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In the living room Ada caught Mel up on Stuart, quietly, so the words wouldn’t travel and Mel kept saying, ‘What? He went where?’ until they gave up. Ada said she’d tell her later though she didn’t know when. They set the table and Sadie served them eggplant stuffed with lentils and pine nuts and drizzled with tahini and a salad with shaved raw broccoli and something sour, and buttery rice with fruit running through it. Mel poured wine and Sadie asked about Liverpool and Ada told them about the bugs at the museum. Sadie said, ‘It must have been nice to see your friend,’ and Ada said, ‘It was nice,’ and Sadie said, ‘Shame it was such a flying visit,’ and then Mel asked if she was packed for Florida.
Ada said, ‘I’m obviously not,’ and Mel said, ‘We’re going to do a packing party, aren’t we.’ Sadie said, ‘I don’t know what that is but I feel like I can guess.’ Mel explained that in all the time they’d lived together, no matter how long the trip would be or where it was to, Ada would leave her packing until the morning she was leaving. After months of this Mel told her that it stressed her out and asked what she’d have to do to make Ada pack the night before and Ada said, ‘You pack with me!’ And since then, they’d had a packing party ritual, where Ada chose some music and drinks and Mel begged her to pick some underwear and overall they managed not to kill each other.
Sadie said, ‘Sounds fun!’ and they looked at her and she said, ‘I’m kind of drunk already, is this the right energy for a packing party?’ and Ada said, ‘Yes!’ and Mel said, ‘No,’ and they all laughed and kept eating. Ada said, ‘This will be a very special packing party because Colin is invited,’ and Sadie said, ‘Who’s Colin?’ and Mel said, ‘The caterpillar, Sadie,’ and Sadie said, ‘The one at the museum?’ and Mel and Ada laughed as they tried to get the word ‘cake’ out. And Sadie said, ‘Oh the cake! The cake is a caterpillar!’ and she joined them and they were laughing and laughing together.
Sadie offered to clear up so they could start the packing party and Mel objected because Sadie had cooked but Sadie stage-whispered that she was trying to be late for the party, and they went their separate ways. Once in Ada’s room, Ada tried again to catch up Mel on the Stuart of it all but once separate from him she couldn’t quite explain the romance of his dingy mouldy house and the eroticism of cheap wine under seagulls.
She said, ‘It felt kind of … terrifying to be with him,’ and Mel said, ‘God I hope you mean in a good way,’ and Ada said, ‘Yeah, no I can’t … describe it really.’ Mel asked if the sex was good and Ada said yes and Mel asked if his art was good and Ada said well she only saw a few pieces but they seemed good. Mel also asked if she was planning to tell Sadie about the trip and Ada said, ‘Why?’ and Mel said, ‘Because you like her?’ and Ada reminded her, again, that Sadie was leaving.
By the time Sadie joined them they had opened Mel’s shiny red suitcase and placed eight pairs of plain cotton underwear inside (‘But you’re going for ten days’, ‘I don’t know what to tell you, this is all I have clean’) and drunk half a bottle of supermarket Côtes du Rhône. Sadie sighed and sat on the floor next to them, proffering her empty glass while Ada opened her laptop.
‘That doesn’t look like packing,’ Sadie said and Mel said, ‘She’s choosing music, it’s part of the process.’ And after a moment ‘Low’ by Flo Rida started playing and Sadie said, ‘This is a banger,’ and Ada said, ‘And it’s on theme. Flo Rida. Get it?’ and Mel said, ‘Wait, Flo Rida means Florida? How did I never see that before?’ and they listened to a Flo Rida playlist on Spotify while Sadie paired socks and Mel collected toiletries and Ada grabbed her flimsiest dresses. ‘Finally going to be hot enough to wear these without leggings!’ she said and Mel said, ‘See, there are good things about Florida,’ and Sadie said, ‘Apart from the obvious. Seeing your family,’ and Ada said, ‘Is that the obvious?’
They finally finished and the wine was gone and they agreed that Flo Rida’s output was not consistent. Mel said good night and promised to get up to say goodbye in the morning and Ada and Sadie looked at each other. Sadie walked to her and Ada wasn’t sure what her plan was but she raised her arms for Sadie to pull off her dress. As she did, Ada said, ‘Fuck,’ muffled into the material in front of her mouth and Sadie said, ‘What?’
‘I haven’t showered today, I was in sort of a rush this morning,’ and Sadie took her hand and they walked to the bathroom.
Ada finished undressing and found that Sadie had undressed too and she held her finger to her lips. Ada understood. While Mel was aware they were having sex, it was something that existed so entirely in her bedroom that there was something illicit in taking it down the hall. If Mel was forced to acknowledge their relationship, they might be forced to acknowledge it too and it seemed too fragile to withstand collective scrutiny. So Ada mimed zipping her lips and Sadie turned the shower on.
Ada climbed in and found it lukewarm, not the close-to-scalding she usually chose so she turned the tap. Sadie followed her, started at the heat, and turned it back slightly, then Ada ducked her head under. She poured shampoo into her hands and started to rub it through her hair and Sadie turned her back to her to get under the water too. Ada watched the muscles move at the base of Sadie’s neck where her hair was starting to grow kind of mullety and she realised for the first time that Sadie was shorter than her.
Sadie soaped and rinsed her pits and then stepped out of the stream, watching Ada run the shampoo through the lengths of her hair and then she gestured for Ada to get into the water. Ada did, feeling sick though she didn’t know the source – there could be so many places in her gut and her brain for her nausea to originate – and she started to rinse out the shampoo. Sadie knelt in the bath and nudged Ada’s legs further apart and pushed her face in. Ada leaned further into the water until it was running over her face, stinging her eyes; she found it hard to breathe and Sadie probably did too but she pushed her mouth in further, faster, no teasing or build-up, and Ada came with half her brain on the possibility of slipping and killing them both on the porcelain. Sadie stood back up and Ada pulled their bodies together for a moment then started to move her hand down Sadie’s body but Sadie took it off.
‘I have a moon cup in,’ she whispered, and Ada nodded and affectionately patted Sadie’s breast instead which made Sadie smile. She put her hand over the outside of Sadie and said, ‘Should I?’ and Sadie shook her head then kissed Ada without restriction.
Sadie pulled back, picked up the conditioner on the edge of the bath and turned Ada around and rubbed it through her hair, twisting the ends around her fingers and lightly tugging which brought the nausea flooding back. Then Sadie stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in a towel, gave a wave and left, leaving Ada to rinse. She did, grabbing a comb from the sink and dragging it through, dropping her dead hair in the drain and steadying her breath. It felt so normal. Her hair, the drain, and the stranger who lived in her room. She realised that she hadn’t cleaned herself after Stuart, before Sadie, which didn’t seem possible because Liverpool felt a decade ago. She turned off the taps.
Ada dried herself and joined Sadie in the room, who was slipping a bra into Ada’s suitcase, a black push-up with lace across the top. ‘Sorry, I realised you hadn’t packed any so you’d only have whatever you wore on the plane,’ and Ada said, ‘And who knows, maybe I’ll meet a Nascar driver and need my “fuck me” bra for our date,’ and Sadie said, ‘Exactly, that too.’ Ada looked at her phone. It was 1:48 a.m. and she had to get up at five. She was clean and ready and she set her alarm and fell straight asleep.
When her alarm went off, Ada opened her eyes and found herself in the exact position she’d been in when she closed them. Sadie stirred slightly and Ada cuddled up to her, but she didn’t smell of herself, probably due the midnight shower. Ada closed her eyes and woke again to Mel banging on her door at six.
‘Ada, you have to go!’
She rolled out of bed and pulled on the outfit Sadie had folded for her the night before – a stretchy blue jersey jumpsuit that she had bought from a sustainable fashion brand she’d seen on Instagram that looked like pyjamas on her but was comfortable enough for flying. She put her demin jacket over it and pulled on her Cons and Sadie opened her eyes and said ‘good flight’ then closed them again. Ada looked at her and looked away.
She opened her bedroom door and pulled her bag out and Mel was pacing the landing between their rooms. Ada rubbed her face and said, ‘I’d planned to eat before I went but—’ and Mel said, ‘Your hair looks insane,’ and Ada touched it and realised she’d slept on it wet and it was flat on one side and flying out on the other. She pulled a hair elastic out of the pocket of the jumpsuit and pulled it into a ponytail and the effort of it made her want to die.
‘OK, I really have to go, I think it’s a bus to Finsbury Park then Victoria to Green Park then Jubilee to London Bridge and my train goes at eight? Is that right? Hang on—’ and Mel said, ‘you are stressing me out, I’m booking you an Uber.’ Ada looked at her and said, ‘To Gatwick? You’re insane,’ and she said, ‘No, to London Bridge. You look like you’re dying, I can’t handle the idea of you walking that tunnel at Green Park trying not to throw up,’ and Ada said, ‘I love you so much.’
She felt barely conscious when Mel put her in the Uber, Mel who came out into the street in her pyjamas and a pair of Ada’s sandals she’d left by the door. Mel waved her goodbye and she slept again immediately, only waking when the driver said they were there. The rest of the morning was a blur of ticket machines and a train station croissant and sleeping in a moulded metal chair and then sleeping on the train and then security and an airport coffee and then sleeping in the departures lounge and splashing water on her face over and over and finally boarding and she leaned against her window seat to sleep and realised she hadn’t messaged Stuart since dinner the night before.
Ada took a selfie with the safety card and said, ‘Hoping I get to try the big slide!’ and Stuart wrote back, ‘Don’t joke about that! Aren’t you superstitious at all?’ She said, ‘Wait aren’t you at work? How do you have your phone?’ and he said, ‘I sneaked it into my pocket, didn’t want to miss saying goodbye before you took off.’ And then the flight attendants came to check the seatbacks and their tray tables and she said, ‘That’s cute. About to take off, I’ll message when I land!’ and he said, ‘I miss you,’ and she said, ‘I miss you. Now go serve those hungry people!’ And she fell asleep again.
Ada was out of rhythm with the rest of the flight and after lunch, her seat mates went to sleep while she stayed awake and watched old episodes of Always Sunny and drank ginger ale and Diet Coke. When she had an hour left of the flight, she suddenly became aware that she was about to see her parents. She had missed them for so long that it had become background noise and now that it was about to end, the volume was turned way up. She was going to do the crossword with her dad and watch cooking shows with her mum. Her dad would buy experimental beers based on the fancy label, then declare them undrinkable and give them to her, and her mum would suggest they all watch a movie together after dinner then fall asleep on the couch once it started.
Ada wanted to hold them so much that it hurt in a way she hadn’t let it hurt for so long. She had never had trouble with her relationship with her parents and she sometimes wondered if that meant she felt less passionate about them than Gabby. She had always got good marks, starred in the school play and been passably good at netball. She partied in high school in ways that didn’t impinge on their view of her, always pulling up fine the day after, never bothering to bring the person of the week home to them. She didn’t think of this as dishonest so much as a contract they had all entered into, not to bother or be bothered by each other and to love each other as much as they could. Gabby never signed that contract and Ada sensed that she viewed the family equilibrium the other three achieved with disdain.
When Ada told her parents she was taking advantage of her mother’s Irish passport and moving to London for a while, they seemed to take this as an inevitability. They had done the London thing in their twenties, as had the parents of half the people she knew, and they figured she’d be back within a year. It had been over two years now and they had come to visit her once, a year ago, staying in a flat in Islington and going to every Ottolenghi restaurant. They had told her how proud they were of the life she had built there, and Ada put that mostly down to timing. Their trip coincided with her longest consistent acting job outside of the Fringe, a two-week run of a modern ghost story at an independent theatre. British people loved putting ghosts on stage and Ada didn’t much care for it but it had felt good introducing her parents to her friends in the foyer after their sold-out opening night. They didn’t sell out any other night of the run but she could see why her parents felt proud.
The plane was landing and Ada thought about how much her parents would like Sadie.
TWENTY-FOUR
23/09/2017
