“So no girlfriend?” Evie said. “Nothing?”
Natalie shook her head.
“Nothing at all?” Evie said.
“Of course not,” Natalie said. “I would be here with you if there was, would I?”
Evie thought about everything Natalie was assuming, but that it was probably good she was.
“I don’t know,” Evie said.
“No,” Natalie said.
“You get why I’m asking though, don’t you?” Evie said. “I’m not being rude, I just…”
“I think so.”
“And you’d really tell me?”
“I would now you’ve asked.”
“Because what, you aren’t going to lie?”
Natalie looked at her. “No.”
“Oh,” Evie said.
Natalie shrugged.
“Well me either then, I guess,” Evie said. “I won’t lie either. Just so you know.”
Natalie nodded.
Evie thought a little more, about exactly what Natalie had said. “But there used to be someone,” Evie said. “Someone you didn’t wear a ring with?”
“There did.”
“Someone who was a she?”
Natalie nodded.
“But not any more?” Evie said.
“We broke up,” Natalie said. “Badly. Two years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” Evie said, wondering if that was why Natalie seemed a little lonely. She decided it probably was.
“It happens,” Natalie said.
“Yeah,” Evie said. “Well, I’m sorry.”
“It’s the past,” Natalie said, a little stiffly. “It’s not important any more.”
Evie realized she might be prying, that Natalie might not want to talk about her ex. “Sorry,” she said.
Natalie looked at her.
“It’s not any of my business,” Evie said.
“It’s not that, exactly.”
“It isn’t,” Evie said. “So I shouldn’t ask.”
“I don’t mind telling you.”
“Still,” Evie said.
There was another silence. Neither of them moved. Evie didn’t feel as reluctant any more, she just didn’t feel like actually moving. She didn’t feel much of anything. They were both still damp, and the car was steaming up. Somewhere near them water was dripping, perhaps the rain seeping into the carpark.
“So,” Natalie said. “Would you like to come upstairs?”
Evie sat there for a moment longer, and then nodded.
“You would?”
“Yep,” Evie said.
“Now?”
Evie smiled, and opened her door.
“Good,” Natalie said.
They got out, and Natalie locked the car. They walked across the concrete carpark in silence.
*
There was a lift in a corner of the carpark. Natalie walked over, and pressed a button, then pressed it again several more times, impatiently. Then she looked up, and saw Evie watching, smiling slightly, and took her hand away.
Evie didn’t say a thing.
The lift arrived, and they stepped inside. Natalie had to swipe a keycard to make it start. She lived close to the top of the building, Evie noticed. The sixteenth floor of eighteen. They stood in the lift without speaking, as though talking seriously just now had made them both suddenly quiet. Evie waited until the lift stopped moving, and the doors opened and looked out. There was a lobby and a hallway, which looked a lot like a hotel. There was a table and a picture in front the lift, and the hallway lights were on. It wasn’t the functional concrete Evie had been half-expecting.
She didn’t know what she’d expected that. Not in the building where Natalie lived. She stepped out the lift, and looked around. She was beginning to realize this was a very different place to what she was used to.
“This way,” Natalie said, and walked off down the hall.
Evie followed. There only seemed to be four apartments on the floor. Natalie went past one door, and stopped at the next. She opened it, then held it open, waiting for Evie to go through. Evie understood what she was doing now, after the confusion with the car doors. She stepped past Natalie and went inside.
There was a small entranceway, and another open door, and beyond that, a room. The lights were still off, and Evie had the impression of a large space and a wooden floor, but she didn’t really stop to look. What she noticed, what took all of her attention, was the full-length windows in front of her.
The windows, and beyond them, the city and the night.
There were lights and clouds and the orange-misty darkness of the city in the rain. The window was high enough that the detail below was lost. Evie saw patterns rather than actual things. There were lines of wet lights, and rain spatter on the glass in front of her, and bright streaks of moving cars on streets in the distance. It was dark in the apartment, so the only light was what spilled in from the hallway behind her, making a tiny reflected Evie on the glass. Otherwise, there was just the city, spread out before her.
“Fuck,” Evie said. “That’s…”
She walked forward a few steps, captivated, staring. She half-heard Natalie close the door behind her, without completely noticing. She thought about wooden floors and heels, and that her feet were sore after working for hours. She reached down, and undid the straps of her shoes, and took them off, still staring at the window. Then she walked out into the room, leaving wet footprints, looking out at the night.
It was beautiful. It was astonishing.
She turned back and looked at Natalie and said, “That’s incredible.”
“I thought you’d like it,” Natalie said. She sounded quite pleased with herself.
Evie smiled, although Natalie probably couldn’t see her properly in the darkness. “I do,” she said. “I really do.”
She walked up to the windows, close enough to touch, and kept looking out. With the inside lights off, she could hardly see the glass. There were no window-sills, no barriers, just a wall of glass in front of her. It almost made her a little nervous, looking down from so close. She watched cars far below, and a plane climbing into the sky somewhere out towards the airport, and spotlights in the trees of a park a little way down the street.
It was a wonderful view.
Natalie was somewhere behind Evie, putting down her bag and taking off her shoes as well. Evie caught little glimpses of her reflection in the glass. Natalie came up behind Evie, and handed her a towel. A soft, fluffy, perfect towel. Evie tried not to be impressed. She wiped her face and dried her hair, and then realized she was still wearing Natalie’s jacket. She took it off, and handed it back to her, and Natalie draped it over a chair, apparently unconcerned.
Natalie went away again, somewhere behind Evie, silent. Watching Evie look at the view.
Evie took out her cigarettes, mostly by habit. She hadn’t had one for several hours, not since her last break. She hadn’t had a chance to right after work, what with driving Natalie home and everything. She looked at Natalie’s reflection in the windows, and wondered if she should ask. Or whether intriguing younger women you picked up and brought home to your expensive apartment just did things without asking. She thought, and decided she wasn’t going to be rude, even while she was admitting to herself she was being picked up.
“Hey,” she said, and held up the cigarettes, said, “Is it okay if I do?”
“Of course.”
“Are you sure?” Evie said. “It’ll make the place smell.”
The reflection of Natalie walked over to the kitchen. “Do you mind being over here?” Natalie said, and pulled out the extractor fan hood over the stove so it began to whirr and suck.
“Yep,” Evie said, and looked a moment longer, then went over to Natalie.
Natalie turned the lights on. She must have left them off deliberately while Evie gazed at the view. Evie looked around at the inside of the apartment. There were wooden floors and bookshelves and two couches in a corner. There was a hallway, and more
doors further down it. The kitchen had stone benchtops, and steel appliances, and there were flowers on the table and art on the walls, and Evie didn’t know what kind either the flowers or art were. Everything seemed tasteful and perfect and slightly intimidating, and Evie didn’t know quite what to think.
She realised she’d made puddles on the floor, walking around. A trail of footsteps leading from the door to the windows.
“Sorry,” Evie said. “About the floor.”
Natalie shrugged.
“Should I mop it up?” Evie said.
Natalie just looked at her for a moment, then said, “It’s fine.”
Evie nodded, and hitched herself up onto the stone benchtop, next to the stove, and sat facing Natalie, dangling her feet off the side.
Natalie watched her. Evie watched her back, wondering if the staring was meant to mean something. She took a cigarette out the packet, and her lighter, and looked around the apartment once again.
“You’re rich,” Evie said.
“Not really.”
Evie looked over at the windows.
“It’s just a view,” Natalie said.
“Yep, and I have a horrible feeling what a view like that costs.”
Natalie smiled for a moment. She was still damp. Damp like Evie was. She had wet hair, and wet skin, and her clothes still dripping a little. Her shirt was soaked, sticking to her skin and her bra, and Evie looked at Natalie’s tummy for a moment, a little shocked by how toned it was. Natalie was in better shape than Evie, Evie thought, and wasn’t completely sure how she felt about that.
Natalie was also staring fairly obviously at Evie. Staring, while Evie sat there in wet clothes. Evie wondered if she should call Natalie on that, and ask what she was staring at, but decided not. She wasn’t completely sure what was happening here, but it was interesting and she wasn’t ready yet to point anything out, and scare Natalie, and have this stop.
She held out her cigarettes instead. “Want one?” she said.
Natalie shook her head.
“Want some weed?” Evie said.
“Maybe later.”
“So no?”
Natalie smiled. “Not really. But thank you.”
“So that’s not why I’m here?”
Natalie shook her head.
“So if it isn’t that,” Evie said. “Why?”
Natalie just stood there and grinned.
“Yeah,” Evie said, after a moment, and grinned back.
*
Natalie had switched on some lights, but the apartment was still dim. A good kind of dim, Evie thought. A comforting darkness, and so the lights inside were part of the lights out the window, part of the view, not drowning it out.
Evie lit her cigarette, and Natalie took a saucer out a cupboard, and put it on the bench next to Evie, and then just stood there watching her. It felt terribly serious. Neither of them was smiling, both of them grave, and Natalie watching Evie smoke.
Evie was a little nervous, suddenly less sure of herself than she thought she ought to be. Something had changed, Evie decided. Natalie seemed more confident now. All of a sudden it wasn’t just Evie watching Natalie be drunk and a bit silly, now it was Natalie watching Evie, and in a completely different way.
“So why am I here?” Evie said, wanting to feel the flirty smugness she had a moment before.
Natalie shook her head.
“You’re not going to answer?” Evie said.
“No.”
“Oh,” Evie said, a little taken aback.
Natalie was looking at her quite intensely, Evie realized. Natalie was more than looking, she was drifting closer, had taken a step or two towards Evie. Suddenly she was right there. Suddenly her hand was reaching up towards Evie’s face.
She touched Evie, a soft caress, briefly. For just a second.
Evie closed her eyes, and opened her mouth. Opened it, expecting to be kissed.
“Wait,” Natalie said, softly.
Evie didn’t understand. She opened her eyes.
“Just wait,” Natalie said. “Feel that.”
“Feel what?”
“That,” Natalie said, and took her hand away. “The not knowing.”
“Oh,” Evie said, and everything went still. Now she understood what Natalie had meant. That moment before a kiss, the moment of anticipation and stillness and uncertainty when both people were wondering what was about to happen, but as yet nothing had. Evie liked that moment. Sometimes she liked it more than she did the kiss that came after it, and sometimes more than the person she had the moment with.
Evie looked at Natalie, and waited, and Natalie waited too. Both were still, and Evie was lost, wondering if she should. Wondering if Natalie wanted to as well, and feeling the not knowing quite intensely. Neither of them had moved, but somehow both were starting to lean towards each other. There was tension and uncertainty and hope so strong that for a moment Evie couldn’t breathe. Then, instead of kissing her, Natalie spoke, and Evie was so surprised she almost didn’t hear what Natalie had said.
“Would you like a drink?” Natalie said.
“What?”
“I thought you might like something to drink?”
Evie looked at her, surprised. “Not right now,” she said. “Aren’t we…?”
Natalie grinned some more. “See?” she said.
“See what?”
“The waiting.”
Evie looked at her, a little frustrated.
“Wait,” Natalie said. “Please?”
Evie gave up. She shrugged.
“Are you sure you don’t want a drink?” Natalie said.
Evie shook her head.
“Say if you do,” Natalie said, and went back to leaning on the bench, watching Evie smoke. Waiting again, but differently now. Letting Evie finish the cigarette before she made her move.
Something about Natalie had definitely changed, Evie thought. Now she was being all smooth, with her dim lights and offering drinks and telling Evie to wait. Or perhaps not smooth, Evie thought. Perhaps just doing what she usually did, which was just different to what Evie was used to.
That was an interesting idea, Evie thought. That what they both expected might be different, because they were very different in age, and so presumably this could be something new and interesting just because of that. New and interesting, but complicated too.
Natalie was standing where she’d been all along, standing a little to close, leaning a little forward, exactly as she’d be if she was about to try and kiss Evie. Except that she probably wasn’t, Evie thought, because she hadn’t just now. Evie had no idea. She couldn’t tell, because she had no experience to work from, because Natalie was different to everyone who’d ever tried to kiss her before. Natalie might just be standing where she always stood to talk, and mean nothing by it, and Evie wouldn’t know. And a lot of other things Evie assumed might not actually be right either.
Evie sat there for a moment, thinking. About who wanted what, and what they were doing, and how hard it was to be sure what Natalie wanted. It was as if they both had their roles, she thought, and had somehow got stuck in them without quite meaning too. Natalie was older, so she was taking the lead, and that seemed to mean Evie couldn’t start anything. Not that she necessarily wanted to. Evie thought instead. She thought about Natalie. About Natalie’s age, and how much she liked her, and whether it was bad to sleep with a partner in a firm where she might end up working. It seemed like that was probably more important than it seemed to be right now. She liked Natalie, though. She liked this little game of waiting Natalie was making them play. She liked the way Natalie had done that, and wanted to do more.
“I don’t know what to make of you,” Evie said. “I’m not sure how to be around you.”
Natalie nodded. “I don’t either.”
“Like right now,” Evie said. “I still don’t completely know that this is what I think it is.”
Natalie seemed puzzled.
“So go on,” Evie said.
“Go on what?”
“Do what you’re thinking about doing,” Evie said.
Natalie kept looking at her.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Evie said. “At least, I think I know.”
“You probably do.”
“So do it.”
Natalie shook her head.
“You aren’t thinking that?”
“I am. But no, not yet.”
Evie was surprised, and almost a little hurt. “Why not?”
“Don’t be impatient.”
“I’m not,” Evie said, impatiently.
Natalie smiled. She looked at Evie and didn’t move and just said, “Wait.”
After a moment, Evie sighed.
*
Evie sat on Natalie’s kitchen counter and smoked. She still felt damp. Her clothes were sticking to her. She was fairly sure Natalie was aware of that, from the way she seemed to be concentrating on Evie’s face. She was fairly sure Natalie was aware of her lips too, each time she put the cigarette against them.
Evie was interested in Natalie. She liked Natalie’s little games. She wanted to flirt, and to play games too. She crossed her legs. She did it carefully, so her skirt slid up a little way, and tried to see if Natalie had looked. She wasn’t sure if Natalie had.
Evie thought. She ought to be making it easier for Natalie to make a move on her, but for some reason she wasn’t. She kept implying she wanted Natalie to kiss her, but not actually saying so, and not actually kissing Natalie herself, either. Natalie was playing games, and now Evie was too, and Evie quite liked that they both were. She liked being this mysterious, sexy Evie who Natalie wanted. She liked being a little bit of a mystery to herself, too.
“So,” Evie said, after a moment. “Are we still waiting?”
Natalie smiled slowly.
“Are we still not doing whatever it is we might eventually do?” Evie said.
“No, not yet.”
“No worries,” Evie said. “I just asked so I’d know.”
Natalie’s smile became a grin.
“Just don’t wait so long you think yourself out of it,” Evie said. “That wouldn’t be good.”
Evie's Job Page 5