INTO THE NIGHT
50-56 31st Ave
Queens, NY 11377
Alex Vause stays up all evening and into the night, reluctantly yet consistently returning to the window again and again to push the blinds apart with her thumb and forefinger. Each time, she curses herself and removes her glasses. The light from the parking lot might reflect off of them, let whoever is waiting for her know she is there.
Mostly she lies on the sofa, first on her back with her legs drawn up, then on her stomach. She has tried to read, and she has sipped wine to think less of what is happening. She leaves the lights on all the while.
A series of muted film noir are running on a classic movie station. Burt Lancaster is staring out of shimmering silver blinds, pining for Ava Gardner.
"Jesus," Alex says out loud to the room, "I'm like the fucking Swede."
The room doesn't respond. It sits there in its yellowish glow, the shadows buzzing a little in the corners where the light weakens. In the quiet, she feels she can almost hear the faint buzzing of the overhead lamp. She gets up and turns up the volume on the television set. The music and voices seem awfully loud, even after she's turned it down very low. She sits back down on the sofa. From her back pocket she feels the pocketknife. It'll be little to help her. They'd be more than her, and they'd have a plan. No, all she might try to do is escape. Climb out the window if she has to. But she knows she won't, and she knows that even if she escaped this time, there would be another time. She only wishes she knew when the time was coming, when exactly, just so there wasn't this unbearable wait. The boredom of it, the quiet of it – even worse: the loneliness of it. It's all alright, she keeps telling herself; this is how it goes, how it would've inevitably had to go. You play tough; you have to stay tough, go through with it, last man standing – and yet.
It would just be so fucking good to have a knock at the door. Someone to talk to – even some little kid like little Nick Adams, say, from the short story she is reading. He would knock at her door:
"Whomever you're hiding from," he'd say ominously and sincerely, "they know you're here."
"That's fine, Nick," she'd say, standing in the shadows, one of her shoulders leaning against the wall.
"It's just as well."
"But aren't you going to run for it?" the kid would be wearing a white cotton t-shirt and blue jeans; he'd be puzzled by her capitulation, maybe even a little melancholy.
"Those men who are after me," she'd say, "they're after me for a reason. I fucked up. It's just as well."
He would nod. She'd want to tell him more, but she'd stop herself.
"You'd better go," she'd say, and he'd hang his head.
Alex smirks at herself. She listlessly retrieves her coffee-stained book of short stories from the coffee table. The lined notebook and pen catch her eye almost as though they were expecting something. Beside them, her phone lies in silence.
The next time she gets up is to close the window she'd left cracked open in the bedroom. It's started raining outside. She lies back down with her chest heaving and places her hand on her breast, as if to calm her breathing. Some cars pass in the street. A little later someone walks past the window. Maybe it would be better to have someone over to visit, she thinks. She could have someone over, some girl. It'd get her mind off things. She could go out; some bar, maybe. She'd find the girl, pay for her drinks and laugh and take her home. She would undress her in the dark and kiss her while rolling her palms over the girl's breasts, with sudden hard strokes so the girl would whimper just a little.
Alex sighs into the night. Girls like that, the ones that let you do as you pleased, the good ones, the ones who tremble under your touch and who make you tremble in your unbearable hard depths, the girls you enjoy pleasing so much that when they come it makes you feel like you yourself are coming, those girls hardly exist anymore. A girl like that might have once been waiting for her out there but she no longer does. In truth, she has only known one girl quite like that or almost like that, and she isn't coming back. After her, none of the others matter.
In the kitchen, with its window out into the yards, Alex can look into the lit rooms of the apartment across the way. Through the rain, she sees someone else's white walls. A young couple is embracing. The girl's back is to her, her shoulders are slender. Alex hisses between her teeth as she pours herself another bottle of wine. The rain is starting to drum against the window. Maybe she should write another letter, just one more, a good-bye letter this time – just before they off her, or before she runs for it for good.
This is when there is a loud knock at the door.
Alex looks up. She is half expecting little Nick Adams by now. She curses. More like it's them. What now? Gun? Kitchen knife? Alex is already in the hall, stupidly gripping her pocketknife in the back pocket.
"Who is it?" she calls, her voice raspy from its lack of use, but, thankfully, displaying no fear.
It's low a woman's voice that answers. An alcohol-tinged, tired voice, "Alex?" – but so familiar – "It's me."
Maybe it's just the night, the wine, the wishful thinking; or maybe it's just that hour when people embrace. Or maybe it's just that when the death of her was supposed to walk through her door it had to be in the shape of this woman.
They can't seem to stand still or sit. They move through that little room without making eye contact, swaying back and forth, keeping a safe distance from each other. Piper glances at the small, battered television set.
"Bogie and Bacall?" she says. Alex quickly steps forward and presses the mute button.
The film has changed, it's the one with the storm and the gangsters, and Alex didn't even notice. With a shaky hand, Alex gropes for her packet of cigarettes in the cushions of her sofa. She lights it quickly and remembers: the ashtray is in the kitchen.
"So you've started that again," Piper says. She comes closer with a stumble – so close Alex can see the blotchy mascara – plucks the cigarette out from between Alex's lips, and takes a long drag.
"What the fuck," Alex can say that now, "what are you even doing here?"
"Furlough," Piper says, pushing the cigarette back into Alex's hands – their fingertips barely touch – and turning away, "…long story. And what the fuck? That's supposed to be my line. What the fuck, Alex."
Alex looks at the filter of her cigarette. It has a lipstick-smudge on it now. Piper slumps down onto the sofa. From the soft glaze over her eyes and the odor of cheap liquor, Alex can tell she was drunk from the moment she walked into her apartment.
"So am I the only one in prison?" Piper says in her mock hurt voice, the passive-aggressive one.
"Apparently not right now," Alex remarks with a gesture at Piper, "how did you find me?"
"Really, Alex? Return address on your letters."
"Right," Alex says quickly. She lifts her cigarette just a little, "Let me get the ashtray."
Her heart hasn't stopped thudding against her ribcage by the time she gets back to the living room. She makes an attempt to sit at the sofa, but Piper waves her hands.
"No," she says loudly, "No, no, you don't get to sit – " she gestures around her closer proximity, "you sit over there."
Piper points to the other side of the coffee table.
"Fine," Alex says, "do I get a pillow at least?"
Piper throws her a pillow off the sofa, and Alex obliges, awkwardly sitting down on the carpet and crossing her legs.
"Can I have a cigarette?" Piper says. It makes Alex smirk as she hands over the packet.
"That kind of a night, huh, kid?" she says as Piper leans over to let Alex light it.
"I didn't mean to come here, you know," Piper says, exhaling while looking at a distant spot on the ceiling, "I went to have a burger and then it started raining, and then I –"
She gestures, and the gesture fades. She gives up, raises her eyebrows, and sighs, "Oh whatever."
Alex is containing her smirk. "That's nice," she says, "unexpected, but nice."
She tries catching Piper's eye. Finally, Piper looks back. They both half grin at each other, stupidly. Then Piper unselfconsciously reaches into her mouth and removes a speck of tobacco off the inside of her lip.
"So you've got yourself a place. Living your life, huh."
Alex grinds her teeth.
"Not really living," she says quickly. She hesitates, then continues – "look, there was a mistrial, okay. Kubra's out. He's fucking free."
"Oh," Piper says sarcastically, her rage flaring up, "so it's really just me in prison?"
"Think about it, dumbass," Alex hisses, "how easy was it for you to just come to my door? What if you'd come up here with a gun, or a knife? Did you actually see anyone out there protecting me?"
Piper looks at her for a moment. Slowly, she understands. She wrinkles her face, the way she does.
"Oh," she says with emphasis, "Oh fuck."
"Yeah," Alex says, "Yeah, pretty much."
Hands holding their ashes-snowing cigarettes, they keep staring at each other with their eyes moving back and forth. Alex tries to know what Piper is going to say before she says it, just so she can be ready. Piper closes her lids half way.
"I have so many questions," she says quietly.
"Did you read any of my letters?" Alex tries to say just as quietly. Her voice catches on its own rasp.
"No."
Alex can't suppress a disappointed silent laugh.
"So you just stared at the envelopes long enough to memorize my address."
Piper doesn't reply. She turns her head a little, but keeps her eyes set on Alex's. She's here now, isn't she? Alex thinks. That's better than reading letters. Still, it's a step closer to good-bye.
"It's good to see your face," Alex says suddenly, honestly, "it's really so fucking good to see your face."
When she sees just a little hint of warmth in Piper's budding smirk, she breaks into a little laugh. "And it's a good thing you came to see me tonight, Pipes, because I'm sure I won't be here for much longer."
"Alex," Piper says, "can't you go somewhere? Shouldn't you be somewhere already, like Uruguay or Russia or Argentina?"
"Basically I was kind of hoping I'd get to talk to you first. Before I left," Alex takes a gulp of her wine. "'Cause Piper, when I leave, y'know, I can't come back. I have to just disappear."
Piper grimaces. She opens her mouth to say something, her eyes only search the room wearily – finally she stops.
"I need a drink," she says, "it's been a long, long night."
When Alex returns with the second glass of wine, neither seems to want to talk about it. The cigarettes teeter, neglected, on the brim of the ashtray. Alex carefully slides onto the sofa beside Piper. There is no protest, but they don't touch, either. Piper clasps the wineglass in her hand and runs her fingers through her blonde hair, staring ahead of herself.
"I won't have anyone left," she says quietly.
It makes Alex chuckles just a little.
"Really," Piper says, earnestly, "my Grandma just died. Larry fucked Polly –"
Alex hiccups at this in surprise, but manages to straighten her face, "fuck, I'm sorry, Pipes –"
"yeah well – I can't even – and my parents" Piper mumbles into her glass, "Fuck them, y'know?"
"Woah, Pipes," Alex mutters, half-amusedly, "that sounds like a load. You know, if you ever need to talk about it…"
Piper gives her arm a shove.
"I really am sorry about your Grandma, though. I remember how much she meant to you."
"Yeah," Piper says gently, wiping her eye with the back of her hand.
"Cheers to her?" Alex offers, holding out her wine. They clink glasses and lock eyes. Alex lets the wine slide around her mouth, hoping the taste might override the bitterness, calculating the moment, but then, fuck it, she's been alone too long –
"Good riddance about Larry, though."
"Oh," Piper groans, "fuck you, Alex."
"Yeah," Alex laughs, "well fuck you, too."
Piper drops her face in her arms and Alex can't help it. She reaches out and takes Piper's hand, kneading the back of it with her thumb. Piper looks up at her. Her look, it gives Alex a terrible glowering feeling in the chest.
"You have to admit," Alex says, putting on her good humor face, the one she can only hope will hide that her eyes are sad and that her insides feel like they're still crumbling, "being second choice is kind of bitter."
Piper grimaces, but her eyes are big and she's looking right back at Alex, the way she does when it feels like nothing matters, not their walls, not their souls or their pride –
"But you never were, Al," she says. Alex lets go of her hand. This time it's her, looking anywhere – at the lousy sunset calendar on the wall, the unkempt and starkly reduced selection of books on the shelf – but at Piper.
"Let's have some more wine."
She stays in the kitchen longer than she has to, door closed. Her vision is a bit blurry behind her glasses as she uncorks the second wine bottle, thinking about how she wants to keep that feeling of someone being in the house, someone not being just about anyone, but that woman, that girl, the one who is going to be the death of her.
Alex almost asks "why are you here?" but she doesn't; she feels like she knows the answers: one unflattering – Piper, jilted by her ex-fiancé, needs human contact, needs the frenzied tousled struggle that is angry sex, and it's not like Alex doesn't yearn for it either; the other – that Piper cares, that Piper misses her – is so implicit, so precious, it mustn't be spoken aloud.
They speak of other things; Alex's neighbors, Piper's prison gossip – the bang off, for instance –
"Such bullshit," Piper says, "like I'm really a three –"
"You're definitely more than a three. It took me, what, like two months to get into your pants?"
Piper gives Alex a look.
"That is, you into mine, I guess."
"Exactly, see?" Piper is exhilarated, "You're more like a three!"
"Are you kidding? I wouldn't be on the receiving end of that contest. I'd be the winner of the goddamn thing!"
They giggle. At some point, an unnoticed, thankful point, Piper presses her forehead against Alex's shoulder and then slumps into her. They remain in this position, curled up together. Then Piper says something.
"What?" Alex giggles, adjusting her glasses.
"Home," Piper says, quietly and sadly, "It already feels like home here."
She's saying it more to herself, relating to something Alex isn't in on.
"That's really interesting. It's not really felt like home to me at all, ever."
The moment she says this, she realizes it's a lie. The apartment has felt different ever since they've been sitting this close, talking in this familiar, banter-like way that is just the two of them.
Immediately, Piper shakes her head. Wearily, like she has a headache.
"What time is it?"
"Passed two."
"Fuck."
"You know," Alex tries not to clear her throat, but then she does, "you can always stay here if you like…"
Piper bites her lip. She gets up, giving Alex the sinking feeling of a No. She quickly looks away and shifts her glasses, even though they already were, she notices, firmly in place. Piper wanders around the room, peering into the bookshelf, pulling out drawers. She mercifully avoids the one with the gun.
"When are you leaving?" she says without looking over her shoulder. Her voice is composed, but she won't look at Alex.
"Soon. I don't know. I wanted to talk to you first. I could just leave tomorrow, when you go back to prison."
"And then it's good-bye for good, isn't it?"
Alex wishes she could take Piper in forever, standing there, calmly, right in front of her, close enough to grasp, to hold – her eyes burn and her voice cracks when she silently mouths, "Yes."
Piper draws a shaky breath and hands Alex something.
"Is this it? Your fake passport?"
"Where did you find that?"
"Top drawer in the bedroom. Under your sweaters. When you were in the kitchen. Ada van Veen – Nabokov, huh? Nice."
Alex flinches a little.
"Would you make me one of these again? With a fitting name this time, using my initials?"
"You mean Petra von Cunt?"
"Asshole."
"What do you want me to say, Pipes? That I'd make it out to an Ilsa Lund – or was it Ilsa Laszlo?"
"It's Ilsa Lund," Piper whispers.
"I'm sure you could pass for someone with a Swedish name, my little wasp."
Piper sits back down next to her. Her eyes are moving in a way that Alex recognizes as Piper's reflective face, calculating things through the fog of inebriation.
"Would you," Piper's voice is earnest, sober, "take me with you?"
Alex wasn't expecting that. She shifts position on the sofa and presses her lips together into a line.
"We could leave and never come back, off into the sunset, you and me, just like it was meant to be. What do you think?"
"I think," Alex says, her eyebrows raising far over the rims of her glasses, "I think you're drunk and bullshitting me."
"I'm not fucking with you."
"Like I've never heard that one before."
The last sentence comes out as a sharp hiss, and they turn away from each other in a huff. Alex sighs; when she speaks, she tries to speak as slowly as possible over her thudding rib cage, emphasizing each word:
"The whole off into the sunset part – you know that one doesn't work for you. There's a lot that happens after the fucking sunset. A lot of grimness at the crack of dawn."
"Things have changed. I've changed."
"It's a freefall, Piper. And I've got some pretty bad people after me. Cause these thugs, Pipes? They're serious business."
"If you're telling me that we might not make it out of this alive…"
"We might not."
"Well fuck it! We've got nothing to lose."
"You might never be able to come back, you know?"
"Come back to where?"
"If you're fucking with me, Piper, I swear."
There's a calculating smirk rising in Piper's face.
"Look, what are your options? You've already told me you're leaving –"
Her eyes almost glisten. She's enjoying this.
"And I actually know you've got a gun in that drawer over there."
Alex has always underestimated her. Piper reaches out and tucks a strand of Alex's hair behind her ear.
"So what's it going to be? Either you take me with you, or I haul your sorry ass back to prison."
It takes a heartbeat of their locked gazes before Alex has run her hands along Piper's jaw line and pulled her into a kiss. She can feel Piper's hands grasping her hair, fingernails scratching her scalp. They struggle on the sofa. Clutching Piper's thighs, Alex is vaguely aware of the sensation of legs opening up to her. A shirt and a dress are removed; the run in Piper's tights fulfills its final purpose by helping Alex rip the black silk to shreds.
It's been too long. "Yes," Piper murmurs.
"Yes. Yes. Yes."
Later, after the shock and the sensation, Alex watches Piper's naked back rise and fall in a deep sleep. Her breath is soft and sweet, calm as a child's. Alex pulls a wrinkled sheet up around Piper's shoulders and goes to the kitchen to make coffee. No sleep for her tonight. Lightheaded, the coffee machine buzzing faintly, Alex heads to the old armchair in her living room and cuts open its back with her pocketknife. Deep in its feathery, moth-bitten depths, she finds the fat rolls of cash she keeps there, and stuffs them into her black duffel bag. It'll be just like going on summer vacation, she thinks. A fucking deadly summer vacation.
She dials a number. "I need a favor and I need it now," she says without a greeting.
"Another passport. And one extra plane ticket. Before sun up. I'm willing to pay you double on this one…"
inspired by captainscarletts . tumblr tagged / orange%20au