notes: not mine, no profit garnered. thanks to pb for beta!
"Remember when you asked if I had apologized for ruining Bryn's nutty, movie theme brunch and I said I had not because no way did it take her ten years to plan a freaking brunch and you said Noooo -" At this point Eliza attempted to imitate Henry's voice or just say no in a deep voice.
"Yes, Eliza, you're repeating a conversation we had."
"So, for the part where you don't know, I decided to go apologize to Bryn," Eliza said.
"After I suggested you do it," Henry said.
"Yup, so I went to talk to Bryn and I was like, hey, sorry, why are you wearing lipstick so garish that no filter could make it look good not even bee double w -"
"Did you actually say that?"
"No, duh, just the sorry part, I saved the burn part for a tweet hashtag-ugh-can-you-not. But I did say I was sorry and she only sort of accepted it. And I said is there anything I can do? And she got weirdly excited and her eyes gleamed with evil and she said I could make it up to her by helping her with her work fundraiser."
Henry felt like he was slowly being swallowed in a black hole of Eliza created drama. But instead he found himself saying, "I thought she worked in her shared equity artisanal sandwich concept."
"Nopes. She can't live off that, duh. She has a day job she kinda hates and her boss stuck her with this holiday fundraiser thing. So I thought, hey, right up Henry's alley of supe dull. Like television that only has people talking against black backgrounds," Eliza said.
"I told you, that was a documentary," Henry said. "One I hoped you would enjoy watching with me and you clearly didn't. An excellent documentary about the evolution of the architecture in Manhattan. It used buildings as a prism to view the complex socio-economic forces that shaped the city that never sleeps."
Eliza kept silent in that smug she knew it all way she had that Henry found unbelievably irritating.
Henry considered her proposal, a clear way to avoid doing the actual work of atonement he had assigned her. He said, "I am not taking this on alone."
"But you are taking it on," Eliza said, with her grating squeal.
Truthfully, nothing Eliza did was irritating or grating to Henry anymore. It was troubling to him but he knew his feelings were not really reciprocated. Eliza thought she had loved him but look how quickly she went back to Freddy.
She claimed they had broken up again. Of the break up Henry had no doubt; that it wasn't Eliza shying away again from a mature relationship he had plenty of doubt.
The fundraiser was for a cause close to Bryn's boss's heart. It was a shelter for tiny dogs and expensive spoiled cats along with other cast off exotic pets of socialites. Henry went over to Bryn's apartment to make sure he had all the details since Eliza couldn't be trusted for a detailed report or a report that wasn't littered with current pop culture references or other terms Henry had no idea the meaning of. He corrected himself in his head for ending a sentence with a preposition. A run on sentence at that.
Bryn looked at him with slightly bemused contempt. Henry couldn't think of an adequate re-re-burn so he kept his conversation to the important, relevant items. "Are you fundraising only from your coworkers?"
Bryn said, "Largely, yes. She would be suspicious if suddenly everyone at your big pharmaceutical company gave. And she would know I wasn't doing any of the work."
"So you want Eliza to create a fundraising campaign that you can pretend you created?"
"And actually do the work, like flyers and emails," Bryn said. "She's apologizing. For once."
"And you are benefiting," Henry said, feeling a small spurt of anger. This was his Eliza. He nearly slapped himself for that phrasing. His Eliza, for goodness sake. She was capable of defending herself and really needed very little from Henry. Support, a little guidance, friendship.
"For once, yes, I am benefitting from living next to Eliza," Bryn said. "She can be awful, you know."
Henry said, "We will not be talking about Eliza. I need details about this fundraiser."
Bryn said, "Whatever." She gave the information he needed.
He was still rankled about Bryn so as he left, he said, "Eliza was right about your lipstick. BURN!"
Bryn look shocked and a little hurt. She said, "That was an actual burn. Finally for you."
"I'm ashamed to admit I feel a little bit of pride."
Bryn said, "Eliza always wears amazing lipstick. It's not easy to make bold colors work. It's not my kind of look but she works it."
"She always looks quite pleasing," Henry said.
Bryn sighed and said, "Okay, we're done. Bring by my plan tomorrow."
Henry set to his tried and true process in his office. Sadly, as had been the case far too often lately, his process seemed to need Eliza. He clicked through the website, thinking of nothing helpful. He stared at the real time webcam of a particularly adorable fat ginger cat. The cat's name was too unfortunate for Henry to let it enter his consciousness. The cat was truly adorable, though. Henry watched the presumably female cat lick each of her precious paws.
He understood, sometimes too clearly, that he found safety in assumptions and rules. He assumed Eliza had broken up with Freddy because she feared a mature relationship. That assumption was easier than acting on his new "no fear" motto. He had a lot of fear.
Eliza breezed in and leaned over to look at his monitor, cooing at the kitty. "She's my favorite, too. I love her name!"
"If I were to adopt her, I would change her name," he said.
"Of course, she would have your last name. Miss Supadupa Titan hyphen Higgs. Or just last name Higgs."
"First name: anything other than her current one. Maybe I would call her something cat appropriate like Whiskers."
Eliza stared at him. "Whiskers," she said. "Whiskers. Look at that ginger bundle of sass and flash, look at her wiggle. She is not a Whiskers."
"Agree to disagree," Henry said. He didn't disagree that much, though. He did need to think of a better and more cat like name than Whiskers if he did give in to the beautiful confident dignity of Miss T, the closest he would come to acknowledging her current name.
"Are you thinking of a getting a cat again?" Eliza had a look like she waiting to pounce. Henry did recall saying something about getting a cat once. The one time he remembered very well.
"I am," Henry said. "I don't think I was ready last time."
"Last time," Eliza said carefully. "But you are now, you say."
"I lacked the necessary -"
"Balls," Eliza said. Then her phone vibrated and beeped. She picked it up automatically breaking their pregnant moment. "Bryn is all over me like Miss Supadupa Titan is when it comes to cleaning her crotchal region."
"So what are we doing? We can't dress the animals sexy like they're selling to doctors."
Eliza frowned. "That is not how I sell. I dress sexy because it's a natural expression of my femininity and Nicki Minaj would be back me up so quick you would be crushed against that wall just by her wig. I sell because I convince all those doctors that I am listening to them and I dress this way for them."
"You make them feel like they're the leader," Henry said. "Sound psychology."
"I know," Eliza said. "You can't adopt Miss Supadupa Titan, I need her."
"You need her?"
"I need the instabump she would give me with catsagrams and hashtag-pussy. I no longer have a hot bf, you know. You just want her because you're always home and this way it would be a whole different kind of pathetic and you wouldn't be home alone talking to yourself, you'd be home talking a cat. With a boring cat name."
Henry said, "That, that is untrue. It's Thursday, and I have been out three nights this week already."
Eliza looked skeptical. Henry said, "Check it, Miss Dooley. Sunday night I took Charmonique's son to a movie we both wanted to see -"
"You took a 10 year old boy as a beard so you could see a cartoon movie," Eliza said.
"Not my beard," Henry said. "Also, why are you being snooty about an animated movie, I saw your vine of Let it Go."
"Did not see it in the theaters," Eliza said. "So that was Sunday."
"Tuesday Larry and his wife and I had dinner and drinks."
"They were setting you up with one of his wife's friends," Eliza said.
"Which indicates I have friends who care about me and am not pathetic," Henry said.
"Funny, I seem to recall that when Charmonique and I tried to help you get your anaconda some, we got a lecture about how having sex is bad."
Henry shuddered at the anaconda reference. If he addressed it, she would just be encouraged to pull it out again. Henry shuddered again at his own thoughts. He said, "I apologize if you took it that way. I should have expressed my gratitude at the gesture. But I did not say sex was bad."
"You sort of did," Eliza said.
"Did not," Henry said.
"Did not get a date with Larry's wife's boring lady person," Eliza said. "So Wednesday?"
Henry paused. Then he said quietly, "Skateboarding meet up."
"Like a class?" Eliza was very close to snickering.
"There was learning on both sides," Henry said. "The important thing is that I did not go home to salad every night."
"I still need the cat more," Eliza said.
"If I adopt the cat, you could come over and take pictures with Miss Higgs for your hashtag cats of instagram pics."
"But I love her already," Eliza said, petting the monitor screen. "Ugh, Bryn is texting me again."
"What if we make Bryn's coworkers feel important? Like we're dressing sexy for them?"
"Between you and me, I think we do cover all the sexual orientations, I mean many lesbians find me really attractive as well as many many many dudes," Eliza said.
"I also have received attention from some very attractive gay men," Henry said. "I had to turn them down, of course, because I'm straight, but one was a male model."
"Yay Henry," Eliza said. "How does this help with stupid Bryn's fundraiser?"
"We need to make them feel important so they feel like part of the solution, and the solution is to adopt any of the pets besides Miss Higgs, or donate to the shelter," Henry said.
"I have an idea," Eliza said. It was, naturally, a good idea. Eliza was really very talented. He translated the idea to something Bryn could easily implement, they sent the plan and Eliza did intricate dance moves to celebrate the end of her apology work.
She thrust her backside around and two-stepped her way out of the office. Henry wasn't sure if he was relieved that they hadn't resumed their conversation about the night she had disrobed. He wanted to talk about it more and he really did not want to talk about it.
He noted the address of the shelter.
"Henry, oh my GOD," Eliza said, running into his office in the morning. She was, naturally, late. Her short hair looked quite good, though.
"Oh my GOD what," he said, not looking up.
"Someone adopted Supadupa Titan," she said, almost teary.
"I adopted Miss Higgs," Henry said. "You can visit her tonight, if you want."
"You gave her that super boring name? Miss Higgs," Eliza said, her voice distorted in an irritating manner.
"Her full name is Miss Supadupa Titan hyphen Higgs," Henry said, sighing as he said the middle names. "I didn't want to deprive you of calling her that when you came over for your instabump."
"Oh my god," she said, this time with more pleasure. "That's so thoughtful of you, Henry."
"I care so much about your likes and follow-whores," he said. He hoped his tone conveyed his actual general contempt for those things.
"I know you do," she said, cheerfully. She was generally impervious to his sarcasm.
Eliza, of course, was already at his door when he got home from work. She had changed into something that was undoubtedly better for matching with his Miss Higgs. She also had a large bag of what he could only assume were props.
"I was wrong," he said, two minutes later. The large bag contained a number of impractical gifts for Miss Higgs. He put his foot down when it came to the sweaters and other outfits. "I have rescued her from that life. No clothes for Miss Higgs. She is a cat, she has fur, she does not appreciate little sweaters and especially not pink ones, Eliza."
"SO CUTE," Eliza said. "Can't I try it on her, just for a minute?"
"No," Henry said, holding poor Miss Higgs close to him. She purred, like she appreciated his heroic actions.
Eventually he surrendered his cat to Eliza while she took a number of photos with the lovely Miss Higgs. Eliza looked even better.
To his surprise, but not really, she stayed after her photo session was done. "Some for facebook tomorrow, 3 on instagram tonight, and one exclusive for tweeting. And now I'm hella hangr."
"I can make us both salad," Henry said. He waited for Eliza's look of horror and then said, "jk. Right?"
"Where should we order food from?"
He was about to say something but she was, of course, talking to her phone. Her phone listed off various local options and then she turned to him. "Which one do you want?"
"I could go for Thai," he said.
She ordered and they sat in a surprisingly companionable silence watching Miss Higgs preen and get petted by Eliza. It lasted for about two minutes.
He was the one who broke it, to his own surprise, saying, "I have regrets, Eliza."
Eliza said quickly, "Your hair from two years ago?"
"That was a good look," he said. "No, I meant other things."
"Really?" Eliza looked at him with a half smile.
"Really," he said. "I think if those things happened again I would do it differently."
"Really?" Eliza stood up so she was standing very close to him. She again smelled very strongly of cotton candy.
"Really," he said. He was very tempted to reach out to her and pull her close. Very tempted.
"Really," Eliza said. She was definitely smiling at him now.
"We should kiss now before we get interrupted by the Thai arriving," Henry said. And proceeded to pull her close against him and kiss her. He ran his hand through her hair, lightly touched her jaw.
Eliza stepped back, her eyes wide. "That was a good plan, that was a good idea. I never thought you'd be a good kisser."
"Thank you for the dis, but I am glad to hear you were pleased," Henry said. He felt he was blinking rapidly. "We should do that again."
"Oh, yeah," Eliza said.
The Thai delivery interrupted their major makeout session and not their first kiss, which was definitely a far better outcome.