It seems really cold in here. I'm sure there's a draft. Can anyone else feel a draft? Oh, it's okay - someone just left this huge fan switched on.
Ew, and what's that horrible smell?
Yes, it's that time, folks. As I expected, most of those who guessed what was in the magazine were on the right lines, but there was also a bit more to it than that. As you'll discover, all three of our ladies have some explaining to do...
Chapter Twenty Three: Silent All These Years
Naomi
I don't think I've ever seen Cook that angry before. It was clear that he knew about me and Emily. I realised that straight away, but still attempted to bluff my way out of it. But that surely wasn't enough reason for him to demand an emergency meeting.
"If this is about Freddie…" I began, but before I finished the sentence, Cook threw the magazine he was holding at me. I caught it, but Cook didn't stick around for me to take a look at it. Puzzled, I sat down on the bed and started frantically flicking through it. It was a 'what's on in Vegas' magazine. They are left in the hotel rooms so people can find out about the various shows and exhibits that are on. This particular issue had been out for a couple of days. After flicking through more than half of the magazine, I eventually found the right page.
"Oh Fuck!" My first thought was that it was all over.
"What is it?" Asked Emily as she moved nearer, but I could only focus on the magazine. Somehow, someone had rumbled us. There in the magazine was a photo of Katie, right next to a photo of Emily. The game was up, and the big secret that held our show together was out of the bag. I scanned the page, frantically looking for the article about the twins, but there was none. There was no big exposé, simply a standard gossip column with no real content. I looked again at the photos and realised that instead of an article, there was only a caption to accompany them: 'It seems that Katie has a liking for magicians!' I began to breath a little easier – the people who printed the magazine had no idea that the pictures were of two different women.
"Shit." Emily was looking over my shoulder at the two images on the page. As the realisation that our show was safe began to sink in, I took in the content of the photos. One picture was of Emily and me kissing in a nightclub. It must have been taken the last time we had gone out together after the show – before Justin turned up. It was obviously Emily in the picture to anyone that knows her, but the club was dark and the photo wasn't the best quality. The other picture was of Katie. She was sat outside at a cafe table with Freddie McLair. They were leaning into each other, and looked very relaxed and intimate. No wonder Cook was in a pissy mood – all three of us had been keeping a secret from him.
"Shit, shit, shit!" Emily was pacing the floor by now, desperately wringing her hands together. "He said he'd told Katie already. Oh God, she'll probably go straight to mum and dad!" I leapt from the bed and took Emily's hands with mine.
"Emily, stop!" She gazed up at me, and I could see panic in her eyes. All of my concerns about the show vanished, as it dawned on me how much Emily had on the line here. Emily had been there for me, it was now my turn to try and help her. "Listen, we'll face it together, okay?" She nodded, but my words did nothing to ease her worried expression. I slid my hands up to her shoulders, and pulled her into a hug. "I'm here, whatever happens."
We swiftly got dressed, and headed down to the rehearsal room to meet the others. With a definite sense of apprehension, I pushed open the door and we stepped inside. Cook was the only one present. He was sat on a table across the room, and scowled as we entered hand in hand.
"Cook…" I began uncertainly.
"I asked you, Naomi! I fucking asked you if you were fucking her, and you told me you weren't!"
"I wasn't, then" I argued, but then fell silent.
"Yeah?" He asked. "So when did that change?" I hesitated before answering. In reality, we had only been sleeping together for the last three nights, but we had been together for much longer.
"How long, Nai?" Demanded Cook, clearly getting annoyed at my silence. I reasoned that when we actually slept together was irrelevant, and it was none of Cook's business anyway. I dropped Emily's hand and stepped closer to him.
"We've been seeing each other since opening night" I muttered.
Just then the door opened, and a rather enraged looking Katie marched into the room, closely followed by Rob and Jenna.
"Katie…" Before Emily could even form a sentence, I felt the sting of a slap across my face.
"You bitch!" Spat Katie.
"Hey!" Emily dashed forward, and positioned herself between us. She glowered at her sister. "Don't you dare touch her!"
"What the fuck?" Asked Katie with a frown. "Emily, what the fuck is going on? She tried it on with you, right?" There was a pleading note to Katie's voice. Emily didn't say anything, she just stared solemnly at her sister. "Em? What's going on?" Asked Katie again. Emily sighed.
"She's my girlfriend" she said in an almost whisper.
"What!" Snapped Katie.
"This nonsense again?" Asked Jenna, taking a step towards Emily. "I thought we settled this years ago." Emily let out a bitter little laugh.
"We didn't settle anything, you just decided to sweep it under the carpet!" She gave a world weary sigh. "And I let you" she added softly. She took a deep breath, and raised her eyes to meet her mothers. Sensing what was coming, I slipped my hand into Emily's. She gave my fingers a gentle squeeze. "I'm gay, mum" she said firmly. "I always have been, and I always will be. It's not going to go away." Jenna scoffed.
"Of course you're not gay! I'm your mother, I would know." Emily rolled her eyes at her mother, but Jenna carried on. "It's this place, bringing it all up again. I knew it was a mistake you coming here. It's full of perverts, and… and queers. Thank God we'll be in San Francisco soon!"
Emily took a deep breath, clearly trying to keep her patience.
"Mum, just believe me for once! I'm gay, and I'm in love with Naomi."
"This is fucking stupid!" Snapped Katie. "She's a total slut!" Emily rounded on her sister, ready to defend me to her.
"Don't call her that!"
Cook bounded from the table he was sat on, and moved nearer to the rest of us.
"Let's just all calm down, okay?" He said firmly. I smiled my thanks to him, but he narrowed his eyes at me. "You've still got some explaining to do, Naomi."
"I'll say!" Added Katie. Cook turned to face her.
"So have you! What the fuck's been going on with Freddie?" He asked. In all the commotion, I had completely forgotten that I wanted to know what the hell Katie thought she was doing, apparently conducting little intimate lunch dates with McLair. Katie crossed her arms and sneered at Cook.
"That's none of your fucking business! She…" she thrust a finger in my direction. "…Has been filling my sister's head with a load of bullshit!" I could see Cook's anger finally getting to him. He stepped dangerously closer to Katie.
"I don't give a FUCK who's gay and who's straight or whatever!" He roared. "And I don't give a fuck who's sleeping with who, except when it affects our business!"
"Emily's not gay!" Snarled Katie, completely ignoring Cook's point. "She's just stupid!"
"Exactly!" Added Jenna, unhelpfully. Emily let out an exasperated sigh.
"I'm fucking GAY! Okay? I'm a homosexual! I'm a lesbian! I'm a muff-munching, clit-licking dyke! I love tits and fanny, and I love having sex with women, and I… I…" She fell silent, as a deathly hush descended on the room. Everyone stared at Emily, wondering where the sudden outburst had come from. Even Emily herself looked startled at her words. I couldn't help the large grin that spread across my face as I looked at her. I knew that this had been bottled up for a long time - it was about time she let it all out. It was Katie who broke the silence.
"I can't believe you're doing this to me" she said to Emily with a sneer. Emily looked crestfallen, but Katie didn't care. She span on her heels and walked from the room. I felt helpless as I watched her go, knowing that she was breaking her sister's heart.
"Katie…" Emily made to follow her twin, but I caught her arm. She glared at me with confusion.
"You can't go out there, someone will see you both!" I reminded her. She yanked her arm out of my grasp.
"That's all you fucking care about, isn't it? Your fucking magic show!" I stared in stunned silence at her as she too left the room, this time in the direction of their dressing room. I turned back to face the others. Rob looked pensive, but Jenna gave me a smug smile of satisfaction, clearly happy to see Emily snap at me. My anger at how they had treated Emily bubbled over at that look.
"Get the fuck out of my theatre" I said harshly.
"Come on, love" said Rob softly, taking Jenna by the arm. It was the first he had spoken. Jenna followed him dutifully, leaving me and Cook alone together.
"Are you going to storm off now, or should I?" I asked, trying to make light of all the drama. Cook just shook his head sadly.
"This isn't a fucking joke, Naomi! You lied to me." He also headed for the door, making it a grand total of five people that I had caused to storm off in anger. That had to be a new record.
I let him go, while I considered my next move. Everyone was pissed off, and it felt as if our whole group lay in tatters. I had some bridges to mend, and I had to do so quickly. Emily had only gone as far as her dressing room. My first instinct was to follow her there, but I knew that she had just been venting at me. There was nothing irreparable there. Besides, after what she had just gone through, she probably needed some time alone to cool off. That meant Cook or Katie, then. Cook would be the easiest to find – I knew all of his haunts – but the memory of the pain in Emily's eyes as her sister left made the decision for me.
Once I reached the street outside the hotel, I stopped to think about where exactly I should go. Looking for Katie, there was an obvious answer that presented itself: the mall. The only trouble is that Vegas has several large malls, and I didn't know if she had a favourite. There was no point ringing her – she wouldn't answer any call coming from me anyway. I crossed the road, heading towards the closest mall – the Fashion Show mall. There was a 'Tix 4 Tonight' booth outside it, selling half price tickets to a long line of tourists. I saw a familiar face policing the line.
"Hey Theresa" I greeted to one of the many ticket sellers that Cook and I knew. She turned towards me with a big friendly grin. Not wanting to stick around chatting, I cut to the chase. "You seen Katie around?" Theresa smirked at me, and arched an eyebrow.
"Lover's tiff?" She asked, with a knowing nod towards my face. Shit, how many people have seen those photos? I frowned and touched the spot where Katie had slapped me. It must be a bright scarlet by now - that girl is ferocious when she wants to be. "Can't say I blame her!" Said Theresa with a chuckle. "I wouldn't mind giving that Freddie a roll in the sack, myself!" I refrained from pointing out that with Theresa's ample figure, she could probably snap the skinny Freddie in half.
"I need to talk to her" I said, trying my best to look sheepish. She nodded in the direction of the Fashion Show mall.
"She went in there, and she didn't look too happy."
"Thanks." I didn't wait around for any further chit-chat, I just headed after Katie.
It took some time of trawling in and out of shops, and up and down escalators, but eventually I found her.
"Fuck off, Campbell" was her polite greeting when I approached her.
"Not until you talk to me."
"Gonna try and gay me up now?" She asked nastily. I swallowed down my urge to get sarky with her, reminding myself that I was there for Emily.
"I didn't gay anyone up" I answered as calmly as I could. "And I won't stop following you until you talk to me." Katie threw down the clothes she had selected from the racks, and sulked out of the shop. True to my word, I was hot on her heels.
"Fuck off!" She growled as she quickened her pace. I fell into step alongside her.
"You can't ignore this! We all have to work together still!"
"We quit!" Snapped Katie.
"You're still always making her decisions for her!" I barbed back. Katie suddenly ground to a halt and turned towards me.
"You know nothing about her!" She pointed a finger threateningly at me.
"I love her" I said simply. Katie scoffed.
"I'm her sister, you're just a slut!" She was off walking again, and I had to move quickly to keep pace with her.
"Katie just hear me out" I begged. "Please, she's upset." Once again, Katie stopped moving. Thinking that she was crumbling a little, I cast a glance at our surroundings. There was a deserted looking cafe close by. Since Katie seemed unlikely to keep her comments quiet, it seemed better to head to a more secluded spot. I grabbed Katie's arm, and moved over towards it.
"Let go of me, you lezzer bitch!" She shouted. She pulled her arm out of my grasp, but followed me there anyway. I ordered a couple of coffees then led us to the remotest corner of the cafe. I slumped into a seat, and Katie sat down opposite me.
"She's not gay" she said sullenly. I could hear the desperation in her tone, like she thought she could make it true if she just said it enough times.
"Katie you must have known" I said gently, not wanting to rile her up again. "You said yourself that you've never seen her with a man. She told you all years ago that she was gay, that stuff doesn't just go away you know!" Katie shook her head firmly.
"She was just a teenager. She was acting out against mum and dad, she wasn't old enough to know what she wanted." It was Katie that I was talking to, but I felt sure that these were Jenna's words.
"Did you know you were straight at that age?"
"Of course I did! I'm not a lezzer!" The words were out of her mouth before she had processed my meaning. As she took in what I was getting at, her mouth opened into a silent 'oh' and her brow creased into a frown. I pressed home my advantage.
"She's always known, Katie. Long before she met me." Still not ready to concede defeat, Katie rolled her eyes at me. "Could anyone ever persuade you that you're gay?" I asked, a slight smile on my face at the thought of someone trying.
"She just hasn't met the right man yet, you know? Someone who's good in bed." I suppressed a sigh, along with an eye-roll of my own.
"Sexuality isn't only about sex! Katie, if you went to bed with me…" Er, shit! That's not a mental image that I wanted to paint! Katie glared at me, a horrified expression on her face. Hastily, I back-tracked a little. "…Er, I mean if you went to bed with a woman, she'd probably be able to make you come, but that wouldn't make you gay."
Katie shrugged and lapsed into silence for a moment.
"She should have told me" she said at last. "Instead of all this secrecy. I shouldn't of found out like that." I longed to snipe back that Katie hadn't told any of us about whatever was going on with Freddie, but I didn't. This was about Emily and Katie, not the show.
"She wanted to tell you" I answered instead. "But she didn't know how to. She wasn't sure how you would react." Katie snorted.
"She's a selfish cow."
"What!" I bristled at Katie's statement. Emily had made some mistakes, but one thing that she could never be accused of was being selfish.
"She never thought about me! How this makes me look! Everyone will think it's me in the photo, won't they?"
I wondered if we had perhaps reached the real reason why Katie was so angry about all of this.
"Is that really so bad?" I asked. Katie looked up sharply, clearly set to argue further. I didn't give her a chance. "As far as anyone else knows, it was one kiss on a drunken night out! Plenty of girls do that just to get guys attention." Katie didn't answer, she just stared solemnly down at the table in front of us. "But don't you dare call Emily selfish to me again, okay?" She looked up at me with a frown on her face. God, she really doesn't get it, does she? Time to lay things on the line for her. "Emily's done everything for you. She didn't even want to be a part of the show, did she? But she did it for you. No one even knows that she exists - how the fuck do you think that makes her feel? But she doesn't complain, she just gets on with it – for you. It was your idea to come to Vegas. It was your dream to be a showgirl, not Emily's." Katie opened her mouth to say something, but I was on a role and had no intention of stopping. "She was going to come out to you all last year. But when you split up with your fiancé, she didn't want to upset you. She kept it all bottled up, because of you." I knew that Emily hadn't wanted me to tell Katie that I knew about this, but I figured that she needed a few home truths about her sister. I kept what I knew about her early menopause to myself though. Katie looked suitably contrite as I finished my little rant. "Is it really so bad that she's gay?" I asked gently. Katie sighed.
"I just want things to be normal for her."
"What's normal?" I asked with a snort. Katie shrugged.
"I don't want her being different, because people will give her a hard time."
"Katie, the only people giving Emily a hard time about this right now are her own family." I rose to my feet, feeling that I had said all I had come to say. Katie could mull things over in her own time. As I walked out of the cafe, she remained sat at that same table, cradling her untouched coffee.
Once back at the hotel, I headed straight into the theatre. There was no sign of Cook or Emily, so I headed up to Emily's room. As soon as she opened the door, I was enveloped in a huge hug.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it" she whispered into my ear.
"I know, I know" I soothed. "It's okay, I'm here." I walked us backwards into the room, and kicked the door closed.
"I shouldn't have shouted at you like that. You were the only one on my side." I led her over to the bed and sat us both down on it.
"I knew you were just angry."
"God, what a fucking mess, eh?" Emily gave me sad little smile. I stroked my hand gently across her cheek.
"You were amazing" I told her. She looked up at me with a frown. "You were. You gave them the truth, and you didn't let them talk you down."
"I didn't have much choice" she answered. I shook my head gently.
"Yes you did. You know we could have told them that it was just a drunken kiss one night, but you didn't do that. You stood up to them, and you were brilliant." I pressed my lips to Emily's, hoping to convey to her just how proud I was of her. As we broke apart, I was greeted with a smile from her. I was glad to see it back.
"I called you my girlfriend" she said with a nervous laugh.
"Isn't that what I am?" I asked with a shrug. Emily nodded, as she moved closer to kiss me. I knew that I had been the one avoiding any kind of commitment between us, but that all seemed so pointless now. It had all been part of my futile efforts to not fall in love with Emily. Really, it had always been doomed to failure. I didn't want anyone but Emily, and I couldn't see that changing any time soon.
"Are we still going to Freddie's show tonight?" Asked Emily suddenly. In all the confusion, I had completely forgotten that we suspected our rival of poaching some of our act.
"Yeah, if you still want to. But if you don't feel up to it, I could go with…" I stopped before saying Cook's name aloud. I still had a lot of talking to do, before things could be considered okay in that quarter.
"I'll go" said Emily quickly. "It'll take my mind off things. Well, except that I'll keep wondering what the hell is going on between Freddie and Katie."
I nodded. That was definitely something that I wanted to know about.
Hmm, what kind of game is Katie up to?
Let me know what you think!
