Evie grips my arm. “That’s understandable, you know. It’s a big thing. A humongous thing. It takes a certain type of partner to be able to get something like that.”
“And your partner?” I ask. “You said he was the one who told you about the competition. Does he get it?”
“Cedric . . .” She picks up her mug from the coffee table, drumming her fingers on the ceramic. Her wedding ring clinks against it. “Cedric is a rare bird. He wasn’t my professor at university, but he was working there while I was a student. There’s a twenty-year age gap. I think that’s helped us maintain a certain distance.” She pauses. “This is going to sound like such a Cedric thing to say, but the word distance has such negative connotations. Why should it, though? It’s merely the gap between two points.”
I find myself looking into her mug, at the dark liquid contained within.
“Cedric and I have always enjoyed our own space. We’ve worked hard to maintain it. I mean, we’re very close in some ways. We have three kids, and a fourth on the way. It’d be impossible to keep each other at arm’s length all the time. We wouldn’t want that. The emotional proximity is there, and often the physical too. But we’re still open, still free.” She turns to me. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I blink. “I think so.”
“We’re complicated creatures, Solvig,” says Evie. “We need to be free to figure ourselves out.”
“Have you?” I ask, drinking a mouthful of tea. Tastes of marshmallow and violets. “Figured yourself out?”
“Well, now there’s the question.” Evie smiles. Two dimples appear on her chin. “It’s an ongoing project,” she says. “Applying to go to Mars is part of that project. And so is sitting here now, being with you.”
That phrase: “being with you.” She could have said “talking to you,” but she’s acknowledging that we’re in the same place. No distance.
“I like the sound of your life,” I tell Evie.
“Yours sounds exciting,” Evie responds. “Going off on your dives, getting away from it all.”
I bite my lip. “Do you ever regret having children?”
Evie looks down. “It’s draining playing host to someone else the whole time. Giving my babies everything I’ve got: my heart, my soul, my nutrients. What I wouldn’t give for a day in your body, Solvig. A body that’s only ever belonged to you. Full of edges and borders and definites. Those definites left my body a long time ago.”
“But . . . you’ve chosen to have a large family?”
“Oh yes, I love being around young people. They fill me with hope for the future. But I do miss those sexy definites.”
I put my mug down on the table a little too heavily, then jump up from the sofa. I should go. “Um,” I say.
“Solvig, are you okay?” Evie stands too.
“Um,” I say again.
“What is it, Solvig?”
Timidly, I ask: “Can I touch your bump?”
Evie takes a step forward. “Of course you can.”
It takes a long time for my fingers to make contact, but eventually, I place my hands flat against Evie’s belly, as if warming my palms before a fire. I’m shocked by how muscular it feels. “Wow,” I whisper. “You made that.”
Evie breathes deeply and nods. Then, she lifts the hem of her dress, revealing her thighs, her moss-green knickers, and the pale, stretched moon of her abdomen to me. Her belly button sticks out slightly, straining against the force of what’s behind it.
“You’re so tall, Solvig,” Evie marvels. Her voice is gentle, but her eyes are blazing. “You can keep touching if you like.”
I look at the backs of my hands as if they were someone else’s. This time, less gingerly than before, I reach out. I feel the shiny slivers of stretch marks. The way her bump feels a little harder on one side than the other.
Evie takes off her dress. Because Evie is so relaxed, she’s making this seem normal. Perhaps this is normal.
“Is that a maternity bra?” I ask, running my fingers along the fuchsia straps.
“That’s right,” she says. “It’s a nursing bra too.” She unhooks the right cup from the strap, and her breast topples out. Everything about this woman seems so full. It makes me wonder if I’m empty in comparison.
“Come on,” she says, laughing, so at home in her body. She takes me by the hand and leads me to her bedroom. It’s maroon, like mine. The difference is that she made her bed this morning and I didn’t, and where there’s an empty bottle of wine on my bedside table, on hers there’s a book entitled Architecture for Astronauts: An Activity-Based Approach.
Evie gives me a moment to study her back—pale and strong, flecked with freckles—as she walks to the far side of the bed. Then she lies down, facing me. She sticks out her tongue. Still blue.
I look down at my loose shirt and trousers and think how thin and frail my naked body would look beside Evie’s. I’ve been with James for so long. Our ribcages slam together when we have sex. Neither of us strives for such a skinny physique. Some people would call that lucky, but I’ve often wished I had fuller hips, rounder thighs. Equally, though, I’ve fantasised about how it might feel to rid myself of all the extraneous curves and bumps, to be as smooth and uncluttered as a Ken doll: no nipples, no genitalia, no fuss.
I undo my shirt buttons, revealing my sports bra. Letting James into my thoughts has made me feel weird. It’s as though I’ve conjured him into the room. He’s standing in the corner by the wardrobe, with a scornful, sad expression.
I take off my clothes as a dare to myself.
Wearing just my plain white underwear, I lie on the bed facing Evie. There’s an ocean of duvet between us.
“Are you okay, Solvig?”
