Chapter 7: "No Strings Attached"

Thanks to Verarose19, When-A-Sprite-Meets-Unicorn, Johanna002 for reading and commenting. Here is a transitional chapter.

And, again, some informations about "The Litchfield book club", Jessica we find here is a main character in this other story. She also has a bond with Natalie, who worked in the foster home where she lived as a child.

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Cecilia 6:20 pm: "No Strings Attached! This movie sucks"

Elena 6:21 p.m .: No it's one of your favorite. It's the one with Mila Kunis which sucks

Cecilia 6:37 p.m .: Ah, I see, they have the same subject. So, do you want us to watch it together tonight.

Elena 7:02 p.m .: If you want. But, I have to tell you ... mom will be there

Cecilia 7:04 PM I thought it was weird that you were taking so long to reply to my text. I'm coming, we'll just watch the movie, so we should be fine.

Elena 7:05 p.m .: Okay, I'll try to prepear something to eat. Can you be there around 8:00 p.m.?

Cecilia 7:06 p.m .: Yes, no problem

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Flaca watches Maritza taking the stack of plates into the kitchen. Her denim shorts and white T-shirt show off the tanned skin of her thighs and arms. Flaca's eyes slide down on her calves, and she would like to tell her to wear flip flops or shoes. Instead, she watches hers thin ankles, her bare feets.

"Is the table dirty?" Maritza asks casually.

"Yes," Flaca replies. "I'll wash it after the movie." She mumbles a little when she talks. Her eyelids are heavy, she feels good. The movie alternates moments of parties, and moments of friendship with benefits. It contains a lot of hot scenes, and she didn't remember it. Maritza comes back to sit next to her. Their bare knees touch.

Last night, coming out of the bank, she had found Maritza waiting for her in the parking. She was driving a car, a small gray car. Its rusty body sparkled in the late afternoon sun. There was a dent on one of the doors. When Flaca has gotten into the passenger seat, Maritza had started. The tired engine had made a strange noise. Yet Flaca had smiled.

"What is that?"

"My cousin sold it to me. We give it a few pesos a month and it's ours."

"It looks rather rotten, but it will change our lives, for moving around Bogota", had noticed Flaca.

"Yeah I'm going to drop you off at work every morning, and Juli at school. We're going to be able to live in Colombia as a nice little married couple. Except that, officially, we're not a couple."

They had chuckled as they were watching the city go by. In this car that smelled of gasoline and the presence of former owners, Bogota looked more beautiful to Flaca.

"You think prison was too easy for us," Maritza asks.

Flaca returns to the present. The question surprises her.

"What?"

Maritza narrows her eyes. She takes a look at the movie, watches the couple having a milkshake in a fast food on Valentine's Day.

"Well, life is sometimes more difficult than at camp. There, there were movies and parties almost all the time, and the work in the kitchen was pretty cool. So, I thought maybe , it did not prepare us for real life. "

She smiles as she says this and Flaca knows she doesn't really believe it. She looks at their glasses filled with tequila on the table.

"There was no allcool at Litchfield"; she adds mischievously.

"Yeah, and at the end it wasn't very safe," Maritza replies.

"Kind of like here." Flaca thinks of the long working days, of this strange city where joy rubs shoulders with poverty , of most people's lack of tolerance, the lack of tolerance that prompts them to tell almost everyone that they are just two friends, living in a shared apartment. But, they survived the camp, even when it was hard. Maybe their nonchalance actually helped them.

"Litchfield VS Colombia." Flaca says solemnly. It sounds like a new challenge that they are launching themselves. They laugh again, elbow to elbow, on the sofa in their small apartment.

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When she was married to Jeason, Natalie was going to several worldly event every week. She sailed there with ease, accepting champagne and petits fours. She had superficial conversations for one reason or another. Her main satisfaction was to succeed in fulfilling this role to perfection, without taking any pleasure in it.

Now, the place she goes most often is Jessica's apartment. When she opens the door for her, she often wears a pair of leggings, her wet hair, after a shower, gathered in a bun. She smiles at her, and smiles at Vanessa who accompanies her. They watch movies, eat pizza or salads, doze on the couch.

Tonight, for some reason she forgot, Joe's band rehearsal has been called off and Vanessa is home with him. Jessica chose a romantic comedy, with a silly title, that she wanted to see again. The movie is not so bad. On the screen, a very very neurotic girl hesitates to fall in love with a very very nice boy.

"Poor guy," Jessica mumbles, watching the girl get mad about an unimportant thing.

"Ho, they will realize that they cannot live without each other, and they will be happy forever, "Natalie sighs.

"Pfff." Jessica turns to her, looks at her, rather than the movie.

"Have you always wanted to have children?" she asks.

Natalie doesn't answer. She is looking for the link between the movie and that, this question that she has rarely asked about herself. She knows that this link is their resemblance: Jessica and her, Jessica and the girl at screen.

She finally speaks, slowly.

"I thought about it seriously a few years after my wedding. At first we both wanted it, then it became my own wish, something that could make sense of what we were going through."

"But with Joe?", Jessica Begins .

"It's different, it's something we share."

Jessica's forehead creases, she crosses her hands on her knees.

"Gary wants a child," she announces. "It's something he really wants, I think."

"And you, you aren't sure?", she asks. She knows the answer. It doesn't bother her Despite all the hardships she went through, despite the desire for children that obsessed her so much, that she had seen nothing of the shipwreck of her marriage. Despite everything, she understands Jessica's reluctance. She knows she is neither selfish nor frivolous.

"Did you talk about it?", she asks.

"Gary did a little bit last year, with little hints, stuff like that. Now I think he's feeling a little guilty about what happened this spring."

"You should tell her you're not ready."

"I did it." She raises her eyebrows, moves imperceptibly on the sofa. "He says I shouldn't do something I don't want to do."

"He's right," Natalie replies.

"I know he doesn't really think it, and it's selfish to deprive him of having a child." On that subject, he's a bit like Charlott in Sex And The City, you know? "

They don't laugh. They both saw Season four of Sex and the City. Natalie thinks Jessica has it all figured out. She tells herself that Gary's love for her is great, that when Joe told her he wasn't sure about the kids, she didn't have such a generous reaction. But, the situation was different. She just knows that they have Vanessa now, and that the three of them are happy. Their home, built step by step, is now solid.

"You have time. " Natalie says it because it's true, and because she knows that Jessica has already understood that in some months or years she will have a choice to make, a choice that will only belonging to her.

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Cecilia is sitting on the carpet, leaning against the sofa. The movie is almost over. Small scenes, which show what the characters will become later, scroll slowly, too slowly. She feels like she's discovering them. If someone asked her to summarize the plot, she would be unable to do so.

She knows that something is going to happen, that her mother is going to try to talk to her. She thought maybe that's why she came to Elena's place tonight.

Her little sister yawns, rubs her eyes. When she does this , Cecilia sees her again as a child. Then she hears him say that she is going to bed. She feels Elena's foot gently blooming on her leg.

Cecilia says "Good night" to her, then she hears herself suggest that her mother go and have something to drink in a coffee shop that is still open, not far away from here.

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1/ The movie the characters are watching is "No Strings Attache" starring Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher

2/ In Sex and The City, Charlotte's character wants a child unlike her husband. This is the main cause of their divorce.

3/ You may have guessed, the next chapter will be a Gloria and Cecilia centric