Sawyer wants to go far enough with this that she pisses Lucia off, but not so far that she can't feign ignorance to Natasha if it comes back to bite her.
"Has Natasha told you about what I'm working on at the moment? It’s a new piece of writing by a Scottish woman playwright."
Sawyer pauses and can see Lucia is listening despite herself.
"It's about depression, and friendship, and whether women's sexualities are still as tightly controlled as they were."
Lucia is still fiddling with the menus, and fluffing up the sprigs of white gypsophila in their tiny milk bottles.
"Natasha told me about the quilting exhibition you're putting on soon. It sounds incredible," Sawyer smiles broadly and doesn't bother to hide her insincerity. "We'll be sure to pop by on a day we've both got off."
Sawyer thinks she might have pushed it past the point of plausible deniability now.
Lucia sits down abruptly. "Listen, you can stop with smug 'we' shit. There's no 'we', not yet. And unless you open your eyes and see what's in front of yo- "
"Lucia! Hi! Oh- Sawyer! I didn't know you'd be here." Natasha is waving animatedly from the stairs, leaning over the banisters. She immediately heads to their table and shuffles on to the bench next to Sawyer. Natasha leans in, mouth puckered for a quick kiss. When Sawyer gives her a peck she bounces back, looking pleased with herself.
Natasha doesn't comment on the awkward silence between Sawyer and Lucia. She takes a long pull from Sawyer's straw, "Wow, Lucia, this is really good. You were so right to leave the blackberries out of it."
Lucia rolls her eyes and drags her hand down her long ponytail.
"So, Lucia...Sawyer tap dances!"
"Cool," Lucia deadpans.
"Lucia is an aerial, burlesque performer. She's incredible."
Sawyer nods curtly. She has a vision of Lucia twirling on a rope above her, hair tumbling and dark eyes flashing under the lights.
Natasha picks up both the salt and pepper grinders in her hands and undulates her torso.
"We should all go out dancing sometime," Natasha keeps rolling her chest, shaking her shoulders.
Lucia puts them out of their misery when she excuses herself to go answer some emails on her iPad, propped up against the food counter.
"What was that all about?" Natasha asks. The playful eccentric falls away, and there's a firmness in her eyes that Sawyer rarely sees. Sawyer is never quite sure if Natasha's eyes are blue or green, and today they are definitely a cold blue.
Sawyer falters, "We were just talking about the differences between here and the Boston Contemporary."
"Were you giving her a hard time?"
"No. I - "
Natasha cuts her off, "Sawyer, she's young and she does so much here. You can be as horrible as you like to me, but I don't want to hear that you've been giving Lucia a hard time."
Natasha's holding eye contact with Sawyer and she's definitely bright red in both cheeks now. She hates this feeling of being chided.
"I know she can be frustrating sometimes, but just remember that she's so young she doesn't even know the dance to Stop by the Spice Girls."
Sawyer pushes her hands out one by one, brings her thumbs over her shoulders.
"Yeah, exactly," Natasha laughs.
"Surely you're too old for the Spice Girls? Stop came out in 1997. Weren't you in college?"
"Bitch, I was fifteen!"
"Being born in 1988-1989 is definitely the sweet-spot for maximum Spice enjoyment."
Sawyer smirks into her straw. Natasha nudges Sawyer's knees with her own, "What are you working on?"
Sawyer shows her the software, "I might see if I can work around this bit. We're going to flood the floor but the director wants neon reflected on to it, and some more lights underneath the water. It's a fucking pain."
"What's the scene?"
"The main actor has just fucked some guy and leaves his apartment. She's walking through the city and then she thinks she sees her dead friend."
"No, you can't ditch that. I love neon. It's so evocative of city life. When you feel alone in a crowd, it's like the lights are keeping you company. There's a shop downtown that sells eyeglasses and it has this neon sign that looks like it's winking. I remember standing outside it and watching it for hours one time. And they have this seediness about them. When you stomp through a puddle and the reflection of the lights goes all wibbly. You just know you're going somewhere you shouldn't be, doing something you shouldn't be doing."
Watching Natasha talk about her work, Sawyer feels like she's just hit the brakes in her car. It's the breathless moment before the safety belt locks.
Natasha seizes Sawyer's pencil case and the back of a napkin and starts sketching out puddles and the pink and green reflected in them. She just nods while Natasha gets excited with shading and drawing little arrows to show Sawyer where she'd want the lights to be coming from.
Sawyer can't resist grabbing Natasha's leg under the bench. She sees Lucia out of the corner of her eye, watching them with slightly less hostility in her face. Sawyer decides to put Lucia to the back of her mind for now. After the shitty year she's had, she wants to succeed at something. And she's hopeful that between Natasha and her new show, she might have two successes.
September brings longer evenings and colder mornings.
