“No! No, not what I meant! I mean, the dickless you. No! Um, uh, you without the dickiness!” Ally covers her rapidly reddening face with her other hand and shakes her head. “Oh my God, I’m hopeless. Cut out my tongue now before I make an even bigger fool of myself.”
“You are oddly fascinated with dicks, Ally. Freud would have a field day with you,” I laugh, tears forming at my eyes. I pull her hand away from her face, and she quickly turns away. But not before I catch a bright smile and the sound of her cackling laugh. She has one of those laughs that make you laugh. It’s not sweet or dainty. It’s a raspy, full-on belly laugh. The kind that’s sometimes accompanied by a snort. I chuckle even harder, and shake my head in disbelief. Yeah…even her snorts are adorable.
And fuck me. I’m using words like adorable.
Our laughter tapers off as we make it into the house, and we silently shuffle towards the kitchen.
“I hope we don’t get in trouble for being in here after hours,” Ally whispers, her arm still locked with mine. I flip on the kitchen lights and give a half shrug.
“I hope not. I heard the boss is a dick.”
She giggles and looks up at me, those animated eyes so alive with wonder. My gaze locks with hers, and I smile at the woman in front of me, like she is mine.
Now that we’re here, alone, the halogen lights illuminating that tainted smile that I have no fucking right to bear, my lazy ass Jiminy Cricket decides to intervene. I quickly unravel my arm from the warm comfort of hers and go to lean against a prep table. Ally doesn’t notice, at least she doesn’t show that she does, and begins to rifle through the large, stainless steel refrigerator.
“Anything in particular you want? You know…that isn’t incredibly pretentious or requires a dialect coach to pronounce?” she asks, her head still in the refrigerator. She picks something up and brings it to her nose, then gags and puts it back. I stifle a chuckle.
Ugh. Chuckling.What am I now? A giddy ass tween whose balls haven’t fully dropped yet? I palm mine just to make sure my boys are still intact.
“Anything you want.”
Ally emerges, holding up a wrapped wedge of Brie and a block of Manchego cheese like she just hit the jackpot. “Well, it won’t be gourmet, but I bet I could make some kickass grilled cheese. Now…what are the chances of us finding just regular white, sandwich bread?”
I make a face and shake my head. “Not likely.”
“Eh. Your soulless, hoity-toity bread will have to do,” she winks. And the hot, heavy feeling from earlier unfurls once more.
“WHO WOULD KICK whose ass in a fight: Iron Man or Batman?”
Ally tears off a piece of her grilled cheese sandwich and pops it into her mouth. We’re both propped up on stools at a prep table, a spread of focaccia bread grilled cheeses, green grapes and red wine in front of us. Ally sits across from me, plucking off a few grapes to make a happy face on the metal tabletop.
I swallow a bite and wash it down with a sip of wine. “Why are Iron Man and Batman my only choices? Why can’t I pick Superman? Or Spidey?”
“Nope,” she says, shaking her head. “You can only pick two. Iron Man or Batman. And, ew…Spidey? Lame.”
I take a bite of sandwich and contemplate my answer. “Fine. I guess I’d have to go with Iron Man.”
“Why him?” She finishes her grape happy face then eats the poor guy’s left eye.
“Well, he’s got the suit-”
“Batman has a suit!”
“—and he can fly.”
“Batman can fly!”
“But Batman can only swing from things from a bungee cord. He can fall. He does that a lot. He’s a pretty great faller.”
Ally frowns. “He is not a faller. He glides.He’s an ass-kicking glider.”
“With a rubber suit?” I smirk. “Because that is just somuch more impenetrable than crystallized armor.”
“Bullshit. Iron Man is only good because he has Jarvis. They should just rename the franchise Jarvis Man because the computer does all the work.”
“Jarvis Man?” I raise a playful brow.
“You know what I mean. Or Jarvis and the Iron Asshat. They could be a team.”
We share an easy laugh and take sips from our glasses. That’s how things feel between us—easy. Uncomplicated with expectations or formalities. We’re just two people who share a mutual love of grilled cheese and superheroes.
“Why only two choices?” I ask as I refill our glasses.
“Huh?”
“When you ask me these little random gems of useless information, it’s only two choices. Mint Chocolate Chip or Rocky Road. Batman or the Iron Asshat.”
“I don’t know.” Ally shrugs and picks at a crust of bread. “I guess, to me… Life is just a series of choices. We try to always make the best ones, but really we’re just settling for the lesser of two evils. Or at least trying to.”
She looks at me and a sad smile touches her lips. I don’t know how to deal with it so I just look down. Coward.
“Is that what you feel you’ve done? Settled for the lesser of two evils?” I don’t elaborate, but she knows what I’m talking about.
“Honestly? I don’t think the choice was ever truly mine to make.”
I know I should just leave it at that, letting her words drift into another, simpler conversation. But, of course, I find myself needing to delve deeper into those turquoise waters. “Why do you say that?”
“There are things expected of me. Things I can only provide by marrying into an influential family and representing them in a certain light.” She turns to me, pinning me with those haunted, ocean irises. “We’re all just trophies. Shiny, plastic, useless trophies. Exciting at first, but we have no real purpose other than attesting to someone else’s grand achievements.”
I tilt my head to one side thoughtfully, my eyes trained on anything but her and those sad eyes. “A diversion—something pretty to distract from the real turmoil festering just beneath the surface.”
She nods but asks, “Is that how you see me?”
I lift my gaze to hers and find her expression filled with genuine curiosity—not anger or hurt. I shake my head. “No. Not you.”
“I had dreams, you know. Goals.” She smiles, but looks down, hiding its brilliance. “Now, I’m no different than them. I’m just like all those other women. Fighting, clinging on to the hope that we could be more than arm candy for business functions or designer incubators. That we could be truly loved for who we are, and not what we represent.”
I don’t respond, letting the words hang in the air until they dissipate under the weight of Ally’s pain. She stands and begins to collect the uneaten food. “It’s late. And you need your beauty sleep,” she winks at me, that carefree smile restored. I help her discard the trash as she takes the dishes to the sink.
“Me? Beauty sleep? What makes you think I care anything about beauty?” I take a washed dish from her and dry it with a towel.
“You’re kidding, right?” she smirks, scrubbing a pan. “You possess beauty like most women possess shoes.”
“Not following you.” And I’m not. I could give a fuck about what’s deemed beautiful by modern society’s standards.
“Well, first of all, look at this place,” she says, waving a wet hand around the room. “This estate is magnificent. Like paradise in the middle of the desert. Seems almost like a mirage.”
I nod my head in agreement. Oasis is myoasis—my refuge. My escape from all the incessant narcissism and fuckery that comes with fortune. I didn’t end up in the middle of the desert—as far away as I could possibly get from my original home in NYC—by accident. Eleven years ago, when I said goodbye to the noise, traffic and permeating scents of piss and diesel fuel, I told myself that I would never, ever look back at my old life with a sense of fondness. A few years after that, I found Oasis, and I knew I was home.