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jade harley has never stayed with rose lalonde before in her whole life.
she has stayed with john egbert three times, and dave strider twice, but getting to stay with rose lalonde feels like some kind of unobtainable standard jade has never been able to work herself up to. after all, there are two kinds of people:
jade is the kind of person who finds no fault in trekking mud into the hall from outside and letting her dog lick her toes clean; jade doesn't like to use a fork when she eats pasta (or a spoon, or any kind of utensil at all for that matter).
rose is the kind to sit in a high tower and be a princess and very clean and tidy, jade thinks, a well mannered and haughty sort of octopus gothic witch princess, trapped there by a wicked stepmother and waiting to be rescued and taught things such as 'it's okay to eat food off the floor if you're really sure that the floor is clean'.
but it's rose's turn to finally receive her, so jade packs her bags the night before she's due to leave the island and in doing so forgets her hairbrush and to bring more than one bra. she spends the morning shooing bec into his carrier, and lugging everything out of the house beachside to wait for her helicopter to take her to the mainland.
she is shockingly travel worn and tired, eyes gummy with sleep when she shows up ruffled and exhausted at the stoop of her friend's front door, knocking firm with the knuckles of one hand and stifling a massive yawn with the other. she knows her hair is sticking up, but she doesn't care. bec has started to make a fuss inside of his carrier, but she doesn't care.
when rose opens the door she has a smudge of mascara on her cheek and a mug of cheap wine in her hand and jade can't help but beam, throwing an arm around her shoulders. she looks nothing like a gothic princess. there aren't even any tentacles! she is so relieved.
it turns out rose is not at all neat by any standard of the word.
she leaves empty pottles of yoghurt out on the counter, half-licked lids sagging into the sink with the air of a deflated birthday balloon. jade has never known anybody to pick at her food the way rose lalonde does, anybody who deliberately squirrels green beans away in her napkin to get out of eating them. jade takes them and pushes them into her mouth one by one and skins them with her teeth; rose's nose scrunches up and she excuses herself from the table.
they stay up late into the night, lying in rose's bed and talking about boys and how much rose wants to marry angelina jolie. jade falls asleep listening to the gentle click-clack of the computer keys as rose types out paragraph after paragraph of tasteful wizard porn, lying on her front in her underwear.
living with a girl is very different to living with a boy.
john always wants to watch movies; staying with john is endless rounds of fantasy-now-action-now-comedy and trying not to notice as he watches her face closely to gauge her reaction to each of his favourite scenes. they gossip about dave and rose a lot. sometimes jade steals john's favourite spot on the couch just to provoke him into a heated wrestle, because she nearly always wins!
staying with dave is abruptly different in that dave sits around and talks, and when he isn't talking he stares at things and when he isn't doing either of those he's rapping or being insulting or waiting for her to notice one of the dead things in his room as if she ever might, and want to strike up a conversation about it. he's quiet when he's not babbling and he's funny when he's trying to be serious and jade likes interrupting his daily routine because he really has no idea how to deal with her being a girl and in his personal space at the same time.
at rose's house it's warm, every day. today, summer is in full force and jade has sweat at the back of her knees and her hair scooped up in a huge, messy knot to keep it out of her eyes. rose walks around in singlets and briefs, legs as white as lilies and just as slender. it's too hot to do anything productive except lie around and complain about how hot it is, and bec is asleep a patch of shade by the opened front door, nose stretching out reluctantly into the sunlight.
"let's go swimming!" jade says, and flops sideways onto the couch. rose looks up from her book, and tucks a handful of hair behind her ear.
"you may go swimming. i don't usually indulge," she replies, and turns the page. jade props up an elbow and tilts her head to the side, working up for a good long whine.
"come on rose! you have an entire freaking ocean right outside your window! let's go swimming, it'll be fun!"
"how about i watch blithely from the shore?" rose suggests, and tucks her legs up underneath her neatly to keep her ankles from being grabbed. jade shrieks in laughter and protest and tries to tickle her friend on the knee. "i can absorb the sunlight and watch you frolic - jade, stop that!"
they go swimming.
'they' here means bec and jade; rose brings her towel, neatly rolled up, and has to be slathered in sunscreen before she lies down on it. jade rolls her eyes and pulls her shirt off over her head, kicking her skirt off into the sand as bec bounds forwards into the swell, barking madly and snapping at sea foam.
"don't you have a bathing suit?" rose calls, and sits up on her towel as jade fumbles with the clasp of her bra, frowning back over her shoulder at it.
"a what??" she calls back, and shimmies out of her underwear without care (rose lies back down hurriedly and holds her book up over her face once more).
the water is colder than she had thought it might be, and she screams as the first wave breaks over her knees, laughing madly as she charges into the sea. bec leaps and barks and sprays her with salt water until she points her fingers forwards and dives underneath the water, breaking the surface with a gasp and a happy kind of shiver.
"it's so nice!"
"i doubt that!" rose is watching her, amused, playing with the strap of her one piece and book lying open spine up on the towel beside her.
"it is! come in!" jade splashes a great deal of water towards the shore, but misses rose's legs by a good five meters.
it takes all of half an hour to coax rose in, and even then she only deigns to dip in her toes, shrieks, and retreats hastily. jade is left laughing at her and splashing as she makes her way towards the shore, where rose is standing, offering a towel with her arm outstretched before her as she looks pointedly away. jade repays her for her kindness by shaking her hair out over her, and by the time the resulting fight has been quelled jade is covered from head to foot in sand.
rose puts her into a bath the moment they get back and sits at the side of the tub with her, talking with her back resting against the porcelain and giving her wet smacks on the shoulder whenever she 'accidentally' drips water onto her hair from above.
the day ends with tall glasses half of cordial and half of vodka (stolen not so subtlety from rose's mother's supply cabinet), and painting each other's toenails wonkily in five different shades of purple. jade honestly feels like the happiest person in the world, if the happiest person in the world also has sand in their belly button.
they drink until they are hungry and when that time comes they pool together their knowledge and recreate a passable version of the spaghetti and meat sauce pictured in the book that rose managed to pull down from the top shelf. the sauce is a little lumpier than it should be, and it probably has something to do with the onion neither of them wanted to dice properly, but the mince is delicious and the spaghetti especially slurpy.
there is even a wonderful moment in which rose accidentally drops a piece of garlic bread on the floor and doesn't notice for twelve whole seconds before picking it up and popping it into her mouth anyway.
jade smiles, and feels completely at home.