[2]
Andrea sat in silence, staring out the tinted window while Miranda looked at her in the darkness. "Lagerfeld designed that for Chanel in 1997." Andrea turned her head. "Your dress. Did you know that Karl Lagerfeld designed it?" Andrea nodded. "Ah, good. You have that timeless quality about you - your face, your hair. You can wear the classics. I have some Dior from the '50s that would be lovely on you." Andrea stared at her intently in the semi-darkness, but didn't comment. When she finally turned to look back out the window, it reminded Miranda unnervingly of the last car they shared, in Paris. This was just how it ended, with Miranda offering something, and Andrea fleeing. "You're not going to run away when the car stops, are you?" she asked lightly. She wanted to hold her hand again, to keep her here.
"No," Andrea said, but she didn't look at her, and her voice was husky, as if laden with emotion.
The townhouse was utterly quiet, when they entered. Andrea commented on it with a perplexed expression. "Is everyone asleep?" It was early yet.
Miranda studied her. It looked like she'd been crying in the car. "If by everyone you mean the girls, they're with their father on vacation. If you mean anyone else, there is no one."
"You're here alone?" Andrea's brow wrinkled. "Doesn't it bother you?"
"No. Am I going to need another drink before the big reveal?"
Andrea grimaced. "Yes, me too. I need rehearsal time."
"You've had long enough, I would think." Miranda climbed the stairs. She would not analyze why she was taking Andrea up here, when the full bar was downstairs. She would not analyze why she wanted Andrea in the landing with its sequestered sitting room, its cluster of furnishings that invited intimacy. The landing, where Andrea had overzealously delivered the book for the first time. The landing, where Stephen, who had a fondness for very young women, had seen her. Stephen, who had been in the midst of another argument with Miranda, who had realized that he was likely to stray yet again. Miranda, who had realized that if he touched Andrea, she would kill him.
"I need rehearsal time for the explanation, not the apology," Andrea said behind her on the stairs. "The apology is simple. I'm sorry I left you without giving a notice. There. Done."
It was as insincere as she'd ever heard the girl. "You were never going to explain?"
"Um, no. Not really.'
Miranda reached the landing, where she had come to the upsetting realization that night more than three years ago that she was the real threat to Andrea's virtue, not Stephen. It had come as a complete shock, wanting the much younger woman with such intense desire. She was taking Andrea to the landing, of all places. Could she be more transparent?
"That does seem cowardly. And I never pegged you for the faint-hearted."
"You didn't know me well," Andrea said quietly.
Miranda whirled around at this, not liking it at all. "Is that true?" She didn't want to believe it. But she'd not known Andrea now for longer than she'd known her. "I thought I knew you very well."
Andrea looked at her with an unfaltering gaze. "I was surprised at the party that you came over to me. I was surprised that you even remembered me," she said.
Miranda took an involuntary step backward and shook her head. "I…" The pain this statement held was unequivocal. She pulled herself together. "I told you I had been following your career."
"Why?"
"Andrea," she choked. Turning to the sitting room, she flung her purse onto a chair and bolted to the bar, where she immediately poured herself a drink.
"I'm sorry," Andrea said from behind her after a moment. "That was rude. I just… I don't want to talk about this, Miranda. You have no idea how badly I don't want to talk about this. I'm going to, for you. But I may not be very nice."
Oh, how she had missed it! The girl's unfaltering candor; the ability to say to Miranda whatever crossed her mind, no matter how difficult. So rare in people who clustered around the editor, polluting the very air with their white lies, ingratiating compliments, half-truths and other fetid drivel spoken because they were too afraid to speak plainly. She had longed for this frankness of Andrea's, this pure oxygen. And the girl was surprised that Miranda remembered her?
"My vodka isn't as good as my scotch. Do you drink scotch?" Miranda's hands were unsteady.
"Tonight, yes."
Miranda turned in relief and gave her the drink. She felt once again like she was back in time, only Andrea looked older and sadder. But she still looked at Miranda with that same something, that same ardent quality, as if Miranda were the only soul on Earth, and therefore the most precious, and the most wicked, and the most beautiful and the most ugly, and the most everything. She felt the connection between them like a gossamer thread. It had always been there, and it hadn't broken, even with time. "You're more beautiful now than you were then," Miranda said. She hadn't meant to say it, but God, she was gorgeous.
"I miss you," Andrea breathed.
If Miranda felt relief before, now she felt drunk from it. She bit down several words that almost spilled from her lips. "Yet you tried to run away. Again," she said lightly.
"You have that effect on me."
"Well, that's a shame. Why couldn't I have that effect on someone else? Irv, for instance, or Stephen or Jason or –"
"Stephen? Why is he still around?" Andrea asked.
"Because as much as the divorce was his idea, he made it slow and painful, and he takes me to court now and then." She shouldn't have mentioned him; it cast a bitter spell on the air. She moved to the sofa and sat, wondering where Andrea would choose to sit. Besides the purse-filled chair, there were two other chairs and a loveseat, all arranged closely enough to warrant easy conversation, no raised voices to carry on a quiet dialogue. Intimate. No reason for Andrea to maneuver around the coffee table and sit beside Miranda on the sofa. Much easier to take one of the lavender chairs alongside it.
"Who's Jason?"
Miranda waved her hand, dismissing him. "A new Elias-Clarke vice president as of last year. Makes my life miserable as often as possible."
Andrea maneuvered around the coffee table and sat beside her on the sofa, turned so that her body was angled to her. "Are you seeing anyone?" she asked.
She was, and she didn't want Andrea to know. It had nothing to do with tonight or this conversation. "Not romantically," she said. "And you?"
Andrea gazed at her, but didn't respond.
Miranda wondered if perhaps she knew she'd just lied. She chose to believe she didn't. She raised her eyebrows, waiting for a response.
"I talk a lot. I need a filter. But I always had to especially bite my tongue around you," Andrea said. "Stuff always tried to slip out. Inappropriate things. I thought it was because I was subconsciously trying to get your attention or something." She sipped her drink. "I apparently still have that same problem. I have to watch what I say."
"Don't you dare. I recall it being rather refreshing - not knowing what would pop out of your mouth." She looked her over. "Of course, you think I don't remember you at all, so that probably surprises you. What did you almost say?"
A tiny smile was on Andrea's face, so small it was barely noticeable.
"Let's try this again, Miss Inappropriate. Are you seeing anyone?"
"I'm seeing several someones." Andrea downed the rest of her drink. She started to get up to go to the mini-bar, but Miranda held her arm.
"Are you seeing anyone?" Miranda asked again.
Andrea looked surprised. "Maybe you know me better than I thought. You can tell when I'm not being entirely truthful, I guess." She furrowed her brow. "You always could tell that, couldn't you? But this was truly inappropriate and a good thing I bit my tongue."
Miranda held her arm and stared at her.
Andrea stared back. "I fucked a girl last weekend because she…"
Miranda sucked in her breath. Her heart raced just from the language, the image. She saw Andrea taking in her reaction. "What? She what?"
"I need another drink."
"You're not a coward. I refuse to believe it."
Andrea smiled at this. "She had your eyes." And she moved to the bar, leaving Miranda stunned on the sofa.
"Oh, see - you're regretting it already, telling me to remove the filter," Andrea said from across the room, after she poured her drink. She was leaning against the bar and sipping, looking sexy and flushed after her disclosure. "Don't be offended by it," she said. "I fuck a lot of people. She just had eyes that reminded me of yours."
"Bring the scotch here," Miranda said. She didn't trust her legs to walk. She didn't like this turn in conversation. True, the part about the girl with the eyes was titillating, but the sleeping around was disturbing. "You fuck a lot of people," she repeated, when Andrea sat beside her. "Pour," she instructed, holding her glass with a trembling hand.
Andrea shrugged. "An exaggeration."
Andrea poured the scotch, holding Miranda's hand steady with her own. This itself, another intimacy in this intimate seating area, went to Miranda's head. But the girl was familiar with people; she fucked them all the time. Not like Miranda, who doled out touches and caresses and fucks in frugal measure. The evening thus far had been an extravagant breach of her typical behavior: she'd held Andrea's hand at the party, held her arm here on the sofa. She hadn't thought about doing either thing, each had just happened, and she'd been so very aware of the girl's skin, of the warmth, of the softness. Of the sensation these touches elicited in her.
Miranda realized that she shouldn't be drinking, she should keep her wits about her, but Andrea was seated so closely, and it had been so long since she'd seen her. Her senses were on overload; she needed to dull them. "You've told me, this evening, Andrea, that you sleep around, you drink a lot, you're a coward, that I didn't know you very well, and that you're surprised I even remember you." She drained her glass. "Tell me why I shouldn't be upset right now as my illusions of the woman I once knew are stripped away."
Andrea sighed. "I'm … I'm still mostly the same person, Miranda. You did know me then, I guess. I was just… I … went through a lot during my last few weeks at Runway, and then afterward, and now I work hard and…"
"And what?"
"I just… work a lot. I enjoy working," she said. Her voice was unconvincing. "It's, you know, fulfilling. Writing." She glanced furtively at Miranda and then let out a sigh. "I think I left part of myself behind in Paris and I never got her back, and so… my life is largely about my work."
"And anonymous sex."
"You make it sound exciting," Andrea said. She smiled dejectedly.
"Tell me about work, then." Work was at least a safe topic. She was still pulsing from the girl with the eyes like hers.
Andrea's face relaxed. "I enjoy it. I-"
"Yes, why do you keep saying that? Enjoy? You don't love it? You're a writer, and you're writing; why are you not loving it?"
Andrea gave her an assessing gaze. "I forgot that about you. That thing you do. You're like this scientist or something…" She shook her head and looked away. "You do this thing. You make this very precise observation, and it's, it's not a throw-away observation, it's something very important about a very minute detail. And you can sum up a person from that tiny thing that you notice." She looked at her again. "It's a gift."
"Hmm. You're the only one who's ever called it that."
"I wish I could do it. It would save a lot of time I think, in my job, interviewing people especially. I wish I could do it exactly like you." Andrea leaned against the sofa. She turned to Miranda, her body leaned toward her. "You're extraordinarily observant and yet you hide behind that contemptuous mask so much of the time. People think you don't notice them and then you sting them with a few words that let them know you've noticed everything."
"You wish to be condescending and rude?" Miranda asked.
"But only if I could pull it off with your class. It would come in handy sometimes."
"You have your own weapons."
Andrea, head leaned against the sofa, blinked her very thick lashes at Miranda and then frowned. "What weapons?"
"Distraction, for one. We were discussing why you're unhappy being a journalist. And you've steered us away from that conversation, haven't you?"
"Can't I enjoy talking to you?" Andrea blushed.
Miranda cut her eyes over her. "Enjoy? Like work?"
Andrea lit up. She laughed and leaned in and touched Miranda's arm, caressed it and didn't let go, even when her laughter died and she leaned back, and stared at her with those large eyes. They were coppery in the light from the lamp. "Much more than work."
"Much more?" Flashback: Andrea at the Valentino after-party, by her side, charming the legend himself. She had such natural charisma, such likability, that people were drawn to her; they seemed to know she was guileless; they trusted her smile. It had been exhilarating, having Andrea beside her. Much more than work, indeed. "I see. And why do you enjoy work?" she asked quietly.
Andrea looked at her as if she were truly a wonderful person, and then her eyes glazed over as she thought about the question. "The stories are sometimes hard to write. There have been a few truly horrible things I've had to research and report on. Things no one wants to read but everyone does - the horror stories of the city. And it's been um, tough. I don't know that I can keep it up; you have to have a very thick skin to do this, and I don't know that I can do it, and here I am, going to CNN, and I'm excited, but it's … it's ringing kind of false to my own ears. And I feel foolish because this is what I always wanted." She drank a swallow of scotch, and then another. "I've never told anyone that."
"There are other things you can write. Find something you like."
Andrea looked at her. "I'm a really good journalist."
"You were a really good assistant, but it wasn't a career. You'll be good at whatever you choose, Andrea, because it's who you are. You're driven to succeed."
She shook her head. "I feel like a total loser. Except for my career, which I love but which I hate, my life is a wreck. Everything is wrong." She pulled her hand away and seemed to withdraw entirely.
Miranda scanned her face. "Let me guess. You drink to help you relax because the only place you connect is work and even though the stories tear you apart, you work around the clock, and when you come home it may be midnight, but it's certainly not 5:00, or if it is 5:00, it's a fluke, and in either case, you often cannot turn it off."
Andrea looked at her, looked away and nodded.
"You sleep around trying to find some kind of connection, yet you have no close friends and no significant relationships because you're afraid of intimacy. Because, as you said, you left something behind in Paris."
Andrea's gaze riveted to Miranda.
"These stories are tearing you apart and there's no one to build you back up, no one to hold you after a difficult day and let you cry. No one to tell you that you're special or strong or brave." Miranda watched the girl flush. "You're not the same woman you were. You were clear as a stream," Miranda said. "And now you're this murky pond."
"Cesspool," Andrea said, and put her glass down on the coffee table. She focused her attention on the extensive number of books and bookshelves in the room, letting her eyes wander over their spines.
Miranda observed her. "Are you angry?"
Andrea didn't respond, but her eyes jerked from the books to the painting over the fireplace.
"You're hurt. It's not just the wasteland you're discovering about the city that's sending you to bed with 'a lot of people'. Who hurt you? What happened?"
Andrea remained quiet for a moment. "I don't want to talk about this. I can't tell you. I need to go." She looked at her beseechingly. "You don't want to know, Miranda. I know that you don't want to know."
Miranda frowned. Why wouldn't she want to know about this? They weren't talking about Paris now were they? But this is what the girl had said before. She was confused. "This is about… "
"You," Andrea said, staring at the painting, one of the irregularities of the townhouse – a rustic, almost primitive oil of a woman in a swing. It gave life to the cool, austere aesthetic of the room.
"Me? It can't be about me. You haven't seen me in three years."
"Exactly," Andrea said quietly.
Miranda was astonished. "You miss me," she said softly, recalling what Andrea had said moments before. Not empty words.
Andrea nodded silently. Her gaze was on the painting.
"I did something that hurt you?" She thought back to Runway in the days that Andrea graced it with her presence. She thought about Paris and all that happened that week. "Nigel. Is that what this is about?" Surely not.
Andrea shook her head. "I left you, not Runway," she said.
Miranda scowled. "Well, yes, I put that together three years ago. Why? Why did you choose that week to leave?"
Andrea smoothed her dress down over her thighs. "It became … overwhelming."
"What did? You're not the type to let things overwhelm you. You handled everything I threw at you and asked for more. Nothing overwhelms you, Andrea."
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