There it is again: Miguel and Todd steal a look at one another. CJ has, evidently, been talked about this morning – or Ash has – and they apparently have things to say.
‘I know, I know,’ says CJ, predicting their thoughts. ‘Bit of a one-eighty from me on the oldshe’s a nightmare pain in the arsetohello, I’ve invited her for dinner with no warning.I just, urm, well, you know, it’s nice to be nice and all that, so, I was being nice.’
‘That’s nice,’ says Miguel.
‘Youarerenowned for your niceness,’ agrees Todd.
CJ shoots him a look. ‘So, what? You didn’t like her?’ she presses.
There’s a beat before anyone answers, and in that beat CJ can’t figure out if she wants them to say they adored her, or hated her. CJ can’t figure it out for herself, except of course she can, because she likes her, Ash, respects her, somehow, the way she wears her heart on her sleeve and has those big ol’ eyes so full of whatever emotion is passing through her body at any given moment. CJ couldn’t ever be that way herself, but it’s interesting to see others up close. She’d always thought that kind of lack of control over one’s emotional weather was a negative, speaking toa lack of self-regulation and maturity, but in Ash it doesn’t unfold that way. It seems, to CJ, that Ash’s easy access to her feelings actually serves her quite well, in that she’s in no danger of taking her life for granted – which one must admire, surely.
‘She’s great,’ Miguel says. ‘Really fun and …’
‘Nice,’ supplies Todd. ‘Just, really nice to be around. Asks good questions, says clever things.’
‘She came in this morning, actually,’ says Miguel. ‘And we might have mentioned that she’d be welcome for dinner anytime.’
‘She was here?’ says CJ. ‘Looking for me?’
‘No, silly,’ says Todd. ‘She’s been in a few times, the past week or so. She said that’s how she recognised me? I recognised her, too. From here. She’s a new regular, I suppose.’
CJ nods. ‘Right,’ she says. ‘Yeah, of course.’
Miguel stands back up with an arm full of cardboard boxes. ‘You’re allowed to have changed your mind about her,’ he says. ‘Isn’t it a good thing that she’s not actually the devil incarnate? What with how long she’s staying for? I know you don’t like to be wrong about people, cousin, but …’
‘But you like her and told her she can move in tomorrow, breakfast is served daily at seven a.m. in the parlour?’
‘OK, calm down, you. Seriously. Not that you’ve answered the questiondo you want to talk about it?in the affirmative in your whole entire life, but genuinely: is there something you want to talk about?’
‘Sorry,’ says CJ, contrite. ‘I’m being mean because I can.’
‘As long as you’re all right?’ Miguel pushes.
‘For sure,’ CJ says.
‘I have a question,’ pipes up Todd. ‘If you’re opening the floor to the audience?’
‘Go ahead, man back there.’ CJ smiles, pointing towards him. ‘The gay Dwayne Johnson? In the neon vest?’
Todd does a twirl on the spot, elegant and dramatic, before returning to face CJ and slamming his hands on the countertop for balance.
‘Bet The Rock can’t do that,’ he says.
CJ raises her eyebrows, whether to agree or disagree, nobody could possibly say.
‘My question,’ Todd continues, ‘is where does this leave the fight over Luis? Are the ladies putting down their swords?’
‘Hmmm,’ reflects CJ. ‘I don’t know about that.’
CJ holds her breath as she climbs the stairs to the CoLab social space and reception. Ash had hugged her last night, as she left, briefly but tightly, and CJ couldn’t help but notice her smell: light, floral, pineapple-y. Whatisshe going to do about Luis, now? When she first marched up to Ash’s studio she wasn’t really thinking – she just wanted to somehow make Ash face up to her weird weakness, the weaponised crying and constant state of emotional heightened-ness. CJ didn’t want to do that as a bully, but as a kindness. Seeing Ash so perpetually unnerved by, well,everything, was like seeing a cat screech in pain because it won’t get off the hot tin roof. Sometimes you just need to grab the cat by the scruff of its neck and stick it in the shade, you know? Not to be horrid, but for its own good. But in between mounting the stairs andissuing the final knock on Ash’s door, CJ had decided, inexplicably, to get Ash out of the CoLab building, so they could be on neutral ground. And then furthermore, in between asking her to open the door and Ash actually doing so, neutral ground had become dinner at CJ’s place, because who can be mad at being offered dinner? A home-made, nutritious, dinner? Nobody, that’s who. And then Ash was there, in her house, talking to her child and her cousin, and being tremendously good company, even helping with the dishes. And who could have guessed it – in a new environment, she wasn’t crazy. Ash at home, albeit CJ’s home, was relaxed, and totally herself, and CJ had found it quite captivating, really, to be confronted with her normality, her ease – not to mention how good she was with Jorge, and how easily Jorge took to her.
‘What’s the news, then?’ Luis says as way of greeting, once she’s deposited her tote bag in the back office. ‘You never texted me back last night.’
‘Oh,’ says CJ, slurping from her water bottle. She had one glass of white wine too much last night, now she’s thinking about it. ‘I went to bed pretty early and only saw it this morning. Ash came to my house for dinner, in the end. Well done for following instructions and leaving when I asked, so we could get out of here with no further theatrics.’
Luis purses his lips, looks upwards as if pulling in an idea from above his head.
‘She came to your house for dinner,’ he repeats, and CJ nods.
