"Let's just get this over with."
The softness of Elphaba's grasp now felt noncommittal. The warmth of her hand turned cold.
"Elphie…"
"So, Elphaba, I understand you study Life Sciences?"
Elphaba turned away from Glinda, had there ever been any chance of her answering Glinda's plea.
"Yes. It is challenging work."
"And what application does it have? Does it overlap with the agriculture courses?"
"Absolutely -" and Elphaba was away, expounding the merits of her chosen course of study.
Highmuster was listening intently and Glinda scrutinised her father's face for the flicker of disgust, of fear, that she felt sure must come.
"How are your studies, Glinda?" her mother eventually got a chance to ask.
"They go very well," Glinda said, feeling a heat behind her eyes all of a sudden and for no good reason.
"Don't suppose you are picking up anything useful from Elphaba?" her father laughed.
"I pick up a great deal from Elphaba," she said candidly, gazing at her. For a moment Elphaba looked back, then sharply returned to their audience.
"Glinda is far more brilliant than she will admit. Than she knows," Elphaba said.
But their hands lay limp between them.
"It's so wonderful you are so supportive of one another," her mother gushed. "I worry that a young man might have looked down on Glinda's attempts to get an education. But you, Elphaba, you appreciate it for yourself too."
"I should show you around," Glinda interrupted before Larena could begin waxing too lyrical. "Show you my room." She was not going to let them leave without having seen the room, what with the amount of effort that had gone into arranging it.
"Very well," her mother said, rising. "Will you be joining us, Elphaba?"
"I am afraid I have some lab work to prepare," Elphaba said - lied, Glinda knew. "But I hope you have a good afternoon and I will look forward to seeing you at dinner."
"Of course. It was lovely to meet you, dear."
"You too." Elphaba now turned to Glinda. They faltered. "I will see you later," Elphaba mumbled, and left.
Glinda said nothing. Elphaba could barely meet her eye. Though she had come. But been cruel. It swung back and forth and now Glinda fervently wished she could find a quiet spot to puzzle it all out but she had a tour to embark on and questions to answer.
So instead she hurried her parents up to the bedrooms. Properly she ought to have introduced them to Madame Morrible, but the risk was too great.
Their faces fell a little at the shabbiness of the room.
"Originally this was Ama Clutch's room," Glinda said, invoking the spirit of her ama to make the mood more respectful. "Then Elphaba's nanny and her sister. Then of course it became necessary that we swap." It may be a fantasy but she was going to observe proper decorum.
Her father drew up in front of drawings on the wall - drawings that Glinda had not tacked there herself, which left only Elphaba. "What are these?" he asked, though followed it up with, "this is the railway station, is it not?"
"It is," Glinda said, coming to stand alongside him. "And this is the opera house, the library at Three Queens College, the bandstand at the park by the canal…" She remembered that day - the boys horsing about on the lawns, her drawing the picture and Elphaba watching her the whole time.
"You drew them?"
"Yes." She was not sure what reaction that might bring about.
"What a talent," he beamed.
She took another plunge. "I have an interest, you see, in buildings." It had been a long held assumption that this would not be seen as a useful pursuit. Paint a still life, coy portraiture, but not this.
"In buildings?"
"In the planning, design and execution."
"I see." Her father seemed pleased, her mother only slightly bemused. "Next time you are home you will have to look over the plans for the new barns."
"I would like that," she said. Then summoned something up from deep inside. "I would like to know more about the running of the estate."
"We will have a university educated asset on our hands. We will make the most of you, you can depend on it." His enthusiasm was touching.
Elphaba had constructed this. Glinda thought she heard the door of the next room and wanted to know whether it was Elphaba. It was just as likely Nessa and Nanny - whom she definitely did not want to encounter if she could help it. It was strange to be so ignorant of Elphaba's comings and goings.
"We could take a walk in the grounds," Glinda offered. "There are some places where it is possible to glimpse a charming vista of the university towers."
Her father pointed at one of the drawings.
"Yes, but the original is far more lovely."
So Glinda guided them around, talking mostly of home. Avoiding everyone she desired to avoid and beginning to feel she was not perhaps as cursed as it might first have appeared.
Much as she was enjoying this and trying to make the most of it she wanted nothing more than to go - to run back to her room, to find Elphaba.
She saw her parents back to the gate then was off as fast as she could go without raising suspicion. Speeding along just short of a run she launched through the door of her former room. Nessa looked at her with a complete lack of surprise.
"Do you know where Elphaba is?"
"No."
"She came by earlier but I know she doesn't have lab work."
"I assume you have tried the library and all the usual spots, or you would not be here wasting your breath?"
"No, she would be hidden away somewhere so I didn't run into her. May I wait in here? She must be on her way back soon - to get ready for our meal."
Nessa did not look convinced on that point.
The door opened several times and it was always Nanny. Until eventually one of the door-openings was Elphaba. She frowned at the sight of Glinda, who sprang up and ploughed on regardless.
"Thank you for coming earlier."
Elphaba was the picture of discomfort. She still would not meet Glinda's eye. "You can tell your parents I am sick this evening."
"Oh, no, Elphie, you did so well. They loved you. The hard part -"
Elphaba's eyes flashed to Nessa and she nodded her head to the door. They went into the corridor, but not all the way to Glinda's room, and spoke in a strained hush.
"The worst part is over," Glinda said again.
"No, it definitely continues."
"A nice meal, a break from Crage Hall, a little diversion?" Glinda tried to entice her.
The most withering look was received in answer.
"Please? Elphaba, I know I have been wrong in all this. But my parents being here… I never thought they would. And even without this pretence, I would want you to come to dinner with us. I would want them to know you."
Elphaba shuffled and looked mightily aggrieved, eventually turning back to Glinda. "Shall we go then?"
Glinda faltered. "You're not… going like that?"
"It's like this or not at all and you are in no position to be making demands."
Glinda raised her hands in surrender. "You look perfectly reasonable. Just let me get my shawl."
Glinda's parents stood to greet them, kissing even Elphaba on both cheeks. They were acquainted now, after all. Each sat opposite their supposed partner and the table was large enough to keep one another at arm's distance. Highmuster had already placed their order, with wine coming thick and fast too, which Glinda found great solace in.
After the entree the conversation was turned to Elphaba. How she squirmed under the attention but Glinda was in a belligerent mood by now - Elphaba had made no attempt to assuage Glinda's guilt so she would make no attempt to soften Elphaba's discomfort.
There was a thickness on her tongue, which she attempted to wash away with more wine. The stuff for this course was tangy in her mouth.
They just had to get through this evening and everything could be sorted out from there. But the courses came out agonisingly slowly. The pauses in between became endless stretching voids. The backdrop of tinkling cutlery, the chatter of patrons, only seemed to highlight their own struggle. The light was too bright, the staff too hovering and Glinda felt cornered.
When the conversation must stay away from politics, religion and sex there was precious little left. With Elphaba the conversation could also not include the future. Or much about her studies, so inextricably linked with politics and religion as they were. Which was a shame, really, as ordinarily politics and religion were some of the most fun things to talk to Elphaba about.
It did not leave an awful lot to talk about.
They foundered, and Glinda - whose fault this all was - foundered hardest of all.
"Where have you two been this afternoon?" she asked quickly.
"Oh, well, to the museum, of course, the collections of Glikkun artifacts are quite lovely -"
"Elphaba will not go to the museum, she objects on moral grounds." It was wrong of her and she hated it but found herself unable to stop.
Elphaba was not going to resist such an invitation and Glinda knew it. "The fact they are lovely would be why they were stolen from the Glikkus."
"I don't believe they were stolen…" Highmuster began.
"Of course, Elphaba, you have great interest in the outer territories. You spent time in Quadling country as a child as well? How fascinating." Larena attempted to get them all back on track.
"Very ordinary, in fact," Elphaba replied with remarkable restraint. "Different, but then Shiz is different from the Pertha Hills."
"Indeed, indeed, very different," Glinda's father agreed and glanced around himself.
"But not to have been to the heart of Gillikin country," Larena could not believe it. "You must come to Frottica."
They had spoken about it before, joked about it before. It felt different now.
"Maybe one day," Elphaba said, her tone a little lower than before. Glinda could hear it, could see it in the strain in her jaw.
"And you will go to Colwen Grounds," her mother said cheerfully, to Glinda.
"I do not go to Colwen Grounds myself," Elphaba jumped in.
"Oh." Larena looked worriedly at Glinda.
Who shrugged unhelpfully. "Elphaba has many quirks that I must not question."
Now all three of her companions were looking at her. She shuffled up in her chair a little more, aware of a drift downward.
Her mother laughed nervously. "We all have our quirks."
Glinda was too prickly for the conciliation. "Some of us have quirks to spare."
"I'm sorry." Now her mother was apologising to Elphaba, of all people.
There was a residual feeling of this all being very wrong. It stirred deep within Glinda, a relic. Uncomfortable memories of a former self. Too recent, too raw to be toyed yet here she was waking ghosts all of her own accord. It all felt wrong and not for the first time - nor indeed the last - Glinda was massively regretting the whole thing.
The look from her mother was not a new one. Quelling any impropriety, any hint of having a personality. Larena might be surprising her on the Elphaba front but was not going to let her get away with any rudeness.
This tension that had come between her and Elphaba was too much for Glinda to handle. She was afloat. She wanted Elphaba to tell her off, to spar with her properly, but Elphaba was playing the part too well, for whatever reason she had decided to, and so reluctantly.
"Glinda has suffered all my peculiarities so well." Elphaba's lip curled enough for Glinda to notice.
"Now then," her mother laughed nervously, "there are no peculiarities among friends."
"Be assured that there are," said Glinda. "And I have suffered them at great length."
"Glinda…" Larena was uncomfortable and it was not at Elphaba. It was Glinda.
And she realised what she had done.
To see the strained look on Elphaba's face that she was working so hard to keep from Glinda's parents. The agonies of feeling that she did not understand what was going on. That she had hurt Elphaba terribly with her carelessness. Unintentional, she told herself. In reality: half intentional. To hurt her parents she had wielded Elphaba and hurt her instead. It was a terrible mess.
A lump caught in her throat. "And yet, through it all…" Glinda smiled fondly at Elphaba, not even slightly forced. "Elphaba has taught me a great deal about the world. About myself." She wanted Elphaba to feel that, beyond the charade. But Elphaba was inscrutable as always.
Outside the restaurant they prevaricated about getting a cab long enough that Glinda's parents eventually left before them and it was just herself and Elphaba stood in the coolness of the night. Glinda felt it especially against the warmth of her cheeks and the reminder of her behaviour that evening made them burn even more.
Glinda put her hand on Elphaba's arm. "I'm sorry."
"What for?"
It was not a polite demurral of the apology. It was a challenge.
"I just am."
"You have no concept -"
"I know, I know. I am awful, stupid, all that." How to start itemising the reality of her guilt? She couldn't. Better to revert to type, to all the things Elphaba already thought of her rather than start uncovering new flaws. "I am sorry that I have hurt you. But please, can you not talk to me?"
"I am only making it easier for you to break it off with me."
"Elphaba!" Glinda was half exasperation and half desperation.
Elphaba continued anyway. "As if you need an excuse. This was always your plan."
"Oh, Elphie." The rawness enveloped her.
"No," Elphaba told her, rigid. "You will do what you need to do to do to extricate yourself from this situation and we can forget it ever happened."
That seemed like a moment of hope and Glinda pounced on it. "Do you forgive me then?"
"If I can forget sufficiently then you will have no need of forgiveness."
Glinda would take it, and happily. "Thank you."