Thanks for all of the reviews. Warms my heart.
Piper's apartment had not been cleaned that thoroughly since she'd moved in. She dusted, vacuumed, cleaned the bathroom from top to bottom, scrubbed the sinks and changed a few light bulbs that had been burnt out for as long as she could remember. She debated on whether or not to light candles, but ultimately decided that one honeysuckle candle in the bathroom and a citrus one on the stove would suffice. After all, her studio was only 400 square feet, and it didn't take much to infuse the space with fragrance.
She pretended that picking out what to wear was no big deal, but she had to admit to herself after trying on 20-something different outfits that it mattered to some degree. She settled on a worn pair of Levi's and a white tank top with a coral print. She decided against wearing shoes, but had a pair of black Converse near the door just in case.
At 7:30, Piper began fidgeting. She fanned out a pile of magazines, stared at the display, and then picked them back up and stacked them in a pile. She adjusted the wooden blinds to allow more light inside, but the sun had already set, so she closed them completely. When the buzzer rang, Piper had just dumped some cashews into a small bowl.
She inhaled deeply, smoothed her tank top, and answered the buzzer. "Hello?"
"Hi, it's me."
Piper liked the fact that Alex didn't have to announce her name, and instead, figured that Piper would know her voice with just three words. "I'll buzz you in. I'm on the third floor."
This was it, Piper thought. The moment she'd been dreaming of and dreading for years.
Alex knocked on the door, and Piper waited ten seconds before answering. She wanted to give Alex the impression that she was busy and not waiting on pins and needles for her arrival.
"Hi," Alex greeted her with what appeared to be a heavy bag slung across her upper body.
"Hi." Piper smiled and stepped out of the way.
"Nice place," she commented, looking around the room. "Small, but nice."
Piper couldn't detect even a hint of anxiety in Alex's voice. She sounded like she always did—confident and in control.
"My friend's father owns the building," Piper said. "He gives me a pretty steep discount on rent. I couldn't afford it otherwise."
"Tell me about it." Alex put the sack on the counter. "It's why I live in Queens with a roommate."
"What's this?" Piper peered into the bag.
"Wine." She pulled out six bottles. "I figured a bottle an hour ought to do it, and some bubbly if there's cause for celebration."
Piper's eyes went wide. "Celebration?"
"If we haven't killed each other by the time I leave, I think that's cause for celebration." Alex didn't look her in the eye, and Piper wondered if she was only half-joking.
"You get this stuff for free?" Piper glanced at a wine label and pretended to read it. She could feel her hands sweating on the bottle and had to take a few steadying breaths. Piper knew that it would take her a while to center herself. Alex always had a way of making her restless.
She also had a way of making her hot.
"Hey, kid," Alex greeted her near the entrance of the Mercury Lounge with a fresh gin and tonic.
Piper accepted the cocktail and eyed Alex up and down, unable to conceal her pleasure, and blushing at the same time.
"See something you like?" Alex asked with a perceptive grin.
"Your…your, uh," Piper trailed off and took a swig of the cocktail. "Those pants. You look good in those pants."
"Italian leather. I have another pair at home that would probably fit you." She grabbed Piper's free hand and placed it on her own ass. "You'd look so fucking hot in leather."
Piper tried not to look at her ex-lover too closely, but when she removed her long jacket, she got a glimpse of her tight, black jeans and somewhat low-cut blouse. If Alex leaned over just a bit, she knew she'd be able to see the tops of her breasts. Piper wondered what color bra she was wearing.
When Alex walked over to a chair to throw her jacket over the back, Piper couldn't help staring at her ass, which was as perfect as she'd remembered. Whatever Alex was doing for physical vigor, Piper thought, suited her very well.
"It's the one indulgence I don't have to pay for," Alex replied coolly. "Mind if I open a bottle?"
Piper was startled at the request and wondered if Alex caught her staring. She quickly averted her eyes. "Yes, of course." She handed her the bottle opener.
Alex eyed the old corkscrew and pulled one out of her own bag. "I'm going to have to get you something a little more…modern."
"This one works just fine," Piper replied, ignoring the familiarity of Alex's statement. "What are we having?"
"You want my technical answer or what I'd tell my friends?"
Piper shrugged. "Both."
"Ok." She twisted the corkscrew into the bottle with ease. "This is a 2010 Viognier from William Church in Washington State. It's their flagship white and has beautiful aromatics of fresh pear and honeysuckle. There's enough acidity to keep the wine fresh and lively, so it pairs nicely with Asian food, mushrooms, and creamy soups."
"Wow, seriously?" Piper smiled. "Did you make all of that up or do you actually know what you're talking about?"
"I know my shit." It was Alex's turn to smile. She poured a small amount into each glass and swirled, then sniffed the wine.
"I taste pear. I'm not getting the honeysuckle, but it's really good." Piper took another sip. "If that's the technical version, what would you tell your friends?"
"When they ask what we're drinking?" Alex swigged the small pour and rolled it around her mouth before swallowing. "White wine."
Piper almost spit the liquid out as she began to laugh.
"I won't bore you with industry talk anymore." She poured two full glasses.
"I don't mind." Piper wiped her mouth. "I kind of like it."
Their eyes met, but Alex quickly looked into her glass and swirled the wine again. She took another sip, and then walked into the petite living room. "You still have this Angkor Wat rubbing?"
Piper followed, but stayed a few feet back and put her free hand in her pocket. "It's one of my favorite pieces."
She could see a slight smile form on Alex's face and wondered if she remembered their time together in Cambodia.
Alex touched the flimsy white curtain that separated Piper's sleeping space from her living room. "May I?"
Piper shrugged. Alex, Piper thought, had always been curious about her space and belongings. She opened the curtains enough to fit through the slit. "It's bright."
Piper had intentionally bought lots of orange, pink, green and yellow throw pillows to brighten up her small 'bedroom.' She'd inherited a red dresser from her paternal grandmother that sat along the far wall, and she'd bought a tall bookshelf from a flea market that she'd painted bright green and filled with books.
"I still have boxes of stuff, mostly books, in my parents' basement."
Alex didn't acknowledge her; instead, she glanced at the photographs along the dresser and picked up one of Piper with a group of women,and then quickly set it back down. "No pictures of Larry?"
She let out a brusque sound. "We broke up before I was released."
Alex looked up. "Really?"
"You didn't know that?" Piper asked incredulously.
"I might've heard something like that." She took a sip of wine, and then slowly walked back into the living room. "So…why am I here?"
"I thought we should talk." Piper tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. "We haven't seen each other in nearly five years, and now we live in the same city and I thought we could…"She made a waving motion between them. "Air things out."
Alex raised her eyebrows. "Like dirty laundry?"
"You could call it that." Piper lifted her chin; stood a little taller.
"I wouldn't know where to start." Alex poured herself another glass of wine.
Piper raised her glass to signal she wanted more. "How about we begin with you ratting me out to the feds?"
"Jesus Christ, that was years ago, and I explained it all to you when we were in prison!"
"That was under duress. I want to hear it again, when I'm of sane mind and spirit."
"To what end?" Alex threw her hands in the air. "What will that solve, dredging up painful memories from ages ago?"
Piper crossed her arms. "If we don't discuss everything, and I mean everything, we have no chance of moving on."
"Moving on to what?" Alex huffed.
"I don't know—being…friends again." She shrugged.
Alex lifted her eyeglasses to rest on top of her head. "I told you before; we were never friends."
"Then what label would you assign to what we meant to each other?"
"We were lovers." Alex looked her in the eye. "Nothing more, nothing less."
Piper blushed and fiddled with a ring on her right hand, but didn't speak.
"What's the end game here?" Alex continued. "If you want to clear your conscience, fine. You're absolved from anything bad you've ever done to me."
"You think that's what this is about?" Piper raised her voice. "That I want to argue with you, clear my conscience and live happily ever after?"
Alex put her hands on her hips. "I don't know. Is it?"
"No!" Piper turned away.
"What, then?" Alex's voice softened.
Piper collected her thoughts before replying, "I want to be at peace with however we leave things tonight." She turned back to face Alex and tilted her head. "Do you think we can manage that?"
Alex waited a beat before responding, "I honestly don't know."
They stood in silence for a moment. Piper set her glass on the coffee table and smoothed her hands down her jeans. She sat on the sofa and looked up at Alex with a gloomy face. "Do you want to try?"
Alex's lips twitched. "Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?" Piper tried making a neutral expression.
"Like that," she pointed at her face. "Those sad eyes and pouty lips."
"This is my face. I'm not trying to…" she gestured, searching for the right words. "Make…sad eyes at you."
"Whether you meant to or not, it worked, kid." Alex grabbed the bottle of wine off the counter and noticed that it was empty, so she opened another.
Piper managed a half-smile.
"This conversation isn't going to be easy for either of us, Alex, and I know some of it is stuff we've discussed before." She stood across the counter. "But I think we're both in a healthier place to receive information and can process things a little better than we could in prison."
"You have no idea if I'm in a healthier place." Alex put her hands on the counter and looked Piper in the eyes. "We have to be able to call each other's bullshit if this has a chance of going anywhere." She motioned between the two of them. "Why don't we talk about our present lives first, and then, if we're in the right frame of mind, we can dredge up old grievances?"
"That's fair." She looked down. "I didn't mean to assume that you were in a healthy place."
"You did, actually. You wouldn't have mentioned it if you thought otherwise." Alex touched Piper's hand. "Look, I want to believe you've changed, Piper, I really do. But when you pull shit like this…"
"You're right." Piper tugged her hand away. She wasn't ready for physical contact. "You're right, and I get it. Let me rephrase my statement: 'I hope we're both in a healthier place.'"
Alex smirked. "Better."
"So where do we start?"
Alex sighed. "Why don't we take a break and walk to get Chinese takeout?"
Piper nodded. "Ok."
They each put on their jackets and Alex held the door open for Piper who slipped on her Converse before heading out.
"How long have you lived here?" Alex followed her out of the building.
"Almost a year. I can't tell you how nice it is to have my own space." Piper buttoned her jacket. "What about you? What did you do when you got out? When did you get out?" Piper turned the corner, and they passed in front of the wine bar where they'd met the night before.
"I was released on March 3 last year, so I just past my one year get-out-of-jail anniversary." They crossed busy Canal Street.
Piper turned another corner. "Isn't that sooner than you were thinking?"
"Yeah – testifying against Fahri and good behavior shaved off a considerable amount of time."
"Where did you live when you first got out?" They weaved in and out of the stream of people.
"First three months, when they were checking up on me, I lived with my friend, Whitney. I didn't know how difficult it would be to reign myself in, you know, and I partied a little too hard."
"How did you pay for stuff?" Piper led Alex into a well-lit alley.
"My grandparents had given me savings bonds when I was a child, and I cashed them in. I had a couple thousand dollars, which I proceeded to blow in two months." Alex sighed. "Whitney's boyfriend, we called him Biz, was wealthy, and he threw all these elaborate parties in abandoned warehouses in Jersey. As you might imagine, there were a lot of drugs and alcohol. I'm proud to say that I still haven't touched drugs in nearly ten years, but the first six weeks I was out, I got drunk almost every night."
Piper scrunched her face and felt a pang in her gut. "Not good, Alex."
They continued walking, and Alex continued her story. "On April 8 last year, we were in this old building that Biz had set up like a tropical paradise, and the cops showed up. That wasn't the first time they'd rolled in, but this time it was like 3 in the morning, and almost everyone was trashed. I wasn't feeling good, so I'd only had a couple of drinks, thank God. Anyway, the cops rolled in and made their way to the center of the room, where Biz was selling dime bags. One cop pulled his gun out of his holster, and Biz pulled out his pistol." Alex swallowed hard. "Right in front of everyone, they shot him. Killed him on the spot."
Piper stopped walking. "Oh my God!"
"Scared the living hell out of me. I mean, I've seen a lot of fucked up shit in my life, but I'd never seen someone murdered 20 feet away from me."
"I'm so sorry." She touched Alex's arm.
They walked in silence until they reached the Chinese restaurant. There were Peking ducks hanging in the window and a line of people snaked out the door.
"I've never had Peking duck."
"Tastes like chicken." Alex stabbed a piece with one chopstick and fed it to Piper.
"Ew!" Piper swallowed quickly, and then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "It does not taste like chicken. It tastes like…baby duck."
Alex laughed and proceeded to eat the delicacy. "How would you know the difference between duck and baby duck, which, by the way, is called a duckling?"
"I'll stick with sweet and sour pork, thank you very much," Piper protested, drinking a fair amount of baijiu.
"We're in fucking Shanghai and you want sweet and sour pork? Be adventurous—try Guotie or Da Zha Xie."
Piper licked her lips and leaned in. "Only if you feed it to me naked in bed."
"I usually get sweet and sour pork and chow mein," Piper stated.
"Of course you do." Alex grinned.
Piper placed the order and they moved to the side in a cramped space next to the Snapple vending machine. She could feel Alex's thigh lightly pressed against her own, and it sent shivers down her spine and butterflies in her stomach.
"What happened after Biz was killed?" Piper tried to ignore the physical sensation of Alex's touch.
"My life changed that night; I was scared shitless. I knew I couldn't go back to that lifestyle, so it was a huge wakeup call. Besides, I had a lot of enemies from ratting out Fahri, and I didn't want to risk crossing paths with them. All of my friends were either in the drug business or did a lot of drugs to begin with, so I didn't know what the fuck to do." She rested her hand on the counter behind Piper. "I wracked my brain for who I could turn to, and it hit me that the only person I knew who led a somewhat normal life was Mirutse. Do you remember him—tall, thin African guy? Always dressed to the nines?"
"The marathon runner?"
"Yes!" Alex pointed a sharp finger at her. "Anyway, I remembered that his cousin was into heroin, but Mirutse didn't touch the stuff, so I contacted him and asked if I could crash at his place for a few nights."
Their order was ready, and after a bit of arguing over the bill, Alex paid.
"Long story short, Mirutse works for Titan Wine & Spirits and introduced me to a few of his co-workers. We hit it off, and one of them had already put in her two-week notice, so I applied for the position and got it."
"Wow, that's great," Piper said. "Do you enjoy it?"
Alex shifted the bag of Chinese food to her other hand. "I never thought that I could handle a 9 to 5 job, but I like it; I really do."
Piper asked more questions about her job as they made their way back to her flat. Once inside, they dove into the Chinese food and poured several more glasses of wine. Piper shared her story with Alex, including the fact that she still waited tables and had to take the evening off to be with her that night.
"So the soap thing is working out?" Alex set her chopsticks down.
"Better than expected, just not as quickly as I'd like." Piper cleared their plates. "We made a profit early last year, so things are picking up. We even hired a chemist and are going to start making candles by the end of the year."
"I'm happy for you." Alex put the leftovers in the fridge.
Piper turned around and smiled. "Thank you. It feels good."
"More wine?" Alex lifted the bottle.
"Sure." Piper sat on the sofa and already felt tipsy.
"So…" Alex filled Piper's glass with pinot noir. "Are you seeing anyone?"
Piper shifted uncomfortably. She was hoping to avoid this topic but figured it was now or never. "Um, yeah. Sort of."
Alex paused with the bottle in mid-air, which was almost undetectable. "Boy or girl?"
"Boy," she answered simply.
"What do you mean by, 'sort of?'" Alex sat next to her.
"It's not serious." Piper shrugged. "He wants it to be serious, but I'm not ready for that."
"With him or with anyone?"
"Anyone, I guess." Piper ran a finger along the rim of her glass. "There was you, then Larry, then you again. I don't want to be on a roller coaster."
Alex smiled. "Why would you be on a roller coaster if neither I nor Larry is in the picture?"
"I don't know. That's one of the reasons I'm seeing a therapist."
"You're in therapy?"
"Yes, and it's helping," Piper replied defensively.
"Wine is my therapy." Alex chuckled and topped off both of their glasses.
"What about you? Are you seeing anyone?" Piper toyed with the fringe on a pillow.
"God, no." She took a long sip. "I mean, I have sex every now and then, but it's nothing serious."
"Right." Piper hated the thought of Alex having sex with other people, but she kept that thought to herself.
"So here we are." Alex slung her arm over the back of the sofa. "Time to get real?"
"You mean, now that you've gotten me all liquored up?" Piper grinned.
Alex smiled but then quickly sobered. "This is probably going to suck."
"No probably about it," Piper responded. "It will suck."
End Part 3
Did this chapter feel "angsty" enough? I struggled with the balance between Alex and Piper's discomfort around each other as well as their excitement/fear of being together again. I imagined that it wouldn't be easy for either of them to get the ball rolling on some heavy topics, so I hope that played out here. It will play out more in the final chapter. Thanks in advance for comments.