48
The pace of their stroll is exaggeratedly slow, the kind of drag where your feet feel leaden, the kind of drag where you've just been forced to dance for just "one more." You enjoyed it though, the atypical, out of town wedding, the pull this woman still has over you. Her smile gets you every time, her skin is still just a tad bit sweaty, she fans it away, while she walks up ahead with Francesca and imitates her dance moves while she sings Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Something" acapella. Francesca looks over her shoulder once they get by the edge of the poolside, she spots your best friend, who's walking alongside you and re-enacts her wild haired girlfriend's "Hip Hop Hooray" arms. Her laughter mixed with Piper's almost earn them a toss in the pool but you resist the urge. You see Piper pull her phone out, to call your kids, you assume.
"Hi baby, everything okay?," you hear her say into the phone. I win, you think.
"Yeah mom," he responds.
"What'd you eat for dinner?"
"Leftovers," he says dully. "I was going to order takeout but conveniently all the menus were missing from the drawer."
"I told you not to open the door for anyone, so how were you planning on getting the food inside?"
Alex steals the phone, "hey kid."
"Hi ma."
"You burn our shit down?"
"Not yet."
"Great, you guys good?"
"Yeah. we're fine."
"See ya tomorrow."
"Later."
She's hits the end call button and hands Piper back her phone. "They're fine," she confirms with a nod towards her wife's pouting lip. She removes her shoes, she slowly pulls her dress up the length of her legs, just below her ass and sits along the edge of the pool. She rubs the space beside her, "come sit."
"I'm not gonna just sit on the edge of the pool in a chiffon dress."
"High maintenance," she mutters.
Francesca sticks it to her, "you know if you mess it up, all it means is you'll have to spend hours of your time shopping, finding another one when there's another wedding."
"I don't," she pauses, "do I have another upcoming one?'
"Can it, Vause," Nicky shoots down her friend before she can start with her.
Piper nudges Alex's back with her knee, "leave them alone," she whispers softly. "Well I'm gonna go up and change into my bathing suit, do you want yours?"
"We just danced the whole night."
"So?"
"So... I'm all set, thanks," she laughs as though her wife is psychotic.
"I'll go swimming with you," the auburn haired woman offers.
"Thank you Francesca," she says with a bit of an attitude thanks to Alex's rejection.
Nicky drags a lounge chair by the edge to sit near Alex.
"You want yours?," Francesca asks Nicky.
"Yeah why not," she replies.
The brunette waits for Piper and Francesca to be out of earshot, "so... it was a pretty fun wedding."
"If you like this sort of thing," Nicky responds through her teeth. She eyes the bar at the other end of the pool, "you think College will want one?"
"Yeah," the brunette says toward Nicky's back, amused at the woman's eagerness to walk away from her. She returns with four bottles of beer, clenched together in her hands. She sets them down carefully on the edge with Alex's help. The brunette starts swirling her bottle around.
Nicky taps her on the head, "don't spill it, I assured the bartender they weren't just for us and we wouldn't knock them in."
"I'll do my best." She moves over some, and gestures for Nicky to take a seat next to her. "You heard my voice of reason."
"Do I stink or something?," she says lifting up an arm. Nope. "Just hike it up," she moves her hand around the hem of Nicky's long skirt, "don't be a pussy."
She hands Alex her beer and sits as gracefully as she can and dips her feet into the pool.
"So?," the brunette asks her.
"What?," she responds with a wag of her head.
"Nothing," she laughs through her nose.
"If you have something smart to say, fucking say it." She looks over her shoulder to see if Francesca and Piper are returning.
Her eyes widen, "that!," she says poking the smaller woman. "What?," she looks around her lap and around the space she's sitting.
The brunette licks her lips and wrestles with pressing a conversation that she and Piper have had multiple times. "Are you happy?," she asks, already knowing the answer.
Nicky bites her lip, and stares at Alex momentarily. She leans back, almost defensive, protective of the admission of her feelings. She nods, "yeah, I am."
She tucks a piece of her dark hair behind her ear, "any chance you'd make it legal?" She takes a sip of her beer.
She laughs nervously and shakes her head no. She turns and looks at the pool, her foot swirls in the water.
Alex hesitates, "it's just, she fits right into our chaos. You rarely fight. She makes you act like even more of a doofus than you normally are."
Nicky's stare continues at the water.
"I'm not pushing you, if you don't want...it... that's cool."
She smirks for a moment before she gets serious, "I know, I don't wanna mess with a good thing."
She nods and takes another sip of her beer, "or," she pauses for emphasis, "you could have a good thing, all the time."
"Yeeeeeah, I dunno. Who's to say it's not been good because we know we can break away from each other and go our respective spaces?"
"It's a valid point. But usually after, what? Three years? It's not a fluke, just saying. There's something else there." She looks at Nicky properly, but gets no reaction. She continues, "but what the fuck do I know, right? Lord knows I fucked up more than my share."
"How long were you guys dating before you moved in together?"
"That's not important," not wanting to bring attention to her haste filled past. "What's important is the way that woman has a hold on you. From the beginning, if there was an opportunity to lay your eyes on her for another second, you took it."
"Yeah lay,"she tries to be comedic while Alex's gaze indicates she wishes to continue a serious conversation. She changes her tone, "my eyes," she tangles her hand in her hair and squeezes her scalp, "I know."
"So you admit she does this to you?"
"Yes, that woman gives me serious vagingles okay?"
Alex loudly cackles, "she's different."
"And is that ultimately why you caved? Because Piper was different? How long did you wait?"
"It's-not-important," the brunette states each word slowly.
Nicky realizes it was fast, her tongue rakes across her teeth, "did she ask you or you asked her?"
She shakes her head at Nicky's continued inquiry.
Nicky takes a wide open hand and splashes a small wave of water at the brunette. "Nooo," Alex huffs and laughs at the water that's now sprinkled all over her dress.
"You asshole, tell me."
"Around a year," she tells her not wanting to add more water to her clothing.
"Seriously?," she asks now self-conscious of how long she and Francesca have managed to avoid moving in together.
"Yeah, I asked her to move in with me, well, sort of... I was subtle."
"Yeah I'm sure, like a hole in the wall. Wow, so Blondie finagled her way in, in the course of a year? You never stood a chance."
The brunette smirks, and shakes her head, no I didn't. "Look there was something from day one, but little by little I just, I don't know, at the end of the day, I didn't want her to go home."
"I mean I get like that sometimes too?" She sighs, fucking women. "I do want that," she pauses, feeling weird for allowing those words to cross her lips. "I know sometimes she does too. We've talked about it... maybe once." Her head drops shamefully.
"You have? So what the hell? Wait... which it?"
"Moving into her place," she says so fast Alex scoots away from her, "the only it," her voice rises. She looks over her shoulder again.
"Fuck, would you chill?," she runs her fingers through her hair and moves most of it to one side of her head. "I was just clarifying."
She watches Nicky pound the rest of her beer.
She offers her the rest of hers, as she apparently needs it more than she does. Nicky sets down her empty bottle, and declines Alex's offer.
"Nick, moving in, getting married...," she stops as Nicky leans back and lets her head rest on the lounge chair behind her. "You alright?"
Nicky nods, wondering how she got to a place where a conversation such as this, could be happening.
Alex continues, "it's really not all the different from each other honestly. I used to think marriage would somehow end my life, but sometimes, certain people make you do things, you never thought you would..."
She grasps the brass door knocker and taps it against the wooden door. She waits outside for what feels like the longest sixty seconds of her life, when the door slowly opens.
"Can I help you?"
She can't help the small inward gasp, "Mrs. Chapman."
Her hand adjusts the scarf around her neck, "Alex?"
She confirms with her barely there smile. The toe of her boot points inward as she takes in the svelte frame of the woman who now opens the door a little wider. She focuses on the blue of her eye, to keep her grounded, to prevent her from keeling over on the Chapman's doorstep. She's heard more stories about this woman than she cares to. Whatever they know of each other, is primarily, unpleasant.
"I recognize your voice," she says to the brunette. She inconspicuously looks over the woman who's dressed in clothing that lacks color outside of the grey/black hue palette. Never having seen her before, though she supposes she's never really welcomed the opportunity for more information, she takes her in, the dark haired, unexpectedly alternative, nerdy even, and unsuspectingly timid woman. Her image does not meet what she's painted, a head of an international drug cartel/ daughter predator to be.
"Is everything alright with Piper?," her tone is worried.
"Piper's great," she quickly reassures her, failing to have fathomed that randomly showing up, would worry her girlfriend's mother, about her well being.
"I didn't mean to make you nervous," she says apologetically. Incredible, she thinks, having already managed to mess this up. "I... I was hoping I could talk to you."
Carol Chapman takes a step back and opens her door, with only slight reluctance, for the person who, as far as she's concerned, ruined her daughter's life.
Her expression reads loud and clear. She can see the woman's scapulae tense through her delicate blouse. Carol motions her hand toward a chair at their dining room table. Before they're seated and before she can say another word, Alex verbalizes the words that she sees weaving through Piper's mother's head,
"I know I'm ruining your dreams for her, or I already have, depending on how you look at it. And I take some responsibility for that."
She can see her jaw harden, her lips so tightly pursed, they're barely there. She exhales loudly through her nose. "Piper doesn't blame you, she's been certain of that for years," her tone is cold. "I don't know that I can say the same."
Her dark eyebrows rise, she grips the edge of the table, holding on, she sits. This chair, is unnaturally hard. She looks up toward the older woman, her back is stiff, also unnatural. Makes sense. "Putting myself in your shoes, I don't know if I would've let me past the entrance of your house. Thank you for letting me speak."
The blonde woman remains silent.
"I'd imagine I'm not your first choice, nor your fifth choice, in a partner for Piper." Understatement, the woman across from her emanates.
"But you know the worst of me. Piper's one of the most brilliant and interesting people I've ever known and I've met a lot of people. But she's had the strength to get up and go, even if it was in the worst possible time ever." She takes a moment to collect herself. "She's not predictable, just when you think you'd know the way she'd respond she turns and goes another way."
Carol nods in complete agreement. "I've encouraged Piper down a path that I saw better fit for her, and she's decided, that she'll pave her own way."
She nods once seeing the hurt in Mrs. Chapman.
"Why are you here Alex?," she asks in a tone that encourages the brunette to get on with it.
Her eyebrows come together, for a moment, in annoyance for having driven ninety minutes, to feel unwelcome within five. "I've tried thinking about this from your perspective and I want you know that I've done a lot, made great efforts, to change. I don't function on the ideal, because it just doesn't work. I don't theorize, I do. I've saved and searched and figured out how to make a life for us. I don't have ideas. I have concrete things going for me, to ensure that I can care for her. And though I don't have what I used to, I can assure you, she'll want for nothing. I won't make the same mistakes I made with her in the past."
"Alright." It's all she offers. And so the brunette continues.
"I'm risking a lot, asking her to spend her life with me."
Carol squeezes her eyes shut, having her fear spoken aloud.
"I believe she needs me the way I need her, but that she also wants to spend her life with me too. You know, some people get together young and make this life journey together and fumble through their mistakes. They tolerate more because they're already married. But her and I? We've already gone through the worst, and I think I speak on behalf of both of us when I say that we would still choose to commit to each other, despite our imperfections."
Carol re-opens her eyes, "you both have definitely had your share of less than perfect circumstances."
She nods, "and through that, Piper has always had you. Sometimes, to be honest, I think she takes that for granted, but I know what her committing to me, can do to you, so I wanted to speak to you first." Her arms cross against her chest in self-preservation while Carol's shoulders relax.
"I really love her, and I will continue to take care of her. It's hard when you love someone so much, to not push them to do something you think is best for them. You know that, and I know that."
Her back re-straightens against the hard wooden back of the chair.
"You know, I don't have this family dynamic, flawed and skewed as it may be. You all have each other and in times of hardship, you've managed to put your beliefs aside and support her."
Carol exhales, her hands clasp together but rest atop her dining room table.
"Piper said it took her dad a long time to come see her, but you were always there."
"I didn't want to see her in that place either."
"But you did. Because she's your baby. No matter how much she thinks she's right and you're wrong, how she could even make you feel that way while sitting across from you, in a prison jumpsuit; she's still yours. She's going to do what she wants, but I wanted you to know how important your presence has been for her. You don't have to love the idea of us, I don't expect that from you. I get the whole pre-planned ideals for your children, I think everyone does that at some point or another and for you, I'm partially the reason those things didn't happen for her.
"Alex..."
"I'm not asking you to be pleased with me, but just, if you think you can," she feels her voice willing to crack, "just continue to be the presence you've been for Piper."
The fear that she'd be the reason for an estranged relationship, hits Carol straight in her chest. This woman, she's someone's daughter, a person. Her tongue rolls in her mouth, in search of the foul taste that often accompanied the idea of the woman sitting across from her, but it strangely isn't there.
The floorboard above creaks as Bill descends from upstairs. Her grey-green eyes dart upwards toward the noise, startled, previously unaware that someone else was in the house. She assumes it's Piper's father, her feelings about him are more complex; Piper is a self-proclaimed "daddy's girl," but she doesn't understand why, when the woman across from her has been the one, who despite giving her a hard time, has been there.
He takes a deep breath as he, very obviously, gives the brunette a once over. She pulls the hem of her shirt down as she comes to her feet. Is he smirking? He hates me, she thinks, when all he can actually think about is, the way this woman appears, is exactly what he could imagine his daughter wanting. A person who embodies the exact opposite of what has surrounded her, her whole life.
Why am I here?!, she screams to herself. The little voice reminds her, "for Piper." She extends her hand, for formality, for respect, solely for being the other half of DNA that's made the person she so deeply loves.
He steps to her closely; his eyebrows sternly furrow, having listened to the conversation from the top of the stairs, "I... couldn't see her like that. In there. For the longest time. She's a good girl, I couldn't see her being forced into those clothes, made to be like everyone else, stripped of everything that she deserves in the world, because of a single mistake," he tells her in defense of himself.
She knows of his mistakes, the grief shows clear on his face. It's unclear if he speaks of Piper alone, or if he feels his mistake falls into a similar category, the guilt illustrated for not having to pay for his sin.
Carol takes an exaggerated breath with a heave and drop of her shoulders.
Uptight. It's amazing that Piper had such a blithe spirit when I met her. It's taking everything in this woman's control to tolerate my presence. I haven't said all I have to say, but I should leave.
As the brunette adjusts her position ready to stand and thank them both for her allowing her into their home, Carol speaks,
"Bill, can you set the coffee on?"
She opens her mouth to speak, but Carol interrupts, "A-Alex, do you drink coffee?"
"What?," she breathes out.
"Do you drink coffee? Would you like some?"
"That's alright."
"Milk, sugar?," she says blatantly ignoring the declination.
"I, usually take it bl-" she stops, what am I doing? "Milk and sugar sounds great." Her eyes close and she takes a breath, this isn't as horrible as she'd psyched herself up to think it would be.
Bill returns after putting the coffee on, "how is she?"
She looks up slightly confused as Piper's told her she talks to them fairly regularly. "Doesn't she talk to you?," she asks with hesitation.
"She does, but I believe anything she tells me. How is she really?"
"She's great." It is the reality, and she's happy to report it.
He looks relieved and nods, "good."
Carol leaves to retrieve the coffee, they sit in an awkward silence until she comes back.
She places a tray onto the dining room table and sets a mug in front of Alex. She places the small pitcher with milk along with the sugar bowl, centrally on the table. Alex reaches for the milk when Carol pulls it back.
"There's no use in spoiling a perfectly good thing, to satisfy someone else's desires." Alex brings her hand back.
"If you like it black," her words are slow, "that's how you should take it."
The brunette blows into the dark liquid cooling it before she sips at the edge.
"If I'm being truthful, Piper's my only daughter. I don't approve of half of the choices that she's made," her smile is involuntary, "but she no longer needs my approval does she?"
"But a piece of her will always want it," she offers trying to let this woman understand her parents will always be important to her. Their role is defined as part of who she is, regardless if it brings her stress.
"I wish, I hadn't waited so long to see her," Bill interjects. "Afraid I was a little too late, that she'll never fully forgive that I couldn't accept that, as her new reality. In the same way that I couldn't see that she was in there because of something she did wrong, she won't be able to see me the same way because I let her down."
She's not comfortable commenting, she can't help but glance at Carol's face, gouging her reaction to Piper's father's words.
Stoic. Her impressions of this woman are not what she's built in her head after so many of Piper's, one sided, descriptions over the years, and when she tries to put it all together, she can empathize with her, and she's sure Piper could as well if she gave her a chance.
"What do your parents think of all this?," Carol asks.
Has she not told them? On one hand she appreciated Piper's restraint of gossip regarding her lack of parents. On the other hand, she wonders if Piper held back from mentioning that her girlfriend's mother passed, for her guilt would be impossible to hide as she spoke to her own mother. Or perhaps Mrs. Chapman had simply never cared to ask.
"I'm sort of orphaned," she half laughs at how pathetic it sounds coming from a woman pushing forty.
Both Chapman's look directly at her, their eyes are sympathetic. "I'm sorry," Carol expresses tensely, almost embarrassed, "I didnt know."
"I don't like to talk about it much. I guess Piper wasn't comfortable either."
"She's been well taught to swallow uncomfortable things," she says with a bit of a frown. She sips her coffee, and glances at her husband, willing him to say something to change the subject.
He glances at the brunette's forearm, her tribal band ink peeks from under the cuff of her sweater, she adjusts the length to hide it.
"Tattoo?"
She nods with a single dip of her head.
"Any others?," he inquires.
"Bill that's impolite," she whispers toward him at a scold, watching the other woman's body language shift.
He raises his palm in Alex's direction, "was that rude?," he asks her honestly, as if his wife's judgement is wrong.
"No, I just... I know I'm not like other people Piper's," she pauses, get out of the hole, get out of the hole, "been with," she chooses.
He waves a hand, expressing the tattoo isn't a big deal. "I have one," he offers.
"Yeah?," she asks as though she cares. However, she's grateful for the effort.
"Navy seal," he says patting his outer arm.
"I didn't know," she says honestly.
"It's interesting you know, being displeased with things your children do, when you've done them yourself."
Alex's eyebrows raise as she sips her coffee.
"She was with you when she got that fish on the back of her neck, wasn't she?," he asks her.
She isn't sure if he's accusing her of being responsible or just confirming facts. "I was. In my defense, she wanted to get it at some crusty shop on an island an Indonesia," a laugh escapes at the memory of Piper plastered, declaring her need for permanent markings, in that very moment. "I made her wait until we found somewhere that was more reassuringly sterile." She looks into her empty mug and slides it gently across the shiny wood of the table.
Piper's parents exchange glances. There were plenty of words that were on the brim of being said from every person at the dining room table. The underlying constant, lay with their love of Piper.
"I spent an unnatural amount of time worrying about coming here," she admits. "I need you to like me," she blurts out, "enough, for Piper's sake."
Carol's chin dips down, her eyes avoid the brunette's as she's already heard of the woman's intentions.
"Sir?"
"Bill," he insists.
"Bill," she breathes, "I was telling your wife," she exhales, what am I doing?, "I plan to ask Piper to marry me."