“Oh,” Natalie said. “Yes.” For some reason she’d thought that was an excuse, and was a little surprised Evie had actually meant it. She was actually glad Evie had. It was wonderfully Evie, somehow.
Evie smiled, and went into the bathroom and tidy up her hair. Natalie sat on the bed and watched. Evie didn’t take long. She was quick, quicker than Natalie would have been. She came back into the bedroom and looked around. “Okay,” she said. “I think I’m done.”
“Tomorrow,” Natalie said again, making sure, keeping her voice steady, not desperate at all.
“Of course,” Evie said, and kissed her. Kissed for several minutes, far longer than Natalie had expected. Then Evie said, “Bye,” and went to the door, and down the hallway, and left, and Natalie stayed on the bed and watched her go.
She heard the front door close, and knew Evie was gone, and was strangely happy. Everything actually seemed to have gone quite well.
11: Natalie
Natalie had suggested they meet at her apartment, since Evie might not know where the restaurant was. When Evie arrived she texted from downstairs, the way she always did, making Natalie wonder what she had against the doorbell. Natalie buzzed her in, and went and opened the apartment’s front door, then went to get her coat and have a final quick glance in the mirror.
She heard Evie shout, “Hey,” from the front door, and went to find her. Evie was in the hall. “Hello,” Natalie said, then stopped, and stared.
Evie had a tight floaty dress, and her hair was up and neat and elegant. She had shiny lips and lots of dark around her eyes, and oddly, she also had bare feet. She was holding her shoes in her hand. Natalie stood there for a moment, wondering, and then realized why. The lobby floor, downstairs. It was polished, and always a little slippery.
Natalie stood there, staring, feeling breath-taken, stunned by how different Evie looked when she dressed up.
“My god,” Natalie said. “You’re…”
Evie smiled, and seemed relieved.
“You look older,” Natalie said.
Evie nodded. She seemed smug, apparently quite pleased with herself for the reaction she was getting.
“A lot older,” Natalie said. “Come in. I’m almost ready.”
She got her bag, and her keys, and turned back to Evie. She glanced at Evie’s shoes again. They were nice strappy sandals, with fairly high heels. Evie seemed to be able to manage higher heels than Natalie, not that Natalie ever especially tried. Evie saw where Natalie was looking, and suddenly seemed flustered. “Oh,” she said, and looked too, as if she’d only just realized she had bare feet, and was suddenly wondering if she should have put her sandals back on.
“Fuck,” she said. “I…”
“Don’t worry,” Natalie said. “You look incredible.”
Evie smiled, and went to kiss her, then stopped and said, “Lips.” She peered at Natalie for a moment, apparently trying to see if Natalie had lipstick on. She seemed to decide not. She pressed her hand to Natalie’s mouth instead.
“Hi,” she said. “That’s the best I can do.”
Natalie smiled.
“Shall we go?” Natalie said, and Evie nodded. Natalie pulled her door shut, and they walked down the hall to the lift. Evie left her shoes off until they were in the car.
They drove to the restaurant in silence. Natalie was a little nervous. She didn’t want this to overwhelm Evie, or equally, for Evie to find it all silly.
In the restaurant, she watched Evie carefully, trying to be ready in case Evie got bored, or self-conscious, or whatever else she might get. Whatever vague and ill-formed fear Natalie was afraid might happen. To Natalie’s relief, Evie seemed fine. She glanced around, and seemed interested, and sat down when the waiter pulled her chair out. She jumped when the waiter put a napkin on her lap, which worried Natalie a little, but then Evie saw Natalie looking, and started to grin
Evie sat there, grinning, ignoring the waiter until the waiter had left, and then said, “Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried.”
“You are, but don’t be. I just forgot he’d do that, is all.”
“You’re sure? We can just....”
“Go have burgers?”
“If you like. Anything you like.”
Evie shook her head. “I’m fine,” she said. “This is good. Stop worrying.”
Natalie had the wine list, and ordered wine without letting Evie see it. “I know what you’re doing,” Evie said. “I know why you did that.”
“I know you know,” Natalie said. The prices, she assumed they both meant.
Evie grinned again and said, “Yep.”
They ate. It was food as art. Delicate little parcels and intense tastes. It had been the trendiest place Natalie could found, and where one of the junior associates said her friends went for occasions. “Is this okay?” Natalie asked Evie more than once, and each time Evie nodded and said it was fine. She looked at the plates, and listened to the waiters talk about the food, but Natalie had an odd feeling Evie didn’t completely understand why it was all such a big fuss. Her face seemed to be saying this was just food. She said she liked the wine, though, and that it wasn’t sharp at all.
Natalie nodded. “No it isn’t. Are you all right?”
Evie looked at her, nodded.
“If you don’t like this, we can leave. Right now.”
Evie seemed surprised. “I like this.”
“It’s not what you’re used to?”
“Nope. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like it.”
“Once you’re working,” Natalie said. “You need to be used to places like that.”
“I know,” Evie said. “I have to be able to drink partners under the table. Everyone knows that.”
Natalie smiled.
“I’m practicing,” Evie said, and sipped her wine. “Right now.”
Natalie actually laughed.
It was true, in a way, Natalie thought. Evie had drunk a little more than she had the other times she’d been with Natalie. Her eyes were a bit bright, and she was smiling too much, and sometimes slurring her words slightly.
“I’m tipsy I think,” Evie said. “Do you mind?”
Natalie shook her head.
Evie reached over and took Natalie’s hand, and sat there holding it. Until then, nobody had been noticing them, as far as Natalie could tell. No-one had any reason to, she supposed. Over dinner, across a table, their ages didn’t matter. But then Evie reached over, and took Natalie’s hand, and suddenly Natalie wasn’t so sure they were invisible.
“People are looking,” Natalie said. “If you care.”
“No-one’s looking.”
“The waiter is.”
“Isn’t he paid to stare at us until we’ve drunk like an inch of water and then come and pour us more?”
“I suppose so,” Natalie said.
Quite solemnly, Evie picked up her water glass and sipped, and then put it back down. The waiter came over and refilled it.
“Thank you,” Evie said to the waiter, and then, “See?” to Natalie.
“I do see.”
“Does it bother you?” Evie said. “If people look.”
“No.”
“It really doesn’t?”
“Not the slightest. Should it?”
Evie shrugged. “I thought it might. I don’t know. Work. Fame. That you might be worried about what people thought about your life.”
“Not especially,” Natalie said. In an odd way she was more comfortable here, where her money counted for something, than when she was standing on the street.
Evie sat there for a moment thinking.
“What?” Natalie said.
“Are you completely sure you mean that?” Evie said. “I mean, utterly, completely sure? Because I’m about to do something if you are.”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay,” Evie said, and leaned over the table, obviously intending to kiss Natalie. She couldn’t reach, because the table was too wide, a
nd they were sitting on opposite sides. She stretched, and leaned on the table, and had drunk enough she was unsteady. The table swayed a little, so Natalie had to grab it. Evie realized she couldn’t reach, and stood up instead. She stepped around the side of the table and bent and kissed Natalie.
“I like you,” she said into Natalie’s mouth, and then said back down and said, “So there.”
Evie glanced around. Natalie did too. No-one had noticed them.
“See,” Natalie said. “No-one cares.”
“Someone probably does.”
“No-one’s looking.”
“They’re being polite,” Evie said. “They’re saying to each other, oh look you were right, she is a prostitute and not that woman’s daughter.”
Natalie sat there for a moment, wondering what to say. Wondering how serious Evie was. She put down her cutlery, concerned. “We can go if you want to?” she said.
“Nope.”
“You sound upset.”
“Not really. I’m just thinking.”
Natalie looked around. “No-one’s looking,” she said. “I promise.”
Evie nodded slowly.
“We can go?” Natalie said. “I promise I don’t mind.”
Evie shook her head. “Sorry, I was just… I felt odd. Now I’m fine.”
Natalie kept looking at her, worried.
“I’m fine,” Evie said, and held out some of her food on her fork. “Sorry, just pretend that didn’t happen.”
“All right,” Natalie said, and took a bite.
*
Evie reached over, and took Natalie’s hand again, and twisted their fingers together She looked around the room, as if thinking, and then said, “Maybe we’re making too much of the age thing.”
“Maybe.”
“Of how we look, I mean. Because if I’d aged well, and you’d aged badly, we could be almost the same age.”
Natalie looked at her, astonished at the impossibility of that. Astonished, and also not completely sure whether to be slightly offended. “Why do I have to age badly?” she said. “Couldn’t you just age impossibly well and I be myself?”
Evie shrugged. “If you like.”
Natalie smiled. “Well, thank you.”
“Anyway,” Evie said. “We aren’t necessarily that far apart. That’s all I meant. We could be almost the same age. Like within ten years of each other.”
Natalie didn’t really think so, but she also didn’t want to argue. She supposed Evie looked older, when she was dressed up.
“Maybe fifteen,” Evie said, then, “I’m a little bit pissed, I think.”
“Perhaps a little, yes.”
“Is that okay?”
“It’s fine.”
“I’m not embarrassing you?”
Natalie was surprised. “Of course not. Never.”
“You’re sure? Here? Like, work people and shit?”
“Evie, you’re enchanting tipsy. Really. And there’s no work people here.”
“Good,” Evie said, and smiled for a while. “Fuck, I want to kiss you,” she said. “But I don’t think this is the kind of place to do it properly.”
“Properly?”
Evie nodded. “Very properly.”
“We can go,” Natalie said.
“In a minute,” Evie said. She looked at Natalie, smiling. Smiling and sipping wine. “Did I say I like you.”
“You did.”
“Well I do. So I’ll say it some more. Come here.”
“I thought we weren’t…” Natalie said, confused.
“Not properly. I can still kiss you a bit though.”
“Oh,” Natalie said.
Evie stood up, and leaned over the table, and Natalie leaned forward enough that this time they could both reach.
“Was that too obvious?” Evie said, and sat down. “I’ve become a little untidy.”
“You’re exactly obvious enough. And exactly untidy enough.”
Evie smiled some more. “Yay.”
“I like you too,” Natalie said. “In case you wondered.”
“Oh yeah,” Evie said. “I suppose I should have asked. Yay again.” Evie was leaning her elbows on the table and swaying slightly as she talked. She was twenty years younger than Natalie and beautiful and drunk in a restaurant full of people. “I have an idea,” Evie said suddenly, and looked around, apparently for the waiter. She saw him, and waved, and he noticed and came over.
“Hey,” Evie said. “Um. Sorry to be weird, but how old do you think I am?”
“Twenty-seven,” the waiter said. He seemed amused, as if he didn’t mind being put on the spot. Natalie hoped he didn’t.
“Twenty-seven?” Evie said, looking surprised. “Why that? Why not twenty-five or thirty?”
“It was just a guess.”
“What about her?” Evie said, pointing to Natalie.
“Thirty,” the waiter said.
“Liar.”
The waiter grinned. “Forty.”
“Better,” Evie said. “Would you believe I was thirty?”
“Yes,” the waiter said.
“Thirty-five?”
He grinned again. “Not a chance.”
“Still,” Evie said to Natalie. “See. It isn’t that bad.”
“Thank you,” Natalie said to the waiter, and tried to say sorry with her eyes as he left, then changed her mind and decided she’d never apologise for anything Evie did again. If Evie was drunk, and untidy, and a nuisance to everyone around them, Natalie still shouldn’t mind if that was how Evie wanted to be. She ought not mind if Evie drank the restaurant dry and vomited in the shrubs outside and then started a fist fight on the way home. If Evie did, Natalie would bail her out of jail, but she wouldn’t apologise for Evie, not ever. She liked Evie and she wanted her and she was starting to realise how strong both feelings were. Strong enough she didn’t care much about anything else. Strong enough she wanted this to be everything it ought to be.
Natalie looked at Evie. There was something about Evie, sitting there, leaning on her elbows on the table, her hair starting to come lose from its clip, something weak and human and full of an ambitious, arrogant life that Natalie adored. Natalie thought about Evie, and Evie’s way of being herself, and then, for some reason, she thought about Meredith and how much everything with Meredith had hurt.
“You’ve never been hurt,” Natalie said suddenly, without completely knowing why.
Evie seemed surprised. “What?” she said. “Where did that come from?”
Natalie shrugged.
“You’re wrong,” Evie said. “I have.”
“Not like I mean.”
“I have,” Evie said, then sat there for a while. “Maybe.”
“I want you never to be hurt.”
“Oh,” Evie said. “Okay, but I don’t think you get to decide that.”
“I know. I wish I could.”
“Okay. Bossy.”
“I wish,” Natalie said. “That’s all.”
“Then I wish too.” Evie picked up her wine and sipped. “I’m a little bit tipsy, did I say that?”
Natalie smiled. “You did.”
Evie smiled back. “I really fucking like you. Did I say that as well.”
“You did.”
“Right,” Evie said, and drained her glass. “I think we should go.”
“If you’re ready?”
“I am.”
Natalie was a little concerned about why. “It isn’t because you think anyone here minds what we’re doing, is it?”
“Fuck no,” Evie said. “I don’t care about them. I just realized I’m horny, that’s all.”
Natalie looked at her. “Oh.”
“Yep,” Evie said. “I think we should go.” She stood up, and leaned on the table for a moment, so it swayed and Natalie had to hold it again. “Shit,” Evie said, looking surprised. “Heels.”
Heels and wine, Natalie thought, but didn’t say it.
Natalie looked around for a waiter. She held
out her credit card. Suddenly the staff were prepared, suddenly they were moving quickly. They had the bill organised already, as if they’d guessed there might be a quick departure. Natalie paid, and left a far larger tip than was needed, and then wondered why. It was almost as if she was trying to apologise while pretending to herself she wasn’t. That, or she was just relieved the evening had gone well. One or the other, she thought, and supposed it didn’t matter. She made sure they had everything, especially everything of Evie’s, and followed Evie outside.
*
Outside the restaurant, the street was dark. Evie wandered in the direction of Natalie’s car, stumbling occasionally as she went. Natalie hurried, and caught up with her, worried she might trip. Evie didn’t trip. She smiled when Natalie appeared beside her, but seemed able to walk on her own. She stopped at the car, and turned around, and leaned back against the door, and said, “So.”
Natalie looked at her, unsure what that meant.
Evie reached out and caught Natalie’s jacket and used it to pull her closer. She pulled Natalie over, then kissed her. A proper kiss, a kiss that felt like she utterly, desperately meant it, pressing herself against Natalie, slipping her arms around the back of Natalie’s neck, holding onto her as tightly as she could.
“Thank you,” she said, after a moment. “For dinner. I liked it a lot.”
“I’m glad.”
“And I like you too. Have I said that already?”
“You did.”
“Well I really fucking like you. And I’m really glad I met you.”
“I am too, Evie. I really am.”
“Yeah,” Evie said, as though she’d forgotten she said it first. “Me too.”
There was more kissing. Natalie didn’t try to move, she just left Evie as she was, propped up against the car, draped around Natalie’s neck. After a while Evie gasped, “Can’t breathe,” and leaned back.
They looked at each other for a moment. Natalie reached into her pocket and beeped the car’s doors unlocked.
“It’s funny,” Evie said. “The first night I met you, you were pissed as fuck. Now I’m a little tipsy.”
“Just a little,” Natalie said.
“Yep,” Evie said, and kissed Natalie again. She kissed, then moved, turning them around, turning so Natalie was leaning on the car, feeling cold metal against her back. Natalie didn’t understand why, until Evie reached past her and opened the back door. Evie grinned, and climbed into the back seat.
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