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“Are you guys gonna help me out?” Dee’s standing with his hands on his hips, staring up at the ceiling. “Or are you just gonna stand there like assholes?”
“Oh, stand here, probably,” Denise says, rummaging through Dee’s cabinets. “You’re a big boy, you can handle a goddamn bug.”
“One of you dickholes needs to catch this butterfly for me.”
“Tough luck, Dee,” Mac says, “it’s movie night, and we’re not missin’ it.”
“Yeah, we got shit to do.” Denise pulls down a big plastic bowl and hands it off to Mac.
“You two are fuckin’ insufferable alone,” Dee says, “but you’re worse together. Like an old married couple.”
“Old married couple. Yeah, right,” Mac says, looking to Denise for a laugh that doesn’t come.
Mac slams the door to their apartment on her way back in and Denise nearly jumps off the couch, something like relief painted across her face.
“Was wonderin’ when you’d get home. You didn’t check in.”
“I was gone for an hour.”
“I missed you, though.”
“Got us a movie for tonight.” The change of subject makes Denise’s eye twitch. Mac holds up a DVD case like a trophy.
“What’s that? Doesn’t look like Say Anything.”
“They didn’t have it. Plus the girl at the video store said this one’s good.” Mac holds it out so Denise can read it — How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days. “It’s got Kate Hudson in it.”
“Yeah, I’m sure it’s real good,” Denise says, tension drawing her shoulderblades tight. “Nice to know you’re willing to derail our movie night at the behest of some video store clerk.”
“Denise, I asked her for a recommendation.”
“Sure.”
“Don’t be like that.”
“Maybe Dee was onto something.” Denise’s voice drips with disdain. “We do spend a lot of time together.”
“You don’t mean it.”
“What if I do?”
“That’s fine.” Mac sighs, stretched-out and dramatic, hopeful that Denise will try to stop her. “I’ll go hang out with Dee. Maybe he’ll watch this with me.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah? Cool?”
“Very cool.”
Mac slams the door on her way out.
Denise leaves for Charlie’s, and although no one is there to hear it, she slams the door as well.
“Yo,” Mac shouts, walking out of Dee’s kitchen. She’s holding an orange. “Peel this for me?”
“No way,” Dee says, hands on his hips. “You do it.”
“Denise always peels them for me.”
“‘Cause you don’t want to or ‘cause you don’t know how?”
“Don’t wanna.” Mac shrugs. She flops down on the couch and tosses the orange from hand to hand.
“That’s too bad, then.”
“But I need the vitamins, man, come on.”
“Peel it yourself.”
“I don’t want to peel it myself, I want you to do it for me, please, please—“
“Oh, my God, fine! Give it to me, shithead,” he yells. “I’ll peel your fucking orange.”
Mac throws the orange to Dee, a high arc over the living room, and he misses the catch by a mile. She laughs as he chases it across the floor, wishing that Denise were there to chime in.
Mac could peel her own oranges. She doesn’t mind. She’s never been bothered by the way the juice drips down her fingers, and it always does, always gets everywhere.
She likes when Denise does it, though. Denise peels oranges with a near-surgical precision. Sharp nails in the rind, splitting it with practiced ease. Her delicate hands look so strange like that, tearing the skin apart, separating the pieces from one another. Flesh from flesh.
Denise gets all serious about it. It’s just an orange, Mac thinks. She makes it so much more intense than it ought to be, but Mac watches her do it, watches her scowl as she picks all the little strings from each segment. When she presents it to Mac, her fingers are clean. Palms outstretched. A bird on the doorstep with no blood on its throat. A show of finesse, of something that transcends and outweighs the little pieces of fruit in her hand.
When Dee gives Mac the orange slices, they’re all sticky, covered in those white fibers.
“We’re makin’ grilled Charlies— you want one?” Charlie points her spatula at Denise. “I don’t remember how you like yours, though. You gotta remind me.”
“No, I’m alright.” Denise is pacing around the room, picking up pieces of trash. “Thanks.”
“Suit yourself,” Fran barks. “More for us, y’know?”
“You don’t need to clean all that,” Charlie says. She’s so sweet about it, like she’s worried it’ll hurt Denise. “We don’t mind, dude.”
“Yeah, but I do,” she replies. Charlie shrugs in response.
Denise gets most of the garbage out, three giant trash bags tied off in the hallway. Charlie flips the two sandwiches — hot and greasy and wholly unappetizing — out of the pan and onto a pair of plates, and Fran bites a corner off of both of them.
“What are you doing?” Denise squints at the two plates, seemingly identical. “They’re the same, aren’t they? No way you need to eat ‘em both, Fran.”
“Do you want Charlie to die?”
“What?” Denise crinkles her nose.
“I have to test it, Denise, gotta make sure it ain’t poisoned.”
“Yeah, dude.” Charlie’s face is set firm; this is a very serious issue to the two of them. “Fran has a little bit of everything I eat. And what I drink, too, ‘cause you could totally poison a drink and never know it.”
“I’ve been poisoned. I know what it tastes like, so I’ll be able to tell,” Fran says, confident, like she’s made an irrefutable point.
“It’s a great system, man,” Charlie says. “She looks out for me. Makes sure I don’t get some freak disease.”
“That’s— I mean— Makes sense, I guess.”
Denise wonders if the cleaning products are getting to her. One of them smells like oranges. Charlie’s argument doesn’t make sense, but she looks out for me gets stuck under Denise’s nails.
“You owe me,” Dee says. “I peeled your stupid orange.”
“You fucked that orange up. Nearly inedible.”
“Whatever, Mac, just come here. I need you to spot me.”
“Spot you? For what?”
“That goddamn butterfly is on the ceiling. You gotta hold the ladder so I don’t—“
He’s interrupted by the landline ringing in the hallway. Mac picks it up to hear Charlie’s voice, frantic as ever.
“Dude. Denise is freakin’ me out,” she says, expecting Dee on the other end. “Movin’ everything around like she owns the place.”
“Has she… asked about me?”
“No, she’s—“
“Is that Mac?” Denise is shouting from somewhere in the distance, just barely audible over the phone.
“No.” Charlie rolls her eyes. “Hasn’t asked about you at all.”
“Well, I was wonderin’ if you wanted to watch a movie with me, but Dee’s got a butterfly in his apartment. He’s bein’ a real bitch about it.”
“Butterfly, you say? Now you’re talkin’ my language, man!”
“And then maybe we can hang out?”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’ll be over.”
Charlie brings Fran and a lizard to Dee’s apartment. She’s nearly bouncing as she knocks on the door, and she beams when Dee throws it open to let them in.
“What the hell is this?” Dee points at the little animal in Charlie’s hand, slightly curious as to where she even got a lizard.
“Well, come on, Dee, Fran’s here for moral support. We’re a package deal. The gruesome twosome. You know this.”
“I was asking about the lizard, Charlie.”
“Oh! That’s how we’re catching your butterfly, dude! This little lady’s gonna eat it!”
“How do you know it’s a girl lizard?”
“I just know these things. Show me the bug, let’s get it outta here.”
“Yo, Charlie,” Mac shouts from the couch. “Wanna watch this movie with me?”
“Nah. Got a bug to catch. This is important.”
“Come on, dude. Been forever since we got to hang out.”
“Just start it.” Charlie rolls her eyes. “I can hear it from here.”
“Alright, fine, but you’re missin’ out!”
“Guys. I absolutely cannot do this anymore,” Dee whispers. “Mac is so goddamn needy.”
“And Denise is like, the most overbearing person in the whole world.” Charlie pinches the bridge of her nose.
“We oughta get them back together,” Fran mumbles. “Make ‘em deal with each other.”
When Mac sees Denise from across the restaurant, she wants to feel angry. That would make the whole thing easier. She wants to get pissed off at Dee, or at Denise, or at the family whose table she almost walks into.
“Son of a bitch, you brought Denise here?” Mac crosses her arms over her chest. “You told me I was meeting a girl with a huge rack.”
“Yeah, I did. Told her the same thing. Idiot.”
Trailing behind Dee as he leads her through the restaurant, a fuse pops in Mac’s brain. She fights for something to say, mouth hanging open, but she comes up short of anything coherent.
Her ability to form sentences isn’t helped by a better view of what Denise is wearing — a powder-blue dress with thin straps. It looks silky from across the restaurant, and Mac’s never seen it on her before, but it’s her new favorite. She smooths out the front of her sweater. Wildly self-conscious, in the way that being around Denise always seems to make her feel.
”Go. Make up. Get back together.” Dee waves his hand in Denise’s direction, gesturing for Mac to get out of his face.
“I hate you for this,” Mac spits, but she walks toward Denise anyway.
“I know.”
Once Mac can’t see him anymore, Dee sends Fran a text that reads If this doesnt work Charlie owes me 10 bucks.
(He gets a reply, a few minutes later, that says IT GOING 2 WIRK. He can picture the smug little smile on Charlie’s face.)
“What the hell are you doing here?” Denise’s voice is harsh, an angry whisper that only Mac can hear.
“Dee set us up,” Mac says, frowning. “I’m just as pissed as you are.”
Mac sits down, and Denise looks at her like she’s supposed to speak first, but Mac’s unwilling to give in. She wants to stay angry. She wants to sit there and stare at Denise until she apologizes. Mac can’t make herself stay angry, though, because Denise is wearing perfume and lip gloss and sparkly silver jewelry, and that’s enough to make Mac’s heart skip. It’s enough to break her resolve.
“I made him peel my orange for me,” Mac says, and she means I’m sorry.
“Did he do it right?” Denise is looking for a specific answer here. If Mac gets this wrong, the whole thing comes undone. She’ll be gone in an instant. If Dee had gotten it right, she thinks, that might be grounds to flee the state.
“Oh, God, no. Left all that white stringy shit on there.”
“That’s the worst part.”
“I know! He doesn’t, though.”
“Dumb bird,” Denise scoffs, but she’s relieved. There’s an I’m sorry too in there somewhere.
“Yeah, the dumbest.”
Denise reaches across the table and picks a piece of fuzz off of Mac’s sweater, nails brushing against her arm. Mac looks down. Her nails are painted to match her dress. The rush hits hard, all at once. The warmth of Denise’s touch, icy-blue, pushing all the way through to the bone.
“You alright?” Denise quirks an eyebrow at her. She wants to ask Are we alright but she decides that’s close enough.
“Just fine.” She’s lying and Denise knows, she knows, she knows. “How was Charlie’s?”
“I had to watch my mother taste-test Charlie’s food for her, dude. Said something about making sure it’s not poisonous.”
Before Mac can insist that Charlie makes a very good point, and that maybe she ought to taste Denise’s food for her, a server comes over and drops a check on the table between them.
“Whenever you’re ready. Cash or card’s fine.”
“We didn’t, uh, order yet,” Mac says, but the server’s already gone.
“I did. I had, like, six vodka sodas.” Denise looks up at Mac through her eyelashes, twirling the straw in her glass. “I was so nervous.”
“About the big-breasted lady?”
“Yeah, I mean, you just never—“ She pauses. Mac can see the connections forming in her head. “Hang on. How’d you know about that?”
“Dee told me I was comin’ here to meet a girl with big boobs. Said he told you the same thing.”
“Wait, are you— is this—“
“Could ask you the same question.”
Mac doesn’t ask Denise anything. They both fall silent for a beat, staring at each other without ever making direct eye contact. Denise adjusts her dress. Mac sits up a little straighter.
“I got it,” Mac says, looking down at the check, and then back over at Denise. “I got you.”
“You always do,” Denise replies, light and airy and more genuine than she’d intended.
Mac blushes as she pulls a couple of bills out of her wallet, tucking them into the check. Denise tries very hard not to look at her face. Mac tries very hard not to look at Denise.
Under the table, Denise digs the heel of one of her shoes into the top of her other foot, a weak stand-in for actually, properly kicking herself. You always do? It’s cliché and ridiculous and Mac’s probably embarrassed just to be sitting across from her.
You always do sits between them, waiting. It’s right there for one of them to break a piece off of, between the plates and the silverware and six empty glasses, like it’s been there the whole time.
“Let’s get out of here,” Mac says, and Denise is already halfway out of her seat.
They don’t talk on the way back to the apartment. You always do hangs off of the rearview mirror, right where both of them can see it. Mac can hardly drive with how much she’s thinking about it, and she keeps stealing glances at Denise, trying to be secretive in a way she isn’t even remotely capable of.
“I meant it,” Denise says, dropping her purse on the couch.
“Meant what?” Mac looks at her like she doesn’t know. Like she hasn’t been playing three words on a loop in her head for the last half-hour.
“You know damn well what I’m talking about. Don’t make me say it again.”
“I think I kinda want you to, though.” Mac’s heart is racing. “Say it again, Denise.”
“You always do,” she whispers.
Denise’s heels click loudly as she walks across the hardwood floor. When she stands in front of Mac, she hears her breath hitch. Six drinks were nothing compared to the way she feels, hot-blooded and alive, everything at once.
“Is this alright?” Denise asks, fully convinced she’s read everything correctly.
Mac doesn’t say anything, but she leans in — carefully, nervously, as if she thinks something will break. Denise tastes a little bit like vodka and lime and lip gloss. Mac kisses her without urgency, without anger. Denise reaches up and rests her palm on Mac’s jaw, feeling the soft skin of her cheek heat up. It’s the most sincere apology either of them could have offered.
A couple days later, Dee forgets to shut his window, and the butterfly leaves on its own. He screams like he’s been shot when he finds the lizard on his bathroom mirror. Charlie comes to pick it up, gingerly placing it into her sweatshirt pocket to keep it warm, and takes it back to her apartment.
A few blocks away, with the window open, Denise peels an orange for Mac. She splits the skin open with a chipped blue nail, and the orange breaks apart easily, halves of halves in her palm. She puts seven slices in a little bowl and one in her mouth — checking it for poison.