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“You know I’m not the bitch you think I am, Ava.”
Ava came to a halting stop just inside the kitchen doorway. She felt her blood rush to her ears and any plan she had of making herself some breakfast also seemed to come to a roaring halt. She had not thought…
No. Deborah could be talking about anything, couldn’t she?
“I’ve never said you were a bitch – well, let me think, okay, maybe to that guy I fucked, you know the one who threw himself out the window, but…okay, and maybe, like, I told Jimmy a few times, but I’ve never…I might have said it to DJ. I’m not really sure. But I most certainly don’t actually think you’re a bitch. Like I thought we were past that part of our relationship.”
Deborah was nodding over the edge of the morning paper. “Relationship.” She laughed dryly around the word.
“I mean – I respect you. I have so much respect for you now. I think I get it, you know, like why someone like you has to act the way that you do.”
“Act the way that I do.” Deborah hummed. She was just parroting her now and it frustrated the hell out of her.
“Yes – I mean, even you have to admit that sometimes you act like…well, like the way someone might describe a person who was a bitch acting. I mean, you weren’t exactly nice to me when we first met. Again, I can’t blame you. I didn’t want to do this anymore than you wanted me to be here, but now we’re past it, right so, you don’t have to worry about it.” Ava had picked up speed, was already pouring milk on her cereal, though her appetite was shot.
“One might say that you were a bitch yourself.” Deborah let the paper fall from her hands, turned to refresh her cup of coffee.
All Ava wanted was a cup of coffee, but she was too afraid to ask for it.
“I’ve definitely been told I was a bitch. I get it.” Ava agreed, happy to acquiesce this point. She could only imagine how very bitch like she was. “Hey, what is this…what is this all about?” Ava shoved cereal into her mouth and chewed but felt her stomach twisting.
Deborah’s elegant shoulders shrugged elegantly. “Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps a very, very long e-mail that ended up in my inbox last night.”
Ava stopped eating, forced herself to swallow and then put her cereal bowl down on the counter. “Okay. I can explain that.”
Deborah cocked her head as if she were intrigued and the sun hit her golden hair, illuminating her like a fucking angel. Right, like she was a perfect little angel, sitting innocently before Ava. She had done no wrong. Ava had.
Ava felt her strawberry blonde hair was fitting then. The devil always wore red.
Deborah took a deep breath when Ava did not pick up the conversation immediately. “Listen, I know that you were very upset with me. I would have been upset with me, too. But it does not warrant this very public betrayal. Lucky for me and very lucky for you, I have very good lawyers.”
Ava’s stomach knotted. “Listen, Deborah, I’m…”
“Sorry. Uh-huh.” Deborah just nodded up and down. Then picked up her newspaper and sipped her coffee, as if she were dismissing Ava – just like she had at the beginning of their time together.
Ava rolled her eyes to the ceiling. Fuck.
She left the kitchen and retraced her path back through the labyrinth like home until she was in the room that had become her designated room. A wing away from Deborah’s room.
The stress of the call on the plane had kept her taut for the week since they had returned from her father’s funeral. Though the guilt had slowly washed away as they rehashed the new show together and laughed as they had before – but the guilt returned at the end of every day. Ava had felt this inevitable clash creeping up. It could not be avoided.
They were a day away from heading out on the road and now all Ava wanted to do was run away. She wanted to take a car and run away as far as she could possibly get from Deborah because she had seen the wounded, hurt look in her eyes even when she knew Deborah was trying to act unfazed and unrattled.
Ava picked up her phone and dialed the only number she could think of just then and was relieved when he picked up the phone and not his half-wit assistant.
“Jimmy! Deborah knows…Deborah knows about the e-mail. She has the e-mail.” Ava practically screamed at him.
“She has – well, she wasn’t supposed to get the e-mail. Kayla – “
“Oh, right, sorry! I just really thought she should see it, I mean…she’s known about it all week.” Kayla’s voice cut in.
“No – Kayla, Ava was not supposed to…okay, well…it should not have gone to her.”
“She wanted to see it. She asked me to send it to her.” Kayla gayfully interrupted.
“Kayla!” Jimmy yelled and then there was more indiscernible yelling on the other end and Ava grunted in frustration.
“Jimmy! What do you mean she’s known this whole week?”
“Ava – Ava, she’s our biggest client. I couldn’t let those details get leaked to some shitty television show. I had to let her know for legal purposes and she put a cease-and-desist notice on it all. What I can’t understand is how you still have a job.”
“What do you…Jimmy, I never meant…shit.” Ava fell on the edge of what she had begun to think of as her bed. And now it would probably be the last time she sat in it. One wing away from Deborah.
“Shit is probably right, Ava. Listen, the other partners are really concerned about the liabilities you’re causing.”
“I’m a liability? I’m a fucking liability.” Ava cried.
“Well you were fired from that other show sooo…” Kayla’s annoying voice came on the line.
“Listen, I will make this better. I will…” Her voice shook and she wondered if she actually might start crying. She still hadn’t cried about her father, but this – fucking Deborah Vance – was going to make her cry. Oh, she’d been so stupid.
“Well – let’s just say that you’d better make it right because, wow Ava, I’m not sure how I can rescue you this time.”
Ava grimaced and ended the call, falling back on her bed.
Why was she so hardheaded and vindictive? Why had she done such a shitty thing?
Why hadn’t Deborah fired her?
If Deborah had known about the e-mail since they’d arrived back in Las Vegas, then she had had ample opportunities to can Ava.
Ava sat up.
What did Deborah have up her sleeve? Was she planning on picking a fight with her? Publicly ridiculing her on their first leg of the tour? Would Ava have to suffer some unspeakable humiliation?
“I mean – some of it isn’t even true.” Deborah’s voice caught her off guard.
Ava looked up to find the woman at the bedroom door, standing with printed pages in her hand.
She pointed at one passage. “She once fired a make-up artist because she thought that he made her look too much like a drag queen.” Deborah looked up at Ava and squinted at her. “That’s not even true. I’ve had the same make-up artists for years and years. I mean, if you’re going to slander me, slander me truthfully. Alright now here, this – this is true.” She had made her way to Ava’s bed and sat down near to her. “She got so angry at me that she actually slapped me. In the face! Who does that?”
And as Deborah read Ava noticed that her eyes were red-rimmed, and her face looked puffier than usual.
Ava reached out and ripped the pages from Deborah’s hands. “I was drunk and a little high and really mad at you. I know I shouldn’t have done this. I know it was a complete betrayal of you and your trust. It was really, really shitty.” She exclaimed as she crushed the paper in her hands, wishing she could set fire to it but knew Deborah would never allow paper burning in her precious home.
“It was a really shitty, idiotic thing to do.” Deborah agreed.
“But Deborah,” Ava tossed the wad of paper to the other side of the room. “Why – why did you ask to see it?”
Deborah stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“I just talked to Jimmy and he said you’ve known for a week. I mean – I am super surprised you didn’t bring it up to me before now.”
“And I’m surprised you didn’t bring it up to me.” Deborah countered.
Oh, she was good.
Ava felt her cheeks flush at this. “Okay – yeah, you’re right. Yeah, I should have.” She had to agree.
And she realized that Deborah had sat a trap for her. Had wanted her to step into the trap and get caught. And she had kept her waiting, unsuspecting, unknowing that her actions were hurting her more and more every day.
“But you didn’t have to read it.” Ava finally whispered. “I didn’t – like, I mean…I didn’t mean it. You know. I was just really mad at you.”
“Even if you were really mad, you shouldn’t have done this.” Deborah sounded defeated.
Ava took a deep breath, the air between them tense.
Ava studied Deborah. She disliked the sadness that crossed her features, the hint of betrayal that she felt lurking beneath her otherwise well put together veneer. Why had she read it?
Why had she written it?
She was such shit.
She balled her hands into fists and pressed them against her eyes. “Ugh, I am shit, aren’t I?”
Deborah shook her head. “No.”
Ava removed her face from behind her hands and saw Deborah looking at her. “What?”
Deborah turned from her, made to get up.
“Hey,” Ava reached for her, pulled her back down. “Why didn’t you fire me?”
Deborah was caught off guard by the touch, by the question, by it all. She looked rather out of her depths for a moment and then shrugged her way out of Ava’s clasp. She shook her head side to side. “I don’t know why.”
“Oh, come on.” Ava sighed. “Sure you do! You like me and we’re good. We’re good together. We can be really good together. I mean – look at this show we’re creating!”
Deborah just looked at her unreadably.
“I mean, we are still working together aren’t we?” Ava felt her forehead wrinkling, felt as if she might be on the verge of a migraine and tears. The things Deborah Vance did to her. “Listen, I can see myself out, if that’s what you want. Jimmy said I was pretty much done for after this little stunt that I pulled – so, I can just, you know – go move back in with my mom. I mean, we’d have to get rid of her beloved cat, but that’s …ugh, Deborah. I wish you’d get mad at me. Why aren’t you even mad at me?”
“I am mad at you! I’m completely enraged and hurt…and you…you betrayed me.” Deborah’s voice shook and she had to look away. “Oh, God!”
“Deborah, I get it – I did do that, but I…I really, really like you. And I never meant…”
“But you did it anyway.” Deborah stood before Ava could reach for her again.
Ava bit her lip, fighting back the tears.
“Most of it was true. But it wasn’t for the world to know.”
“I know.” Ava whimpered.
“Oh, Jesus.” Deborah sighed as she came to stand before Ava, to look down upon her. And she had every right to do so.
“I didn’t think I’d have a job after you slapped me. I mean, how – how was I supposed to know that you’d show up at my dad’s funeral? I mean you’re always so full of surprises! I never know what to expect. And you – you’ve done your fair share of humiliating me in public, so we can’t say that you wouldn’t have, you know, done the same thing.”
“I would never.” Deborah recoiled in horror. “So maybe I wouldn’t give my past employees sterling reviews, but I certainly wouldn’t try to ruin their careers.”
“I’m trying to help your career, if you remember? We’re writing a show together.” Ava cried, exasperated. “I mean, it’s a really good show.”
“My career doesn’t need saving.” Deborah huffed.
“That’s not what I – UGH! You’re so infuriating, you know that?”
“Oh and you’re a piece of cake yourself, aren’t you?” Deborah returned.
Ava fell onto her bed and covered her face, realizing that she had been angry, sad crying. She could only imagine what it had looked like. Too bad she wasn’t as composed as Deborah during such emotionally fueled conversations. “I can’t believe I actually thought I was into you.” Ava mumbled against her hands.
“What?” Deborah sounded rather taken off-guard.
Oh God. Oh, holy fucking Jesus Christ. Had she just said that out loud?
“I meant…uh,” Ava picked at the edge of her shirt, now uncertain of what to do with herself. “Nothing, I…”
“Well, that’s one hell of a way to show that you care.”
Ava looked up at the taller woman, confusion arching her eyebrow. “What?”
Deborah laughed then. “Were you trying to win me over with witty prose about all my downfalls?”
“N-no!” Ava stuttered, confusion clouding everything. Was Deborah laughing at her now?
“I mean some really interesting way to try and romance someone. But I guess that’s what millennials do nowadays?”
“I already told you…I’m not really a millennial.”
“It’s laughable really,” Deborah continued on as if she hadn’t heard her. “I mean, I trusted you. I don’t know why. I had no reason to. And you certainly did not prove me wrong.”
“Hey!” Ava stood then. “Don’t do that. I’m not your stupid ex-husband! I came back. I’m not going anywhere.”
Deborah laughed again. “Because you don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Nice.” Ava nodded, feeling back on par again. “That’s rich, Deborah. But no, unfortunately I like you and I like working with you and I think we could really build something, damn it. That – those pages were written at a really horrible, shitty time before I realized how much I fucking care about you.”
“Oh, now she cares about me.” Deborah’s eyebrows arched beautifully.
“I really do.” Ava insisted. “You’re Deborah fucking Vance and you’re a badass. And I respect the hell out of you.”
“And how can I trust that you won’t do it again?”
“How can I trust you won’t hit me again?”
Deborah bit her lip, a gleam in her eyes.
“Oh, Jesus.” Ava huffed and stepped forward clasping at Deborah. “You’re really fucking beautiful and I can’t stand the thought of seeing you cry.”
“Ava…” Deborah’s voice held a warning in it, but her face showed delicate fear.
Ava clasped Deborah’s face between her hands and slid up on her toes. Her lips were not met with resistance, but with something reciprocated. Deborah’s mouth was as open to her as she was to Deborah. The kiss was a million times better than her dream had been.
They parted and stood looking at one another.
Ava watched as a myriad of emotions crossed Deborah’s face, but she did not run.
Trust lost, but perhaps it was not for forever. Maybe Ava could fix this.
Thanks for reading!! I had no plan for this and so this just happened. I mean - I couldn't not let this perfect pairing go untouched. Just throwing in my two cents.
AND
I made a playlist and I'm going to keep it collaborative if anyone wants to jump in and add a few songs that remind you of this lovely pair! Link here.