I’m not sure what I was expecting, but in the two weeks I have been living with Olive, she has given me a textbook biography of herself no one could ever care about and been here just to sleep. I don’t know where she goes during the day, but she’s always gone...at this point, all I can write about her is my struggle to walk in her house without stepping on clothes or bumping into a box of fan mail. I want to clean it—I feel like this mess is calling out to me, “Cameron! Help me! Save me! Clean me, hurry! I’m desperate over here!” but I’m scared. Olive Dooley is scary. She intimidates me, this long-haired blonde who can’t go one day without wearing pink.
The kitchen, however, looks like it’s barely been used. The refrigerator reminds me of something out of a Hallmark movie, if Michelle Obama went shopping and stocked Olive Dooley’s fridge. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what happened—she’s got a poster of the former First Lady in the upstairs hallway with a red lipstick heart drawn on the frame, in the bottom right hand corner. And the frame itself, you ask? It’s pink, with white rhinestones. It’s official: I’m in hell. I told my sister to worry if she doesn’t hear from me within a day, because it’s possible I’ll have been suffocated by all the pink in here.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to survive this.
Earlier, I looked through the photo albums in some boxes she pulled out for me and left a note on my door for. Most of the photos were professionally taken; rare was it for me to flip the page and see her sitting in the lap of a relative or playing in the mud or hugging friends. Nowhere in her house, when I was exploring, did I see photos of her with family or friends. There was one photo of her with a woman I now know as Angelica Dooley, her mother. She seems so lonely. I don’t want to feel sorry for her—sympathy isn’t attractive—but I can’t help it. I didn’t consider the loneliness she might feel, what with her career and all.
***
“Is there anything you can tell me?” Faye: my nosy sister.
“The only contact I’ve had with her so far is a lecture about her Wikipedia biography and the notes she’s left me. ‘Make a list of what you eat. Grocery shopping is outsourced’ is one of my favorites.” I wrap alfredo noodles around my fork. We’re eating Italian, one of my favorites.
“Outsourced?” Faye’s brow raises before she laughs. “High-maintenanced much?” She returns to her food, which has so much red sauce I can’t tell what it is. There are also mushrooms, so I try not to stare at it too long. I don’t like mushrooms—they feel too weird—and I’m allergic to them, anyway, so I’m golden.
Faye finishes her whole plate, but I have to take the remaining half of mine home. I filled up on bread while waiting for the main entree, so I couldn’t help it. Faye’s three months’ pregnant, or else she’d have had to take food home, too. She didn’t used to be so hungry. We wait for the take-home batches of bread—one for each of us—pay the bill—her husband’s treat for being out of town—and head out.
“Is Bridey at least being nice to you? Dave was adamant about me checking on that for you.”
“If he’s so worried about her treating us right, why’d he marry her?” Dave is our older brother. He met Bridey three years ago at a conference in Portland. They’re currently separated because of her spending habits and shopping addiction...and her inability to pull herself away from work. He wants kids, but she doesn’t—and he thought he might be able to change her mind despite both mine and Faye’s multiple warnings that you can’t just change someone’s mind like that. Some people really don’t want kids, and that’s fine—but you can’t marry someone with the hopes that that wanting will change. “I only saw her in the beginning. I don’t think I have to see her anymore. It’s just me and Olive.” I cringe at my word choice, but Faye doesn’t care.
“Well, keep me posted.” She pulled me against her into a hug and told me she loved me. “Make sure you take care of yourself, too. You need some space, you come over to my place. You need someone to cuddle, you go to yours. Don’t need your...Olive having another reason to avoid you.”
I feel my face flush. “I bring one screamer home for the night while mom and dad are out, and you never live it down.”
“It’s a bit...hard to.” She smirks and wriggles her eyebrows.
“Oh, my God—go home. Just go home, go home.” My sister, the sexually explicit. I’m not a prude, I just prefer not to speak of such topics in public where other people can hear us—or to anyone. I prefer to pretend like I’ve never slept with anyone at all, because life is easier and less embarrassing when my face doesn’t feel like a Red Hot candy.
“Love you!”
***
When I arrive at Olive’s—it still doesn’t feel like home—the television channel quickly changes and she’s looking at her phone. “I didn’t expect you to be back so soon.” It is now that I realize how soft her voice is, how tender her accent is. I don’t know which part of the UK she’s from exactly, but the accent is noticeable—I feel like I’m in a movie.
“I was gone for three hours...dinner doesn’t take much longer than that.” I shrug. I feel so uncomfortable around her. I have no idea how to act around her. I know she hates me and wants nothing to do with me, but I also know we have no choice but to work together, so instead of doing something, I always only freeze.
“No, I wouldn’t imagine.”
She doesn’t seem mad at me. Mouth closed tight, I force a semi-smile and leave to put my leftovers in the fridge. I put the bread, wrapped in foil, on the counter. “There’s bread,” I say. “You’re welcome to it if you want.” Quieter, I add, “If you eat carbs.” I turn and find her leaning against the counter across from me. “Oh.” I didn’t hear her follow me here. My body locks up again.
“I eat whatever I want, if I like it.”
“Right.” I wet my lips. Her eyes pierce me.
“I had a chat with someone today about working with people who…” She trails off, shrugging. “Anyways, she said I should ask you how you work best so I can best help you—what you need to know, what you need from me.”
Why is she being so nice? “Okay,” I manage to get out. My body’s still frozen, uncooperative of what I need it to do.
“So…?”
I exhale. I know she’s guiding me, probably genuinely trying to help me, but she’s making it worse. I feel like I’m suffocating, but I’m just standing here, staring at her. This has never happened to me before. I mean, I get nervous, and I freeze, but—no...maybe this has happened before, but it’s just so inconvenient to what I need my body to do right now—how I need to react and behave in front of this person who, in terms of who society deems important, is much higher than myself in terms of worth. I hate myself for being a fucking cliche.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
She steps forward once, then back, and a whiff of her perfume enters my nose. It’s intoxicating. My sister’s right—I need to get laid if I’m going to survive this. “You look like you’re having a panic attack,” Olive says.
I don’t budge.
She opens a lower cabinet and pulls out a brown paper bag, closing the cabinet with her foot on her way over to me. She opens the bag and places it against my mouth; one of her hands moves each of my hands to the bag. She’s so gentle. “Breathe,” she says. “It’s okay. Take deep breaths, go slow.”
I’m so embarrassed I’m going to die.
“Do I make you nervous?” she asks when I’ve calmed down. I sat on the floor; she sat across from me.
I shrug. “It’s not just that.” It’s not a lie.
She tilts her head. “Then what?”
“You hate me, for starters.”
Olive sighs. “I don’t hate you.”
“You avoid me like the plague. This is the most we’ve talked in two weeks. Otherwise, it’s just notes.”
“I have a life, Cameron. For three years, I’ve been living my life without having to report to anyone, and—”
“You don’t have to report to me. I just need to be able to get to know you. I can’t do my job if you don’t let me in. I’m on your side.” I’m scared. I’m scared what I just said is going to blow up in my face and shit is going to hit the fan. “I signed a non-disclosure agreement. Who could I tell what I find out?”
“Bridey, for—”
I make a buzzer sound. “Bridey is my least favorite person in this whole world, and the only reason she’s helping me is to get back in my brother’s good graces. That’s it. She only does what will benefit her. I’m just a pawn…” I sigh. I might as well give her the whole truth. “But I do need a job, and...this is it for me right now. The economy sucks, we’re not all born into fame.”
Olive tenses, as if I’ve just struck a nerve, as if I hit a soft spot for her. “A therapist, then. There’s a clause in the contract.” Before I can open my mouth to protest, to say I don’t see a therapist, she adds, “There’s nothing wrong with it if you need to see one. There’s also a lawyer, but I don’t imagine there will be any need for that, so...a therapist. Because we all need people we can tell anything to sometimes, when it feels like the rest of the world is against us.”
She goes. People who don’t go to therapy don’t talk like that, aren’t as adamant about this topic—about talking safely with someone—as she is right now. She’s opening up, but I try not to show how happy I am that she’s finally accepting me into her life so she doesn’t scurry back into her shell so soon. Instead, I nod.
“Okay.” She stands and offers her right hand.
“Okay?” I take it, and she helps me stand up.
“I’m going out tonight—a club.” She looks me up and down before she meets my eyes. “Show me your clothes.”
***
This was the worst idea ever. I smell her perfume even more now. I want to do things I prefer not to tell anyone about—because, okay, I’m a prude. But I don’t identify with being a prude—it’s more that I struggle to talk about what turns me on without blushing and feeling like I have some bugs fluttering inside my stomach. It’s an uncomfortable feeling I prefer not to feel. I’m shy. I need to get laid. And now, we’re going to some heteronormative club, and I have no idea how I’m going to survive. I’m going to die.
“Have you ever worn these?” Olive asks, holding a pair of black pants against my body. I feel so domesticated right now. Is this how Thomas feels when I dress him up in that shark costume and put him on a Roomba?
“I wore them once, to—” I don’t even get to finish.
“Put them on.” She returns to looking through the closet, and I get up to go into another room to change. “Hey!” she yells. “You can change here. If you’re that worried, I promise not to look.”
I change in the same room—this guest room she put me up in, which is mine until we finish this book. The last time I changed in front of a girl who wasn’t my sister was three years ago, but I haven’t seen Ashley Schepp since. Every other girl I’ve slept with, I’ve left before they awoke. I feel like I’m back in high school soccer, changing in the locker room. I announce when I’m done, and she turns to look at me.
“Those’ll do.” My blue-and-white plaid button-up flannel flies into my face. “Got any camisoles?” What’s a camisole? “Black or...no, I think black would look best. Black makes you look like a fifteen.”
Is she hitting on me? I nod in the direction of the dresser and am thankful when she focuses her attention on the contents in the dresser instead of on me “I...don’t know what those are? But there may be something in there.”
“It’s a spaghetti strap top.” She holds up a black tank top and demonstrates. “Almost like this, but not as thick on the straps. I’m going to get ready now. For shoes, wear a pair of your Converse or those ones that look like you stole them from a skater guy.”
***
When she said we were going to a club, I didn’t expect us to take two hours to get there. Of course, I didn’t expect her to decide what I should wear or for her to take me to a ladies’ night, either—and by ladies night, I mean the kind for women who like women.
Olive added red and purple highlights to her hair with some sort of chalk—I’m iffy on those details—and wore a red plaid dress with a black leather jacket and black Converse. We’re color-coordinated. We look like a couple. I’m not sure how I feel about this, but something tells me I’m going to regret coming tonight. We haven’t determined who will be the designated driver tonight, so when I see her drinking a margarita, I assume responsibility. It’s not like I came here to play, anyway—I’m working; I need to be on my information-collecting game tonight.
“Why are we here?” I ask.
“You don’t like it?”
“I mean, Olive, you’re dat—”
“No. Whomever you think or’ve been told I’m dating is a rumor that’s not true.” She cuts me off so fast I barely have a chance to process what I was going to say and what she says.
“Okay, but…” I look around. “This place—it’s for lesbians and other people who identify as a woman and loves women…” She doesn’t budge, unbothered by what I’m saying. “You’re straight.”
“Am I?” She orders another margarita and gives me this flirty look. “Tell me, Cameron, what made you come to this decision? Who I am in the press or what Bridey told you?”
I’m dumbfounded, appalled. I can’t tell whether she’s mocking me or being serious. I thought I could trust her—that I’d finally gotten her to open up to me—but now I’m not so sure. I feel like I’m constantly second-guessing her behavior and what kind of reaction she’s looking for; I don’t like that feeling. I like people I can predict.
“One thing I know for sure: I have not spoken with press since 2014 in a way that could possibly reveal anything about my life now. You can take this as you wish, but don’t assume things about me to be true without asking.”
“Are you gay?” I ask it, but I’m terrified of the answer.
She sighs and traces around the rim of her glass with her index finger. “There was a person I thought...I don’t know. Things were complicated back then; I didn’t really have much of a say in my life, so...I lost her. And I fell in love with her in the short time I’d met her, in the kind of way that you find a pillow that always stays cool when you lay to sleep at night. Maybe I’ll get to feel that feeling again, but I’m not counting on it. I do know I don’t care much about men. I don’t want to fuck ‘em, I don’t want to fake it with ‘em...and all anyone wants to cast me in are romances because I do the ‘dumb blonde’ thing well.” Olive takes a swig of margarita. “If you want to drink, there’s a hotel next door we can stay the night at. I always reserve a room just in case, so...tonight, just have fun.”
She leaves, and I lose her in the crowd, but I stay at the bar and finish her drink. It’s sour; it’s been a while. Olive is more complicated than I expected—not so pink and white. I used to think she was just a spoiled rich kid who grew up on Mommy’s money and the money she made from child acting, but there’s something about people who are struggling with their sexuality that makes me feel like they may not be such a bad person after all. Olive wasn’t purposely ignorant when we first met in Bridey’s office—she’s learning. I have great hope in people who are learning, because I believe people who are interested in learning are on a path to bettering themselves. Insert something that sounds smart here; Faye’s the therapist. She could explain this concept much better than I can—always articulates better than I can.
I sit there, watching her dance with another lady; the woman has short, dark hair, like my own.
“This seat taken?” I look to the seat Olive abandoned to find a face that looked too familiar for me to pass up: dirty blonde hair, blue eyes, an infinity tattoo on her left wrist. I know, I know—I know she isn’t my Ashley Schepp—but she’ll do.