23
Over the following week, the tension was thick. They both escorted Jamie to his first day of pre- school, he hugged them goodbye, and settled in very easily. Parents were able to stay for the first hour to observe and console if needed, but no tears were shed, no extra hugs were called for; he was assigned a cubby, and a shape that represented him, until he learned to recognize his name. He was shown to his space at table number four, and started talking to the other three children who sat at his table. Piper and Alex stayed the hour, exchanging minimal words before they went their separate ways to work. Conversations, over the next two weeks were bleak, accompanied by the occasional please and thank you. While they normally spent time together in shared space, Piper found herself alone in their living room while Alex spent time in their office. They took turns taking care of Jamie's various needs separately, the space between them lengthened.
The leaves changed, as November rolled through, they'd been taking Jamie to swimming lessons each Saturday morning since the first weekend in September. Alex drove their car crosstown to pick up Nicky who was very excited to see the hype of the lessons her friends were always ranting about. The brunette pulled up to the curb, Nicky went to pull the rear door open but saw Piper sitting in the back. She raised an eyebrow while she pulled the passenger door open and took a seat next to Alex.
"Driving Ms. Daisy, are ya? Hey Jamie!," she said over her shoulder, with a squeeze of his knee. "Just thought you might be more comfortable in the front," Piper said, not wanting to get into it.
"You care about my comfort since when?," Nicky asked feeling the tension. She flicked on the radio not wanting to be caught in the middle of the time bomb that could almost be heard ticking.
They climb up the small bleachers on the side of the pool, the space is heated by the sun peering through the large glass windows.
"Its fucking boiling in here, " Nicky says taking a seat on the top row of the bleachers. Alex is so tired of the forced amicability, and now that she can read it on Nicky's face, she knows it's permeable. The brunette turns an upturned palm toward Piper, to hold her hand. The blonde barely looks at her before standing up and descends the bleachers.
"Everything okay in paradise with you two?," Nicky asks through the side of her mouth.
"Freaking drama."
"No way, drama, between you guys?," Nicky stopped with the sarcasm when she expected a smirk or Alex's usual playful shove, but received nothing but a glance. They watch Jamie do the last warm up lap with the float on his back as the instructor has the kids sit along the edge. One by one the instructor brings them in the center of the pool and removes the floaty to swim about 10 feet to the nearest wall. The brunette slaps Nicky on the knee excitedly, "watch this! He almost made it last time." Her eyebrows furrow, "where's Piper? She's gonna miss it," she says slightly annoyed and disheartened. She watched her son wiggle his body with big kicks and grabs onto the ledge. He takes deep breaths as he wipes the water from his face and smooths his hair back before he waves to Alex and Nicky and then off to the the side some. Alex notices the blonde sitting there, she didn't miss anything, she thinks, knowing in her heart of hearts, she wouldn't have missed his lesson, but felt her aggravation build as the blonde purposely removed herself and never rejoined them.
She squeezes her empty water bottle a little tightly, irritated at the blonde's separation from Jamie's fanbox, the bottle makes a crinkling noise. She tries to refocus on her son, who's sitting on the edge gently kicking hit feet in the water, waiting for his next turn, she sighs, "I want another one."
Nicky swirls the remaining water she has and offers the backwash, but Alex doesn't notice.
"I'll go get you one," she offers standing up, knowing Alex would die of dehydration before she got up and missed another opportunity to see Jamie swim. Alex looks over at her, and then looks at the bottle,
"no," she says pulling Nicky by the arm to have her sit back down, "I want another baby."
"What?," she laughs out.
Alex looks at her irritated and turns her attention back to her little fish.
Nicky immediately regrets her laughter ,"you're serious?"
"Why is it so unbelievable? Lots of people have more than one."
"Yeah, when they're in their 20s, maybe."
Alex purses her lips and shakes the thought away again. There was no use in going through this again if no one even thought this was plausible.
"Hh-have you talked to Piper about it?"
"Does Lady Gaga wear big shoes? That's why she's annoyed with me."
"Annoyed?"
"I kind of didn't go about it in the best way possible," she admits.
"Ah man, what'd you do?"
"I don't want to get into it. Regardless, she won't even consider what I want."
"It's kind of a lot to take in... a lot to ask. Can you really blame her?"
"No I don't blame her for being put off by it, but to not even consider it? It's a slap in the face, I can barely look at her," she says with sadness in her voice.
Nicky curls her lip and places a hand on the brunette's thigh, not having the words to console her.
"I understand her point," Alex goes on, "and she's probably right. It doesn't make me want one any less." She shrugs her shoulders, digs her elbows into her thighs and lets her chin sit in the palms of her hands.
At the end of the lesson Piper approaches her, "you want to take him? I need to run some errands. I'm more than happy to take him with me, but I figured if you're gonna hang out with Nicky, she'd like to spend some time with him."
Alex barely nods and Piper walks off rummaging through her bag. -
"Maybe you guys just need to give it more time," Nicky says lightly as they walk on the sidewalk toward the park.
"It's been two months Nick, it's just getting worse."
She lifts Alexs hand and stares at her long nails, "yeah I can see that."
"You know," fuck off she mouths and pulls her hand back.
They stop into a drugstore to grab a bag of chips for Jamie. Alex turns her head away, obviously, from the baby aisle and runs a hand through her hair.
Nicky widens her eyes, "is it really that bad?,"
She closes her lips into a frown and nods, "just the smell of the lotions and things, I cant take it." She tucks into the aisle and starts fiddling with the "As Seen on TV" products.
"Vause, I can't take the soft, you know that," she says as she sees Alex look up and will away the tears that want to come.
She sniffs once, "I'm good."
"So you don't need this Sham-Wow?," the bushy haired blonde lifts the fluorescent thick fabric.
She chuckles lightly, "no."
They go to a playground and sit on a bench while Jamie plays.
"It's gonna be okay," she offers gently, not knowing what else to say.
"Mama, watch this!," Jamie shouts from the top of the slide for the seventh time in a row, he squeels as he zooms down the slide.
She sits up straight as he goes flying off the slide, almost falling onto his face, but he regains his balance. He flashes her the same grin Piper has when she wants to gloat, I told you so, she gives him his seventh thumbs up.
"I should just concentrate on what I have," she decides.
"You should call Yoga, shes all about that."
Alex nods in agreement, a small smile forms on her mouth at the thought of Yoga Jones, and the thought of Piper stretching her fingers to her toes in front of her.
"You don't have to like everything about her ," Nicky reminds her, "you love her. She loves you, you'll work it out."
After a while she responds, "thanks for trying to deal with my shit."
"No thanks necessary, it's good to be there with you guys when unicorns are shittin rainbows, but I stood beside you that day to remind you that you love her, when you have times like this."
Alex turned her head and looked Nicky straight in the eye, she was sure to lose it. She stood up, "c'mon J, let's go!," she called out to him, she had a better chance at keeping her composure if he was beside her.
Upstairs, Alex and Nicky are sitting at the table. When they hear the door unlock, Alex grabs a magazine and turns the pages quickly, pointing out nothing in particular to Nicky.
Piper says "hey," to no one specifically, she opens her mouth to say something else. "He's down for a nap," Alex answers her before she can ask.
She starts noisily unpacking items she purchased at the store, and Nicky stands up so they can have some privacy.
"I'm gonna go drop off the kids at the pool," she says trying to break the tension, walks into the bathroom and closes the door.
Piper makes a disgusted face in her direction and continues unpacking.
"Please continue ignoring me and be a little louder, the people in my magazine, can't quite hear you."
"Really? Of all things you can say, that's what you choose?"
"What do you want me to say Piper?"
"I want you to acknowledge that youre at fault here, and apologize."
"Im not sorry for it! Not for a second."
"Excellent, than I have nothing to say to you either," she says walking off again, mumbling under her breath. She closes their bedroom door harder than necessary.
Alex has had it with being left behind mid-argument. She goes to open their door, but its locked. She knocks on the door hard, "Piper!," she shouts.
"You need to leave me alone," the blonde yells out from behind the door. Alex can hear drawers opening and closing, the blonde still muttering.
Alex leans into the door, you love her, she reminds herself despite the personality clash that's occurring through the door. She tries to swallow her pride, "we need to talk about this."
"I don't want to talk about this right now!," she says from behind the door again. Nicky comes out of the bathroom and eyeballs Alex whose hands are pressed on both sides of their bedroom door with her head hanging.
"We've put it off for long enough, how much longer do you want this to keep going?"
Piper opens the door dressed in running clothes and stands back, not expecting for Alex to have been blocking the door way. She raises her hand, "I need some space," she says and dips underneath Alex's arm, making her way toward their front door to put on her sneakers.
Nicky watches Alex throws her head back in frustration before going into their bedroom and slamming in the door. "Whoa college, hang on, where ya going?"
"I need to run it off," she says, angrily unscrewing the key from her keyring and bending down to stick it in her sneaker.
"Let me go with you."
"You're gonna run?"
"Brisk walk?," she offers, "got an extra pair of kicks?"
Piper races down the stairs of their apartment building, while Nicky struggles to keep up, they get outside and Piper screams.
"Christ, that temper! People are going to think someone's trying to stab you in the chest. Can you freakin' cool it?"
"She drives me crazy," she shouts walking quickly.
"This is nothing new," she reasons, "you have a bad temper and she's stubborn as fuck. Obviously the two of you have shitty plans that aren't working out for either of you. She needs you, she's fuckin' dyin up there."
"Nick," she stops short and turns toward the shorter woman at her heels, "she fucking lied to me."
Nicky's mouth opens and looks at her confusedly, finding this hard to believe. "I'm not trying to take sides, she knows she went about this the wrong way, that's all I know."
"I don't even care about what she wants..." Nicky cuts her off,
"that's her problem..."
Piper cuts her off and exhales, "I'm pissed that she doesn't talk to me about important things, things that impact me. It's the same problem, recycling the same issues since the beginning of time. She talks to me about all the shit that swirls through her head without a second thought, but anything that's going to directly effect me, I'm left in the dark."
"She doesn't want to hurt you."
"But it does! It makes it worse. She feels things and doesn't tell me...," she looks so frustrated, that the root of their twenty year old problem is the same, "until it's too late."
"So freaking tell her that! I am not a liason, but I don't want to see you guys like this, you need to be able to work through your problems."
"I'm not a therapist," she says panting, "and I don't know how to always get stuff out of her." "She's not the best communicator. But she's gotten so much better. She loves you..."
Piper shoots Nicky a glare albeit knowing she speaks the truth.
"... and you love her too, that's why you get so heated. You guys are your own worst enemies. When it's good, its really good, but when it's bad, hoooly shit."
"I know. We go for months with nothing but sugar and spice, but like you said when we fight, sometimes it can get intense. Too intense."
"Talk to her okay? She won't come to you again, you know that."
"Head like a bull, I know."
Piper gets upstairs, and goes straight to the shower and tries to run through how shes going to approach this monster that's grown over the last few months.
She steps out of the shower ready to talk, Alex is packing a bag. "What are you doing?"
"Giving you your space."
"You're leaving?," she looks terrified.
"There's an opportunity to go south again for a week. We were going to send one of the interns, but I just called and volunteered. They're thrilled."
She sees Piper's body relax, the blonde looks at her with a loving stare. While initially she was relieved to see the blonde calm, and almost happy looking, for the first time in weeks, she realized Piper had previously looked terrified for alternative reasons.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Alex states sarcastically, forcefully shoving a blouse in the suitcase.
"I saw the suitcase, I just thought... I didn't say anything else."
"The skepticism all over your face, says plenty," she exhales audibly, "I thought you had more trust in me."
She zips up the suitcase and rolls it out the door, "I'm sleeping on the couch." She leaves it by the door and walks down the hall into Jamie's room and glares at Piper, before shutting the door gently behind her.