Natasha's green eyes flutter open, and she immediately leans towards Sawyer for a kiss.
"I wouldn't do that, I smell disgusting," Sawyer kisses her freckled shoulder instead.
"You hung over?"
"Nah, I'm from Wisconsin."
"How's your memory?"
"'Inconveniently precise and accurate', said my stepdad's attorney."
Natasha rolls her eyes, "It's too early for this. Hang on – what is the time? You're never awake before 10."
"Excuse you. It's half eight."
"I haven't slept past eight since about 2006."
Sawyer leans out of the bed and grapples in Natasha's purse for her Pyramids. "Here," Sawyer lobs them at Natasha's chest. "Don't say I don't treat you."
Natasha looks at her in disbelief, "I can smoke? In bed?"
Sawyer ambles naked to the kitchen, breasts swaying as she walks. She flicks on the drip-coffee machine, and smiles as she hears Natasha tunelessly singing from the bedroom.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
✤✤✤
Natasha doesn’t have much to do with the theatre department at BWAC. They do a lot of confessional, monological pieces by local writers, some semi-professional acting groups and the odd piece devised by Lucia’s friends. Of the three, Natasha’s more likely to make the effort to see whatever Lucia's friends do. They can usually be relied upon for gratuitous nudity, fake blood and even a bit of whipping. Natasha also enjoys spending an hour or two dissecting the piece with Lucia in the café afterwards. Lucia's still got the pretentiousness that comes with youth, but Natasha so admires her confidence and imagination. The technical preparation for most of that amounts to little more than an older volunteer named Rose swearing at the cobbled-together electrics, and the director-cum-stage manager holding the ladder.
Tech week at the Boston Contemporary is a different beast. Sawyer has been working from 8am to 10pm every day. Natasha’s staying out of her way, she knows how seriously Sawyer takes everything related to her job.
She helps Gillian build a raised flower bed so people using wheelchairs can help with the herb garden. Gillian has leased a Kango drill to break the concrete, and Natasha is tasked with sanding and painting the planks of wood to make up the beds.
“Lucia says you’re seeing someone,” Gillian says while toweling soil into what Natasha has made. Gillian has a habit of starting conversations with Natasha when they’re both focused on something else, and it always gets Natasha talking more than she’d like.
“It looks that way, yeah.”
Natasha gently smoothes some drips out with her brush. She likes the way the bristles make tracks in the paint before the paint merges together.
“What’s she like? Lucia just told me that she’s a bit bowed up all the time, and likes it a bit rough.”
Natasha laughs and accidentally rubs a load of soil through her hair as she pushes her curls out of her eyes. She’s been kneeling for ages now, and her patella is screaming in pain.
“I’m not sure she’d enjoy that description. I’d hesitate to agree with Lucia, but you could perhaps call her an assertive power bottom.”
Gillian guffaws, “That skinny bitch also managed to choke out that she seems creative, and she makes you laugh, and she has good hair.”
Natasha feels blood rush to her face.
“I’ve missed her this week,” Here comes the inevitable flood of information she will regret giving Gillian later. “She’s working a lot at the moment. I’ve made six cushion covers and one pair of pajamas just to pass the time. I’m sure I used to do things in the evening that weren’t ranking every shade of MAC lipstick and eating her out.”
“Does she know about…?” Gillian trails off, tactically turning away to bust open another bag of soil.
“She’s seen me panic a bit. She knows I don’t drink. I don’t know, she hasn’t asked, and I haven’t told her. I’m fine now, she doesn’t need to know,” Natasha feels the need to defend her decision.
“It sounds like you’re a good match,” Natasha knows that Gillian probably has more that she wants to say about Natasha’s evasiveness. “The first words I’d choose to describe you would be creative and funny, and then probably kind.”
Natasha wants to lie in the flowerbed like a coffin and let Gillian fill her mouth and lungs with soil.
“I love the fact that you still can’t accept a God damn compliment.”
That evening, Natasha sits in her little orange living room. She sits cross legged on the couch, sewing the elastic waistband into the harem trousers she’s been making. As usual, her apartment is a mess. The floor is covered in fabric scraps, sewing needles and thread. She’s lit a few candles on her low wooden table and The Sensual World plays softly on her battered CD player. It’s
