It was Thursday lunchtime and Emily had messaged her mid-morning, waking her up in the process - though she couldn't very well admit that to Emily. Not unless she wanted to be on the receiving end of an envious glare and a fairly painful flick to the side of her head from the redhead's fingers, at any rate. The text begged for Naomi to come and save her, at least briefly, from what was apparently an impending death induced by boredom. Naomi had originally been planning on starting work herself, once she'd properly woken up, but despite the sharp chill increasing in the air, it was a beautiful day. What the hell, she told herself. Can't hurt to get a bit of fresh air and sunshine, kick the old brain into gear. The fact that the fresh air came with a side dish of Emily Fitch was purely beside the point. She hadn't seen the girl in three days so it wasn't as if they were spending too much time together or anything.
The sun was so bright that instead of heading to the usual cafe as planned, she stopped by the deli on the corner and ordered two sandwiches and a couple of coffees, then took a seat on the park bench where she knew she'd be able to see Emily as she appeared on her way out of the office across the street. Soon enough she caught sight of the flash of red hair that never failed to induce in her a thrill of excitement (duly suppressed) and a small smile (allowed to stay). Emily seemed to have zeroed in on her as well, because she didn't need to call her name or wave her over before Emily switched directions and headed over to her with a radiant (friendly) smile.
"Thank fuck you're here," Emily greeted her, and immediately launched into a diatribe about a sexually harassing dweeb (who Naomi had plans to murder, or at least violently maim) and some kind of computer error that had destroyed her morning's work. I must be good friends with this girl, she thought, cos technically I'm pretty sure this story should be completely boring me, and yet it's totally not. Just as she was opening her mouth to point out, hello, I brought you sandwiches, she felt a warm, damp sensation growing on her lower leg.
"What the FUCK?" she leapt to her feet as a small white dog scampered away, before being jerked back at the end of its pink leash.
"Oh, sorry…happens sometimes," came a bored voice from behind her. "Hey Emily. Aren't those my shoes you're wearing?" Naomi looked up aghast from the flouncing, fluffy minion of Satan, to see two identical frowns belonging to two redheads, as they eyed each other distrustfully.
"No. They were always mine. You borrowed them and never gave them back, and then I found them again, lying in the back of the hall closet last time I visited Mum." Naomi stared in disbelief, as both twins ignored the fuck out of the leg pissing situation and continued to glare at each other as if she wasn't even there. As if her drenched doggy scented jeans meant nothing to them.
"Whatever…" came the voice of the twin that definitely wasn't Emily. "They looked better on me anyway."
"I doubt that," Naomi interjected before she could help herself. Katie and Emily definitely weren't anywhere near identical, she could see that now. The skankier looking of the two turned and levelled her with a mildly annoyed, but ultimately unconcerned glare. Then she frowned.
"I remember you. You were stalking me."
"What? No! …I thought you were Emily," she laughed awkwardly at the ridiculousness of the accusation.
"So you're stalking my sister then?" Katie looked even more annoyed, ignoring Naomi as she flushed with anger and humiliation (FRIENDLY stalking…for fuck's sake, does no one else appreciate the difference anymore?) and opened her mouth to defend herself.
"Emily is this girl bothering you?" the little bitch got in first. "You fucking need to stick up for yourself more. Seriously, it's pathetic. Just tell her to fuck off, would you?"
"Shut up Katie. This is my friend, Naomi. Who apparently you were rude to. So how about you apologise, or just get the hell out of my sunlight." Woah. Didn't seem like Emily needed much help at all with sticking up for herself.
"Not to mention, your dog pissed on my leg," Naomi was determined that at least someone should acknowledge her suffering in all this.
"Go fuck yourself," Katie smiled pleasantly. "Catch you at dinner Em," she stalked off, hairy cockroach in tow. Naomi sunk back down on the park bench in defeat.
"Can't fucking believe you got us confused," Emily frowned at her, looking deeply disturbed. Then she leaned over, flicked her upside the head and smiled sweetly. "Thanks for sandwiches," she began to eat as if nothing had even happened. Naomi sighed. So much for the sympathy. She sat back and sipped at her coffee.
"So…um, I take it you guys don't get on?" she asked dryly. "Can't possibly see why." Emily rolled her eyes.
"No, we don't," she said simply. "Not since college in fact. Well, earlier than that, actually."
"Can I ask why?" she asked, and felt bad when Emily looked away and paused awkwardly.
"Long story," she eventually replied. "Something stupid happened…Katie got the wrong idea. Busted things up with her best friend as a result. She became my best friend instead and Katie never got over it. It's a whole… …thing with her. That and she met Tony first and in her fucked up logic that means he should have been her boyfriend, not mine."
"Huh. Well, Tony's clearly got good taste then," she surprised them both with the compliment. She'd made no secret of the fact that she wasn't exactly enamoured with Emily's boyfriend. Of course, if he'd ended up with Katie instead, then maybe Emily would be single right now…BAD THOUGHT, Naomi, BAD THOUGHT. Remembering what she'd promised Alicia, she sighed and turned to Emily.
"Hey listen," she started, trying to make it sound as unattractive as possible. "Alicia wants you guys to come for dinner on Saturday night. Don't worry though, cos I told her already that Tony isn't around much at the moment and you guys probably need some alone time, so it's really not a big deal if you can't make it-"
"Sounds lovely," smiled Emily.
"No really, it's cool, I know how things are, you really don't have to-"
"It'll be great," Emily said. "I'd love to clear the air with Alicia, you know? And Tony is always great at dinner parties…never any awkward silent moments with him around. It's perfect."
"Well. Fabulous then. It's a…double date."
"Yep."
"Great. Looking forward to it…Hey, Ems?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't mention her underwear this time, okay?"
.
.
Later, when Naomi looked back at that night, she found herself aghast at the realisation that sometimes, the tiniest of wrong decisions can completely rip the piss out of the delusion that we have any fucking control over the big things in our lives at all. If she hadn't gotten distracted in the studio that day…if she hadn't suddenly decided her outfit wasn't in fact complimented by the impressive amount of paint that had survived her shower…if Emily hadn't…if Tony hadn't…god knows how differently it might have all turned out.
But when she tried to pinpoint the part of the night when it all started to go wrong, she realised that what had doomed her was the simple fact that when the knock on the door came, Naomi was still busy in the bathroom trying to get the last of the paint out from under her fingernails. Which meant Alicia went down to let the guests in, so she was present and watching when Naomi walked out and saw for the first time how unbelievably fucking breathtaking Emily looked dressed up formally for dinner. She'd covered it well, she'd been sure of it, her face held in a careful polite smile of greeting, that never slipped for a moment. Except possibly for one split second, when the redhead reached up smiling to kiss her cheek in greeting, bringing Naomi's face a lot closer to Emily's soft naked shoulder than she'd ever expected to be when she'd agreed to this dinner party in the first place. It had been okay though, she'd thought, since Tony leaned in next to kiss her gallantly as well, despite the fact that he must have been aware that he was risking his own bollocks to do so. The closeness of his presence immediately replaced the dreamy scent of Emily's perfume in her nostrils with that of sharp masculine cologne. For once she was grateful for his presence and she was subsequently able to meet Alicia's eyes calmly as she made the introductions. So why then, did she see a sudden flash of betrayal in her girlfriend's eyes?
It had disappeared so quickly that at the time Naomi had believed she'd imagined it. Alicia followed on from the introductions with a steady stream of articulate, amusing conversation, so convincingly pleasant that Naomi was lulled into a false sense of security. She realised only when it was too late, how wrong she'd been.
The evening flowed on easily, to her surprise. After all the dread she'd worked up about the whole thing, it actually all felt quite natural. Alicia had organised catering, of course, not being the type to have time to waste on spending a whole dinner party running back and forth between cooking and being a hostess. Emily hadn't realised this of course, and complimented her on her cooking skills, which Naomi was pretty sure her girlfriend had taken as some kind of a sly dig at her lack of domesticity. Otherwise, dinner had gone by without a hitch. Everyone loosened up as the wine started flowing and the conversation ran smoothly, partly due to the combination of Tony's fantastic impression of a thoughtful intelligent human being and Alicia's natural vivacity and smooth interpersonal skills.
At first, Naomi and Emily had just gotten a word in whenever they could, but they both relaxed with how well their partners seemed to be getting along, and started to tease them both and each other, laughing at the increasingly silly jokes they managed to slip in to the conversation. Naomi mocked Emily about her continued insistence that green could be both a colour and a smell and Emily leaned over and flicked her fingers smartly against her right temple in response. She noticed Tony notice the gesture and pause, smiling oddly. Alicia noticed it as well.
"Emily, do you know that Naomi has never actually mentioned to me how you two happened to meet?" she interrupted, smiling indulgently at them both.
"Oh! Well it was because of how your washing machine broke that time and she had to take her clothes to the laundrette instead. I was there too, since we've got no frickin' room in our apartment to squeeze a machine in. Anyway, we wound up talking and ended up having coffee somehow," Emily smiled back, seemingly happy that Alicia was finally engaging her in something she actually wanted to talk about. Instead Alicia turned back to her girlfriend looking annoyed.
"But darling, you complained so much about never having time for things like washing that I arranged for Maria to pick up our laundry every Thursday. You know that! Why in the world would you insist on doing a silly chore like that yourself? It's completely unnecessary." And if you did what you were told, you wouldn't have even met the girl in the first place, came her unspoken words.
Alicia immediately realised she was publicly airing their dirty laundry - literally - and jumped in again before Naomi could start their age old argument again. "Naomi thinks I'm a snob, you see. Has a cute idea that if she doesn't get carried away by having money then she'll remain grounded with the real people, and such like," she smiled teasingly but Naomi stiffened anyway. Tony noticed the slight increase in tension and filled the breach with some random story no one particularly cared about, but everyone jumped in on anyway, happy to move on.
After dinner Alicia directed their guests over to the sofas in the allocated living area of the large white space and Tony immediately made himself comfortable. Emily nipped out to the bathroom and Naomi took advantage of the slightly private moment to draw Alicia close to her while she stood on the other side of the room, selecting the next bottle of wine. She turned her girlfriend by the shoulder to look at her eyes, following a growing feeling that something wasn't quite right. Alicia looked back at her, her eyes hooded and unreadable, and all of a sudden she grasped Naomi's chin strongly between her fingers and thumb and kissed her, hard, almost bruising her lips with the force of her angry mouth.
"Shit…sorry," Emily had opened the bathroom door and almost walked straight into them. She paused awkwardly, not quite sure where to look. She started to head over towards Tony but Alicia let go and stepped away, addressing Emily, causing her to stop.
"No…we're sorry," she said, her voice pleasant and yet somehow, not. "Totally didn't intend to make you uncomfortable, Emily."
"Oh, no, it's fine…" Emily said, looking anything but fine at the strange tone in Alicia's voice.
"Of course it's fine," laughed Tony from his position on the couch. He seemed highly amused for some reason. "Emily's been totally into the girl-on-girl action herself in the past, haven't you babe?" Everyone in the room froze, except for Tony who sipped at his wine looking mischievous as his girlfriend suddenly turned the same colour as her hair.
"Tony…" she said softly, her voice small.
"What? Don't be silly Red, you're amongst friends," he grinned. "You know she actually kissed my own bloody sister before she ever kissed me," he informed them. "Makes a great story to tell around the Christmas table with grandma."
"Um, what?" Naomi asked before she could stop herself. Because I really just heard you wrong right now since I thought you said that Emily was into girls. "I mean..er, what?" she asked again. She felt Alicia's eyes on her face and flinched. Emily turned around abruptly and walked away from them, over to the sofa where Tony was reclining, most likely to kill him, Naomi guessed. Alicia's expression when Naomi dared to look up, was bright and composed as if Tony was telling a delightful anecdote she couldn't wait to hear the end of. She took the bottle over to the sofa and joined them, leaving Naomi to trail dumbly after her. She seated herself just in time to see Tony squeeze Emily's knee.
"Sorry babe, it's just a funny story, that's all. Besides, you're cute when you blush like that," he grinned. "Come on…let me tell it." He started anyway.
"My sister Effy was a bit of a wild one in college - her and Emily were in the same form. They were both at a party one night while they were still in middle school, and Effy started kissing her. One thing lead to another, you know how it is when you're young, and next thing you know they end up having a big heavy make out session on the couch. Only they get caught by Em's twin Katie who completely lost her shit and freaked out thinking her sister was gay. She gave Effy a black eye and has hated her ever since. Lucky for me, Emily eventually ended up deciding she preferred kissing me to my sister, and - here we are!" he squeezed her hand happily.
Emily looked up, smiling faintly, but she couldn't quite seem to look Naomi in the eye. As a result she directed her words towards Alicia as if they were the only people in the room. "He loves that story," she said sounding strangely apologetic. "But it didn't mean anything. I was only fifteen - we were drunk and someone gave me MDMA, and I felt like fucking kissing someone," she paused for breath. "Anyway…she kissed me. It was no big deal. It was just the drugs." Emily's overly defensive babbling sounded well worn, like this was a story she'd had to tell time and time again. It also sounded frankly unconvincing. Naomi was having trouble focussing in fact, because of the voice in her brain yelling not straight, not straight, not straight, like an alarm, over and over again as Emily spoke. Despite what she suddenly knew was at stake, she was completely unable to drag her eyes off Emily's face as the redhead concluded, "It was a long time ago," and her eyes suddenly flicked up to meet Naomi's. Their eyes locked, just for a second, and they both swallowed in unison.
Alicia stood up abruptly. "Well. Who's for dessert then?" she asked stiffly.
"Oh, I'll come help you," volunteered Tony, finally seeming to notice the raging undercurrent of tension in the room, and just like a typical bloody man he was instantly keen to escape it. "You know, I went down on a guy once," he started, causing Naomi to get whiplash as she turned to stare at his retreating back. "Apparently I was crap at it, so I never tried to do it again." Even Alicia had no come back to that one.
.
.
Naomi didn't make eye contact with Emily for the rest of the thankfully, short lived evening. She barely speak a word to her directly unless it was completely unavoidable. They'd simply smiled and nodded at each other as they said goodnight, Naomi keeping her distance from her carefully. But it was all too late.
She followed Alicia from the front door all the way back up the stairs and into the white apartment before her girlfriend slowly turned around. They stood a few feet apart, just staring pleadingly at each other for a couple of long, horrible, silent minutes. Eventually when Alicia spoke, her voice was calm, though her eyes were not.
"It seems that numbers one and four on your list of reasons why we're still together are no longer valid," she said. "She's not straight, and I'm not the one you love."
Naomi started to cry.