipped.
Living in LA, I was constantly surrounded by communities and cultures leaning like a plant in light towards mindful existences and an introspective understanding of one’s self, but never had I ever tried to look for myself. I was in my skin, what more did I want? I was feeling my own feelings all the time, what else did I have to know? But then, of course, Georgie and Miggy—and Ezra, to a certain extent—had revealed that I didn’t know why I did what I did.
We were getting to the stage of our feast where we had slowed down, but we wouldn’t stop; I knew we’d keep picking until there was nothing on the plates but a faint sheen of olive oil and the dregs of the gnocchi’s wild mushroom ragù.
“You really didn’t talk about anything else?” Nozlee said, switching topics as I opened the second bottle of wine and poured us our third glasses. This would be her fourth total, but why would I count hers? We were going to run out of wine, so she had gotten the beer for something after all.
“What else would we have talked about?” I asked.
She said, without looking at me, “Me?”
“He said you’re absolutely, definitely, not getting back together. Is it because of Miggy?”
“No,” Nozlee said.
“Care to elaborate?”
She didn’t answer; she stood up. She walked into the bedroom and came back a second later with her phone. She wasn’t scrolling or checking anything; she walked it over to the vintage-looking speaker on the side table and plugged her phone into the AUX cable. She tapped and scrolled a bit. She was wearing these white baggy jeans I know she bought from Urban Outfitters online and a t-shirt with thin white and red stripes, tied at the waist, which made her looked very hourglassy. The knot in her shirt warped the stripes; I knew she’d picked up the shirt at the Highland Park location (the best location) of the vintage store The Bearded Beagle. I knew where she’d bought all of her clothes because I was there when she bought them; she’d asked me “How does this look?” and turned around so I could see it from the back before giving my opinion. Lana Del Rey started playing.
She sat back down next to me, her glass and eyebrow raised like props. “Do you always have to know every single little detail of my relationship with Ezra?” she asked.
That hurt so I said, “Ouch.”
“Don’t act idiotic,” she said.
“I’m really not.”
“It’s not like we didn’t invite you,” Noz said. “But don’t pretend you weren’t always there.”
“Are you mad at me too? I can’t tell.”
“I’m not mad, I’m pointing out that both Ezra and I were always inviting you to be this, like, third.”
“Okay, so what?” I said. “Are you pissed at me for not being better than both of you and backing off?”
“That’s not—”
I cut her off, “Because I think if this weekend proved anything, it’s that I’m worse than all three of you, not better.”
Nozlee shook her head, “That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying, did Ezra talk to you about that, like, dynamic between us?”
“We didn’t discuss any dynamic,” I said, sipping on wine. I hitched myself up into the armchair. “Ezra and I talked about how he and I were too close, how we sort of tried to be the same person sometimes. So maybe that created the dynamic you’re talking about, and I’m sorry if that dynamic had some kind of negative effect on your relationship, but I’ll remind you that you yourself admitted that you—not just Ezra, you!—invited me.”
Nozlee looked up at me from her seat on the floor, and I was surprised to see her smiling big and wolfishly, like I’d just done something really wonderful.
“What?”
“You’re really cute when you’re ranting and defensive.”
“I’m not cute,” I said. It wasn’t an adjective that Nozlee had ever, ever used for me before, I would’ve remembered; sometimes I hopped in her car in a good outfit and she said something like “You look hot” or “Those jeans are hot”; always “You look hot,” never “You are hot,” and never, ever, “You’re cute.” “You’re really cute.”
Nozlee started laughing like an idiot at some joke I didn’t get.
“What?” I said.
“I’m pathetic,” she said, coughing and laughing into her hands while she tried to talk.
“What?” I asked again.
“You’re an idiot,” Noz said, and with her big eyes on me, she said. “I’ve been in love with you for, like, years. And that’s why Ezra and I are absolutely, definitely broken up.”
I shook my head, “That’s absolutely not true, you’re not even gay,” I said.
Nozlee looked at me again and she wasn’t amused anymore, “I told you over and over again that I’m bisexual! Over and over again Eve! It’s like you weren’t listening.”
“Nobody’s really bisexual,” I said, reflexively, not even really believing myself all of a sudden.
“Yes they are,” Noz said. She looked pissed still. “I basically moved to LA because you were here and the second I got here you were, like, ‘You should fuck my friend Ezra,’ and then, I don’t know, I didn’t want to be this pathetic person, pining for you all over the place.”
I didn’t know what to say; I stared at the perfect crest of her eyebrows and the glistening brown of her eyes and loved her face and wondered how long I’d loved her face, how long I’d watched her body, how long I’d ignored how hard I was looking.
“Oh god,” she said, her face crumpled. “I guess I’ve fucked the rest of it up.”
“It doesn’t matter, our friendship is all fucked up already,” I said without thinking.
“Oh god, I am pathetic,” she said and she stood up and looked around like she was looking for somewhere to run away to, and I didn’t want her to run away so I stood up too, a little frantically, and maybe I tripped a little.
“No, no, wait,” I said. “I’m always talking without thinking, I just say the next thing! I just haven’t thought about it enough!”
Nozlee stared at me, her face hard again. “Think about it, right now.”
I didn’t know how to think on command, I wasn’t certain even what she wanted me to think about, but I could hear the hum of the
ghosts and I liked knowing she could hear it too. How had Nozlee and I never been in sync? In New York I was intimidated by her and dismissive, and I hadn’t understood why she always took the train to come to the one bar near my apartment in DUMBO instead of making me come to Williamsburg like everyone else I knew did. In Los Angeles, I’d mistaken our, whatever, dynamic for closeness, but we’d only ever been truly close once, on the night we swam and then stayed up together. Her platinum blonde hair had looked angelic spread over the soft white rich-person sheets, I had watched it fluff out while it dried, I’d smelled the chlorine on her when she’d put her hand close to my hand but hadn’t touched.
Ezra and I had reached our uneasy stasis, and by doing something with what Nozlee was offering me, I was potentially delivering a killing blow to our friendship. Georgie had told me that my friendship was worth giving up for the potential of romantic happiness. I didn’t feel that way about Ezra, but Nozlee’s love felt powerful to me, like something that I needed to respect.
I stepped forward into Nozlee’s space, I tried to take the wine glass out of her hand. She moved her wine glass away from me, like she was suspicious of me, and her face looked concerned, but the swivel of her body just put her closer to me, more accessible. I reached as far as I could, I leaned forward; I took the wine glass at the stem while she gripped the curved body.
“Let go,” I said. “I’ve got it.”
She let it go. I took it, I put it down, and I put my hand on her face.
“Eve,” she said, her eyes fluttered closed. “I’m really scared.”
I tried to use every bit of the two inches I had on her to seem like someone she could fold into. I coaxed her with that hand on her face and another on her waist, I wrapped around her like bubble wrap, I put her face into the crook of my shoulder and my chin on her crisp blonde head.
“Do you remember when we went night swimming? You, Ezra, and Migs, and me?” I asked.
“When Miggy was housesitting in the Hollywood Hills?” she asked into the fabric of my shirt. I think she was sucking on it like a nervous child.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about it all weekend, staying up all night with you. Did you give me that Adderall because you were in love with me?”
“Please don’t make me embarrass myself,” she said, and I felt bad for making her scared even though I hadn’t meant to, and I kissed her.
Nozlee pressed her whole body into mine immediately and hummed performativity, like she was saying I’m here, I’m here, I’m here. Where are you? Her lips were very soft and I felt an instinctual understanding of where to put mine to fit in best with hers. I broke the kiss to suck at her warm neck and she panted. I pulled at the crew neck of her striped shirt to reveal the curved crest of her collarbone and I licked at it like it belonged to me.
Sharply, suddenly, Nozlee unwrapped her hands from around my torso and dropped her eyes and pushed at my shoulders; I thought she was trying to get me away from her, had the entire thing been a trick? Then she leaned into my space and pushed at me again and I landed on the couch and she crawled on top of me and I realized that the pushes had been to get me down so she could get on top of me. She kneeled on either side of my thighs and arched over me beautifully, and kissed me. I closed my eyes into it and discovered all the parts of her body I hadn’t touched earlier: the hot skin of her lower back beneath her shirt, the sensitive place at the top of the back of her thighs, the abstract shapes of her shoulder blades. I was turning red and I could feel my cunt starting to pulse.
Nozlee released her grip on my face, finally, and scrambled at arm-holes in my shirt, trying to get a hand in there, while I was trying to kiss at her neck again and find the spot where her skin-smell was the strongest. My lips rubbed against her skin and my entire body jolted when she thumbed my nipple. Bedroom I thought. “Bedroom,” I said.
In the bedroom, we scrambled and teetered; I pulled off my shirt in a ceremonious fuss, Nozlee unbuttoned her jeans while I fiddled with the light level until I figured out that the en suite bathroom light bathed everything in a soft blue glow. Nozlee stood still in her bra and underwear and asked, “Do you want me to take them off?” Though she’d asked it carelessly, it was the sexiest thing I’d ever heard.
“Take them off for me, Noz,” I said.
She laughed as she reached around to her back to unhook her bra.
“What?” I said.
“Your voice gets all growly when you try to be sexy. Just let it happen naturally!”
“Most of the girls I have sex with don’t give me so much shit when we’re fucking,” I said.
Nozlee looked right at me, her face suddenly tense with suffering; I might’ve ruined it. Then she blinked, and her smile was back, and all the pining and frustrated lust and loss was gone from her eyes.
“Forget I said anything,” I said, “I’ve never had sex with anyone else.”
Nozlee intertwined her legs with mine, completely naked now, and whispered in my ear, “Stop talking.”
We made it, finally, to the bed. I laid myself out on top of her and mouthed at her nipples and breasts. She had tan lines, the skin on her breasts and around her neat but robust bush were paler brown than the skin on her stomach and arms. I stuck my tongue into her belly button and nibbled at her there. My fingers tugged lightly at her pubic hair curls and my fingers brushed downwards. “This okay?” I panted into the skin of her hip.
“Yes, keep going, please,” she panted. I didn’t know where her hands were, and then they were in my hair.
It felt like too much to go down on her right away, right then, so I pushed my head up against her hands and kissed her on that good-smelling spot on her neck while thumbing apart her pussy to find the gush of wetness and the nub of her clit. Her hips jerked up, looking for something. I was careful as I slipped two fingers inside of her at once; it was a pleasure to hear her gasp. I kissed her to keep my own heart rate up while concentrating on the mechanics of curling and thrusting the two fingers inside her while my thumb kept up a gentle strum on her clit. I lost myself in the smell of her pussy, in the feel of her lips, and though it was long minutes it felt like no time at all until she ripped her mouth away from mine to tell me she was close to coming.
I levered myself up, putting a little space between our bodies while my tired fingers continued to work. Her breath got sharp, she huffed out bursts; I kissed her and she came fast like she was blooming. I collapsed, sweaty, at her side, flexing my aching fingers. She pressed her face into my upper chest while I breathed hard and I could feel wetness on her fluttering eyelashes. She pressed her knee between my legs and could probably feel my wetness, too. She bit at my neck, she kept her knee there for me to grind against; she knew it was what I wanted because I had told her so, in so many conversations, so many nights ago. I take forever to come, and she let me build to it, and when the orgasm hit me, I felt so grateful for every inch of her skin she let me suck, for every chemical in her brain that made her who she was, and for the graceful arch of her knee that I’d fucked.
I felt like crying, too, but didn’t. I wrapped my arms around Noz and tried not to think about how she would look at me in the morning and what would happen if Ezra came back unexpectedly.
Sunday, 2:35 a.m.
I came out of the mess of my sleep with a memory of a dream in which I’d gulped water voraciously and but couldn’t slake my thirst. I can’t ever slake my thirst. My mouth was dry and my breath was terrible, from all the wine. I dragged my body out of bed before I was really awake and tried to be light on my feet. I closed the door between the bedroom and bathroom before I turned on the bathroom light, and I rested my forearms on the basin of the sink. I ran the water, I drank directly from the stream. Unlike in my dreams, I was quenched. I was careful not to look at my face in the mirror, I was careful to turn off the bathroom light before opening the door.
Nozlee’s body was balled up un
der the blanket; underneath she was naked. The bright light in the bathroom had made me too blind in the dark bedroom to see what was on her face. I was only just able to make out her shape.
I walked as lightly as possible to my side of the bed. I slid myself under the covers, tried to be as still as possible. I wasn’t ready for her to wake up and either turn towards me or turn away from me. I didn’t want to confront any signs or omens about what our morning would be like or what our relationship would be like from now on. I didn’t think about the way Ezra and Nozlee and I had systematically extricated our friend Andrew from our lives after Nozlee had slept with him.
Sleep was elusive; I grabbed my phone and burritoed myself using my half of the comforter, hopefully insulating Noz from my phone light. I turned the brightness down. The whole world of everyone I knew was in the palm of my hands and I could’ve gone anywhere, seen anyone, done anything, but I felt only the compulsion to go deeper. Noz’s email, that I’d refused to read on Saturday, was lingering ghostly in my email’s Trash folder, and I could see it, and read it still.
Hi Eve,
I’m writing to you from Desert Hot Springs, and it won’t cool down even though it’s the middle of the night. I’m typing this on my phone, I’m lying in the dark directly under an air conditioning vent….
I stuck my head out of my burrito and saw, on the ceiling, that air conditioning vent.
…Because you’ve obviously blocked my cell phone number, I’m going to tell you everything in this email where you can’t avoid it, I won’t let you avoid it like you avoid everything else you don’t want to hear.
I love you, I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you for years, maybe since New York. I wish I could say “I don’t know how to tell you” but the truth is that I was too scared you wouldn’t sit still for long enough to hear me out. At the same time, that was the excuse I used for being cowardly, and quiet, and not confronting my feelings for you head on. It was easier to suffer from how much I felt for you than it was to risk you shutting me out of your life.
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