Work Text:
The power is out. Glinda had abandoned her umbrella in a dumpster somewhere between the subway exit and her apartment building, blown inside out by the wind, broken and ineffectual. She had been having a bad day even before her miserable trudge through this too-early winter storm, and now her shoulders are hunched and her hood pulled tight against the wind. A book she had published a few months ago sold well but not well enough for a paperback release, and Morrible had forced Glinda to bear the bad news to the author, even though her boss was the one to make the decision. Fiyero had called in sick, which simply wasn’t fair—who was Glinda supposed to gossip with? And now, two blocks from her apartment, the rain joins hands with the wind whistling sharply between the valley of buildings. She’s halfway to drenched by the time she makes it into the sheltered vestibule of her building.
She shakes the rain off her jacket and pulls her phone from her purse to call Elphaba, wants to know if her building still has power and if she can come over and use her shower. Her phone is dead. She groans so loudly that it echoes through the foyer.
So Glinda stomps her way up five flights in the near dark, the staircase lit only by thin light through the narrow windows and the green glow of the exit signs on each landing. Her key catches in the lock, because nothing could possibly be easy for her today. She leans her forehead against the grain of the wood, knowing she’s being overly dramatic and petulant, but she just can’t help it.
She thinks of the bottle of wine on top of her fridge. Maybe she should grab it and make the trek to Elphaba’s anyway. Even if her girlfriend is plunged into darkness, too, at least they can hunker down together. Glinda can wear one of Elphaba’s too-large shirts, and they can drink wine, and Glinda can half-listen when Elphaba attempts to teach her the rules of whatever card game she played as a child. She could lie in Elphaba’s bed and peel the other woman’s clothes off, touch her so softly and slowly - she doesn’t need light for that.
“I sing the body electric, and all,” Glinda mutters to herself, jiggling her key in the deadbolt. An evening like that would be worth another venture into the storm, she reasons, finally shoving open the door to her apartment.
It takes her a second to understand the amber glow spilling into the hallway from her living room—every candle she’s ever owned flickering in the gloaming. The flames of a half dozen of them are reflected back to her in the lenses of Elphaba’s glasses as the other woman looks at Glinda from across the room.
“I thought you were a burglar,” Elphaba says, hand at her chest.
“What?” Glinda is confused by the candles, by Elphaba perched at the kitchen table, by her incomprehensible greeting, by the way the fate of her day has shifted so suddenly from abject despair to something warm and lovely.
“It took you like six minutes to unlock the door. I thought you were trying to break in.”
“What if I were?” Glinda wonders. “A burglar, that is.”
“The sweets of pillage can be known to no one but the thief,” Elphaba replies, dropping her voice, raising an eyebrow suggestively, a smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth. She looks so pretty like this, Glinda thinks, with a glint of something in her eye, mischief or firelight; Glinda can’t tell.
“I really admire your unprecedented ability to make even the most mundane poems sound exceptionally horny.” Elphaba lets out that unpretty cackle that Glinda so adores. The blonde shakes her head, full of affection, and hangs up her coat next to Elphaba’s. “And by the by, I feel like you shouldn’t get points for using Dickinson anymore; you’re becoming a one-trick pony.”
Elphaba gives Glinda a narrow-eyed look, grumbling her discontent. Glinda lets the frustration of the day roll off her, leans against the wall and gazes again at her girlfriend across the room. She’s been here a while, from the looks of it: a mug at her elbow, papers strewn across Glinda’s small kitchen table filled with Elphaba’s scrawled handwriting. She’s sitting in a way that seems remarkably uncomfortable—a telltale sign that she’s been writing for hours without rising. Glinda remembers finding her like this in college, twisted into a stiff library chair as though by tangling her limbs together, she could untangle her thoughts more easily.
Glinda had given Elphaba a copy of her key a few months ago but this is the first time she’s used it uninvited, and Glinda tries to quell a spark of pleasure at her unexpected presence. “Hi there,” she says, restarting the conversation more normally from her place against the far wall.
Elphaba’s grin is a flash in the dimness. “Hi.”
“What are you doing here?” Glinda wonders.
Elphaba’s expression shifts slightly. “Well. You—uh, gave me a key? And said I could come by whenever? And my power was out. I texted you.”
“Ah. My phone is dead.”
“Sorry,” Elphaba says, looking small all of a sudden.
“Don’t be,” Glinda waves off the apology. “I have had a very bad day,” she sighs, “and I am… so happy to see you.” Elphaba’s grin is back, kicked up a notch. Glinda pushes off from the wall and nods at Elphaba’s notes. “What’re you working on?”
Elphaba sweeps them into a pile, tapping the edges of the pages against the tabletop to straighten everything out. “Nothing now,” she smiles.
Glinda circles behind her chair, wraps an arm across Elphaba’s chest and rests her chin atop her head. “Don’t stop on my account,” she demands, finger following the ribbed fabric at Elphaba’s collar.
The green woman shakes her head and sets the stack of paper aside, candles fluttering in the breeze of the act. “I was just waiting for you to get home. Figured we could order takeout. Your nose is very cold,” Elphaba finishes as Glinda presses her face into her neck.
“It’s very cold out,” Glinda mumbles into her skin. “How long have you been folded up like this?”
“Like, hours, probably.”
Glinda peels herself off her girlfriend and pokes at Elphaba’s ribs. “Up and at ‘em, Thropp. You’re not as young as you once were; you’ll be sore tomorrow.”
Elphaba unfurls from her perch on the chair and groans as she stands, her back popping as she pulls her arms above her head. Glinda steps easily into her space, slipping a hand under the hem of her shirt where it rides up as she stretches, blackberry bramble at her hipbone. Elphaba collapses again and drapes herself loosely around the blonde. Glinda feels the tightness in her own shoulders dissipate as she breathes the other woman in.
“Bad day?” Elphaba asks gently. Glinda nods into her shoulder. “Wanna talk about it?”
Glinda shrugs and slips from Elphaba’s embrace. There are candles lined up on the kitchen windowsill. “Was the power out when you got here?” Glinda asks, reaching up on her toes as she tries to reach the bottle of wine she had been thinking about bringing to Elphaba’s earlier.
“Yeah,” Elphaba confirms, stepping behind Glinda and grabbing the bottle easily, her extra few inches coming in handy. “I mean, we only live a couple blocks from each other; I assume most of the neighborhood is without power,” she says, gesturing out the window where the storm blows wildly and traffic lights blink red.
Glinda hums, reaches into a cabinet for two low glasses. “Somewhere a line breaks, a city goes black, people dig for candles in the bottom drawer.”
Elphaba stills her hands where they’re halfway through opening the wine bottle and narrows her eyes. “I don’t know it,” she admits.
“Naomi Shihab Nye. Once the power is back on, you should look it up - it gives me goosebumps every time.”
Elphaba uncorks the bottle with a soft pop and Glinda watches as she pours the dark wine into a glass before handing it off to the blonde. “Cheers, baby,” Elphaba says softly. Glinda clinks her glass against Elphaba’s. “You sure it’s okay that I just came by unannounced?”
“Of course, Elphaba. That’s why I gave you a key. And I was going to show up at yours anyway,” Glinda informs her. “That’s what I was thinking about when I should have been unlocking the door.”
There are moments—like this one—when Glinda looks at Elphaba and feels a prickle of guilt in her gut at how close she was to losing this forever. That she lost it once and got it back is still nearly incomprehensible to her. That Elphaba has that type of kindness and forgiveness and affection in the very marrow of her bones. Glinda might spend the rest of her life thinking she doesn’t deserve it. But she knows she’ll probably spend the rest of her life next to Elphaba, so she’s not sure if that sort of doubt is really worth her time anymore.
It’s been nearly a year since they started going out again. A year since Elphaba’s book was published. A year since Elphaba kissed her in the snow outside of the Peach & Kidney. A year since she ran away, since Glinda showed up at her apartment and called her out. A year since they apologized and decided to stay and to be in love.
And in that year, if Glinda is being honest, there have been very few nights when she hasn’t fallen asleep against the steady shape of her lover or woken with a green arm thrown across her waist. They rarely text but when they do, it’s utilitarian, announcing their arrival at the other’s place: “I’m outside,” and “Buzz me up?” and “Be there in ten.” They’re at each other’s apartments so often that Crope has taken to calling Elphaba’s phone if he needs to talk to Glinda.
Glinda is thinking about this now, Elphaba standing across from her in the candlelit kitchen, which is also sort of the living room. There are traces of Elphaba everywhere. Her boots lined up at the door, her coat on a hook, her work on the table. There’s a plant on Glinda’s coffee table that Elphaba nursed back to health. Glinda sacrificed an entire dresser drawer for Elphaba’s clothes (Elphaba gave up and bought a second dresser when Glinda’s wardrobe threatened to take over her closet entirely). Each bathroom has two toothbrushes.
Elphaba dips her head slightly to catch Glinda’s eye. “I lost you for a second,” she teases gently, “you good?”
“Do you think we should move in together?”
Elphaba blinks, is silent for a long time. Glinda watches her look around the room, taking stock of their shared life, making the same calculations that Glinda had just made. When she swings her gaze back to the blonde, Elphaba is wearing the softest, easiest smile Glinda has ever seen on her.
“Yeah. I think we should.”
Glinda takes two steps and then her free hand is at Elphaba’s jaw. Elphaba’s arm is curled around her waist. They’re both smiling too much to kiss properly. “Good,” Glinda says succinctly, forehead pressed to Elphaba’s. “That settles that.”
“I suppose it does.” Elphaba’s voice is low, rumbling into the space between them. Glinda can hear the smile in it, knows Elphaba more easily, more readily than she will ever know anyone else. Knows her in the densest part of her. “Do you think we should order takeout?” Elphaba asks, feigning seriousness.
“I think we should. You’re buying, though. My phone is dead.” Elphaba rolls her eyes but acquiesces, grabbing her phone from the other room.
“Oh hey,” she calls, and Glinda loves the way her voice fills the apartment, filtering in from the bedroom as if in a dream. “Tibbs just texted me,” she continues, appearing in the doorframe. “‘Glin’s phone is going to voicemail, but we have power and you guys are welcome to come over,’” Elphaba reads before looking up and towards Glinda. “You want to?”
Glinda screws her face up. “How bad would it be if we said no?”
“Not bad at all,” Elphaba assures her. “But you don’t want to charge your phone or take a shower or anything?”
Glinda hums. “I would much rather eat pho with my lover in the dark.”
“So not only am I paying, but I don’t even get to choose dinner?”
“Get used to it, darling,” Glinda drawls, pressing a quick kiss to Elphaba’s cheek as she passes by on her way to the couch, bringing a candle with her. “You’re locked into this now.”
Elphaba laughs and laughs and Glinda never wants the power to come back on.
_________
They’re all crowded around a corner booth at the Peach & Kidney the following week, winter having fully set in by now. Glinda arrives late from a meeting to find her friends flush in the glow of the lamplight, Elphaba grinning and holding up the cider she had already ordered for Glinda. She slides into the booth next to her girlfriend, kisses her chastely. Crope is sulking on the other side of the table. Fiyero is typing something on his phone, ignorant to Glinda’s arrival.
“What’s his problem?” Glinda asks, pointing at Crope with her chin.
“Tibbett’s making fun of his beard. So is Fiyero,” Elphaba explains.
Glinda narrows her eyes and leans across the table to get a better look at him. “Hi, Glinda,” Crope says petulantly. “Nice of you to join us. Are you going to make fun of me, too? Is Elphaba my only ally here?”
“Hmm. Yeah, just Elphaba, I’m afraid. I vote to shave it.” Tibbett laughs loudly and Crope groans, sinking further into the booth, chin against his chest. “Cropey, I love you but it’s just not your look,” Glinda doubles down.
“First you insult my beard, and then you call me ‘Cropey’ again?” He complains further.
“Sorry, dearest,” Glinda says remorselessly, hand coming to rest easily on Elphaba’s knee, finger running along the seam of her pants.
Elphaba knocks her head against Glinda’s softly. “How was your day, love?” She asks, low and private, as though they’re not surrounded by the loudness of friends.
Glinda sips from her glass. “Good,” she says. “I met with a new author - remember that manuscript I was reading a few weeks ago? I think I’m going to buy it.”
Crope perks up at this, inserting himself into their semi-private conversation. “Yeah? Tell us about it.”
“It’s good, I think. Some kind of fantasy thing. Lots of witches and duels and maidens being rescued by handsome men.” Elphaba bites down on a laugh and Fiyero deigns to look up from his phone finally. Glinda grins sarcastically at him. He sticks his tongue out at her. “Anyway, not really my style, but well written enough that it will sell, I think.”
“That could be fun,” Fiyero counters. “I’m about to sign one. World War I romance.” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively.
“Was there a lot of romance to be found during trench warfare?” Elphaba wonders.
Fiyero shrugs. “It’s a novel, Thropp. Ever heard of it? They’re made up.”
Glinda loves this, the enduring flame of affection in her chest at her friends bickering back and forth over this slightly sticky table. Crope and Tibbett trading sips of their cocktails, Fiyero and Elphaba trying to outsmart and out-snark the other. Glinda leaning heavily against the woman she loves, poking fun at each and every one of them in equal measure. This feeling alone would sustain her through the longest winter.
Tibbett groans, breaking her of her musing. “You guys have got to stop publishing books so fast!” He complains. “Ever since Manek left, our team is so small and they refuse to hire anyone else.”
Crope shakes his head. “It’s crazy; we’re always behind, it feels like. And Morrible hates all my best covers.”
Fiyero and Glinda nod. “Horrible Morrible,” they both say simultaneously.
“Glinda,” Elphaba scolds.
“Hey! He said it too!” Glinda defends herself, pointing at where Fiyero sits on Elphaba’s other side.
“Yes, but he’s not my girlfriend, so I can’t chastize him.”
Fiyero leans around the green woman and sticks his tongue out at Glinda again. “Did you see that?!” Glinda sputters, twisting across her girlfriend in the booth to try and smack him.
“Both of you grow up,” Tibbett demands. “Elphaba, tell us about something happening outside of Shiz, please. I can only participate in work-talk for so long.”
Elphaba holds a hand up in front of both Fiyero and Glinda as they keep trying to make faces at the other. “Thanks for asking,” she says genuinely, ignoring the bickering on either side of her. “The novel went over well enough that I think I might be able to get more traction on another collection, so I’m midway through working on that right now.”
“Poetry collection?” Crope asks over the lip of his glass.
“Yes, Cropey, that was her concentration at university,” Glinda answers for her.
Elphaba continues to ignore her, much to Glinda’s despair. “Yeah, I published a couple chapbook-style collections when I was still getting my MFA, but I don’t think a single person read them. So now I’m trying again with slightly more weight behind me.”
“That’s awesome, dude,” Tibbett congratulates. “Do you know who’s publishing?”
“Not me!” Glinda nearly wails. “She’s not letting me even look at it! It’s an injustice.”
Elphaba turns to the blonde with the affect of someone who has had this exact conversation a half dozen times already. “Glinda, it is not an injustice. It is a conflict of interest, and you do not edit poetry, remember?”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about work?” Fiyero says.
Elphaba is grateful for the out. “Right, sorry. But, oh!” She brightens, sitting up straighter, smile suddenly shy, “Glinda’s going to move in with me! That’s something. A non-work something, even.”
“I am?”
The table is immediately hushed, a horrible and uncanny stillness settling over the scene. “G,” Elphaba says too slowly, “we just talked about this like a week ago.”
Glinda takes her hand, pressing her thumb into the meat of Elphaba’s palm. “No, baby, I know that. I just thought you were moving in with me.”
“Why?”
“Because Glinda’s apartment is better in every conceivable way?” Fiyero notes absently.
“Thank you, you’re back to being my friend now,” Glinda informs him. “And yes, he’s right. Your apartment is tiny and has a terrible view and six square inches of counter space.”
Elphaba looks at her softly, a little confused and so pretty. Her glasses are off and Glinda can see the furrow of her brow that much more clearly. “But… my furniture is nicer than yours.”
“So bring it to my apartment, Elphaba. You’re the smartest person I know; you must understand how moving works.”
The green woman shakes her head as if shaking off a thought or a dream. “You’re right, I just… haven’t thought about it. I like my apartment.”
Glinda reaches up to tuck a piece of dark hair behind Elphaba’s ear. “That’s fine, we’ll talk about it later. Without the peanut gallery around.” Glinda gives a playful glare to the boys who are leaning too far into the conversation. Elphaba squeezes her hand and Glinda knows they’re fine.
“I feel like this is always happening to you guys at this very establishment,” Crope says with a laugh.
Glinda tears her gaze away from Elphaba for a moment to glance at Crope. “What do you mean?”
“Does someone erase your memories every night, Glinda?” Fiyero wonders.
“Elphie, hit him.”
“No. And what Crope means is that, if you and I are having a life-altering conversation, we’re usually at this table.” Her grin is lopsided and beautiful and if Glinda weren’t surrounded by people who are being ever so slightly annoying, she would kiss the smirk off Elphaba’s face. It’s amazing how easy it’s become to love her, like breathing.
And Crope isn’t wrong, either. She and Elphaba spent every Friday at the Peach & Kidney for more than four months, hunched over the manuscript and a beer, arguing and writing and falling back in love. It was standing in line at the bar that Glinda came out to Tibbett. It was on the other side of this same booth that Glinda told Fiyero everything that had transpired between the two of them. It was not this table, but the one across the room, where Elphaba reached out her hand and held Glinda’s as she apologized for the years and years of lost time between them. It was on the sidewalk in front of the bar, with the snow falling lazily, that Elphaba kissed Glinda again for the first time in nearly a decade.
But she thinks her friend is more likely referencing the time, nearly a year ago now, when Glinda had pushed open the front door with Elphaba’s hand clasped tightly in her own. When Glinda understood, for the first time in her life, what it meant to love someone who mattered - what it meant to be proud of it, even.
Glinda had spent that entire day in bed, Elphaba pressed tightly against her, a deferent finger tracing the tattoos along Elphaba’s ribs, learning all the things she had missed. It was deep into the afternoon when she finally extracted herself from bed, from Elphaba’s orbit, and texted the boys.
Glinda: emergency drinks @ p&k @ 7. b there
Fiyero: busy. how abt 8?
Glinda: ya thats ok
Crope: Aren’t you guys editors? Can you please use some semblance of punctuation?
Glinda: Dearest Crope (and Tibbs), I humbly request your presence at the Peach & Kidney this evening at eight o’clock post-meridiem to discuss something of the utmost importance. If you are unable to attend, please do let me know at your earliest convenience. With love and gratitude, Glinda A. Upland.
Crope: Fine.
Tibbett: We’ll be there. Crope’s just being a grump.
Glinda: Gorgeous, thanks. C U L8R.
Glinda returned to the bedroom and looked up from her phone. The breath was stolen swiftly from her lungs. “God, you’re so beautiful,” she said. Elphaba whipped her head back up at the whispered confession, as the slowest grin made its way across her face.
Elphaba was sitting in bed, the late afternoon sun pale against her skin, the sheet pooled around her waist, as she put her hair up, the lithe muscles of her arms on display. “Hi,” she said, somehow shy. “What’s up?”
“Drinks with the boys tonight, if you’re up for it,” Glinda informed her.
Elphaba's look of surprise put something unpleasant in Glinda’s chest. “Are you… I mean, are you sure?”
Glinda was startled by her own conviction. “Yes, Elphaba. I’ve never been more sure. But I can wait if it would make you feel more comfortable. I mean, I did say it was an emergency meeting, but I can concoct an emergency easily if I need to,” she grinned. “But I meant what I said earlier; I’m all in, all yours.”
Elphaba’s look softened. “No,” she agreed, “I don’t want to wait.”
“We’ve done too much of that already, I figured.”
Her smile was new and giddy and fascinating. Glinda wanted to drink it in. “I’ll have to go to mine and change,” she said, “I can meet you there.”
“Or…?”
“Are you angling for an invite?” Elphaba wondered, head cocked.
Glinda shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “Maybe.”
“G, you were in my apartment two days ago. Remember? Showed up unannounced and sort of knocked the world off its axis?” Elphaba teased.
“Yes, but I was so busy crying and then making out that I didn’t have a chance to look around,” Glinda said. “And I’d like to think that I returned the earth to its proper rotation, set it right again.”
Elphaba held out a hand, and Glinda looked at her from the doorway for long seconds, this woman whom she had loved in some capacity, in some strange and unfair way, since they were young. She was somehow sitting in Glinda’s bed, late in the afternoon, naked and stunning, and holding out a hand, an invitation to Glinda who barely deserved it. Glinda took half a step forward and let green fingers tangle with her own.
Elphaba tugged Glinda to the edge of the bed, pressed her lips to Glinda’s sternum. “Hi. I love you. Of course you can come over.”
“Let us go then, you and I,” Glinda quoted, hand at the back of Elphaba’s neck, “When the evening is spread out against the sky.”
So Elphaba pulled Glinda the handful of blocks through the snow to her apartment. Elphaba, unhurried, peeled Glinda’s clothes off and dragged her into the shower. They were late by the time they arrived outside the Peach & Kidney, Elphaba’s cheeks flushed in the cold. Despite that, Glinda stopped them at the door.
“You’re good with this, right?” Glinda asked again, rambling. “I mean, Fiyero already knows, which means that C and T probably already know. But I love you, and I don’t want to have to dance around it anymore.”
Elphaba's smile was a sharp little thing. “Then we should probably go inside, my sweet.”
And that’s how it began again: with Elphaba’s hand in hers, Crope’s easy grin from across the table, Fiyero’s knowing look. With Tibbett rolling his eyes and fishing a 20 from his wallet to slap into Crope’s open palm. With Elphaba laughing long and hard next to her. With a years-long sense of dread evaporating under the weight of Elphaba’s arm slung across her shoulder.
The Elphaba of this moment—the one with her glasses off and hair down, the one drinking a dark beer and doing her best to keep Glinda and Fiyero from teasing each other too viciously—nudges Glinda’s shoulder, cajoling her back into the present. It’s a present that looks an awful lot like that past, as Crope had just pointed out.
Glinda blinks and shakes off her reminiscing. “Sorry,” she mutters, and Elphaba flashes her another quick smile. Glinda returns to herself, to her group of friends. “But yes. Anyway. Someone is moving in with someone else. It’s all going to be great, and we’ll save a fortune on rent.”
“Happy for you guys,” Fiyero says, and Glinda knows he means it. “I have news of my own,” he announces, sitting up straighter, picking at the label of his beer. “Remember that really hot friend of Elphaba’s from her birthday party?”
“Who?” Elphaba wonders.
“Sarima.”
Crope and Tibbett share a glance. “The tall one? With the cool hair?” Elphaba and Fiyero both nod. “Yeah, she was super hot. Why?”
Fiyero clears his throat dramatically. “She couldn’t resist my charm and my good looks and we’ve been going out for a bit. I wanted to bring her to drinks next week but didn’t know if it would be weird for you, Thropp. Since she’s your friend and all.” His characteristic bravado is tempered slightly by the end of his sentence and Glinda can see the slightly nervous glint in his eye. It’s been a long time since Glinda met anyone he’s gone out with, so she knows it must be at least somewhat serious.
She makes fun of him anyway: “She’s like, way out of your league, Yero.”
“Well, Elphaba is out of your league,” he fires back.
“Obviously.” Glinda gestures at her girlfriend as if to say, look at her!
“That’s not weird for me at all,” Elphaba interrupts their bickering again. “You guys make sense. Bring her by.”
Tibbett reaches out and gives Fiyero a quick fist bump, which he returns with a half-smile.
Glinda leans over Elphaba again. “I’m happy for you, honestly.”
“She is,” Elphaba reiterates, “she’s just really punchy for some reason.”
“If we’re not supposed to dance, why all this music?” Glinda says sagely.
Crope narrows his eyes at her. “Elphaba, translate?”
The green woman swings her gaze over to Glinda again and Glinda feels lit from within, feels over-full with affection. “She’s happy to be alive and happy to be here with you all. And maybe that’s the greatest joy we’ll ever know,” Elphaba says, either recognizing the poem Glinda referenced or just seeing it in her face. Either way, she’s nearly perfectly right. As is this whole evening.
They’re on the subway home later that night, Elphaba slumped in her seat enough that she can rest her head on Glinda’s shoulder as the train screeches its way through the underground. Glinda is looking at their reflection in the opposite window, the image of Elphaba leaning against her flickering and stuttering against the glass as the train slides away from a station. She knows when Elphaba’s writing a poem—as she is now—when her eyes glaze over and her jaw begins working over syllables. In a moment, she’ll pull out the notes app on her phone and jot something down that she may or may not ever look at again. It’s all part of the process, Glinda has learned.
Before they get to the next station, she sits up and digs her phone from her back pocket, just as Glinda knew she would. She had always done this, Glinda realized after they had started dating again. Elphaba was always going a bit hazy-eyed and lost for a second before scribbling something frantically on a scrap of paper, the margins of a book. Glinda had just never asked about it at Crage - had never even known that Elphaba wrote poetry.
She’s jealous, sometimes—watching Elphaba curled into her desk chair, the end of a pen in her mouth and that humming of energy around her—that Elphaba somehow managed to get both the analytical brilliance and the creative spark. Glinda always thought that being an excellent reader—something she prides herself on—never made for a very good writer. Elphaba disproves this theory wonderfully.
It’s sort of astonishing, Glinda remembers thinking when they were halfway through editing Elphaba’s novel, to be looking at something, someone, who is so clearly going to make their mark on the literary canon.
And she did. No Good Deed was an instant success. Elphaba was suddenly topping bestseller lists, going on a national book tour, doing readings and interviews and radio shows, winning awards and being shortlisted for every possible accolade. Glinda had never published anything so popular - she’s pretty sure Shiz had never published anything so popular. There was a brief few months at the beginning of their newfound relationship in which Elphaba felt nearly like a celebrity, being flown out by bookshops and universities to read and sign and answer questions about the book.
When she finally got back from the final stop on her tour—after her flight from Seattle was delayed and delayed, after Glinda met her at the airport and carried her bag to the taxi rank, after Elphaba fell asleep on the ride home—the green woman lay against Glinda on the couch and promised she would never write another book again.
“How will you pay your bills, Elphaba?” Glinda inquired, fingers threading through long, black hair.
“I don’t care as long as I don’t have to be even remotely famous ever again.”
Glinda laughed, and Elphaba smiled against her. “I guess your next book is going to have to be terrible, then. Think you can manage?”
But Glinda knows the next book won’t be terrible - can’t be terrible. Even if Elphaba refuses to let her read a single word of anything from this newest collection, Glinda knows that Elphaba is nearly incapable of writing something terrible.
Glinda is looking at her with a wistful kind of smile when Elphaba clicks her phone off. She catches Glinda’s eye as the subway lurches to a stop at their station. “What?” She asks softly, standing and plunging her hands deep into the pockets of her coat, already anticipating the chill once they burst out into the street-level air.
“Nothing,” Glinda says, following her out of the turnstile. “I just love you, is all.” Elphaba doesn’t respond, just holds her elbow out for Glinda to loop her arm through. They walk home pressed tightly to one another, twin breaths fogging in the cold night.
_________
Crope and Tibbett host Thanksgiving at their apartment and all their friends are dressed too nicely and jammed too close to one another in the small space. Glinda can’t stop smiling. She catches Elphaba’s eye across the too-full room several times. She delights in watching that lovely little smirk pull at the corners of Elphaba’s mouth, as though she’s trying desperately not to smile but falling victim to it regardless. She’s wearing the softest sweater Glinda’s ever seen, light brown, the collar of a stark white shirt underneath it, sleeves pushed up against the warmth of the room, swirls of ink peeking out from beneath the fabric. Elphaba catches her staring, raises a glass, winks at Glinda from the kitchen. Glinda feels the blush rise to her cheeks too quickly. When Elphaba teases her about it later, Glinda blames the champagne in her glass.
They stay late and help with the dishes, even as the boys insist they sit down. Glinda notices it first when Tibbett hands her a plate to dry: a glint of silver catching the light. She nearly drops the plate.
“Hey, Tibbs,” she says, keeping her voice too even. “When were you planning on telling us?” She asks. Elphaba glances over her shoulder with a quick and curious look - she knows Glinda’s tones by now.
“Tell you what?” Tibbett asks, distracted in front of the sink.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe that you’re engaged? Something like that seems worthy of telling your closest friends, don’t you think?”
Fiyero leaps up from the couch with a little yelp and grabs Tibbett’s left hand, red and sudsy from doing dishes. “Look!” Fiyero cries, holding the hand up for Elphaba to see. A thin silver band gleams on his ring finger.
“It just happened!” Crope called from the other room. Glinda can hear the smile in his voice even before he rounds the corner. “We were going to tell you guys before everyone else showed up, but all three of you were late.”
Fiyero drops Tibbett’s hand and sweeps Crope into a bracing hug, lifting the smaller man off his feet entirely. Glinda, hands still wrapped around a ceramic serving platter, presses a sloppy kiss to Tibbett’s cheek before Elphaba pulls him into a stiff hug.
“Oh, Cropey,” Glinda croons, finally setting the plate down and grabbing her friend by the shoulders. “I’m so happy for you. Oh, what poem should I read at your wedding?! Tell us everything. Who asked who? I assume you both said yes, right? Oh, I’m so pleased. Start from the beginning and spare no detail.”
Elphaba has to drag Glinda away from him so he can even begin answering her litany of questions.
She leaves their home feeling warmer than she has any right to feel, given the snow in the forecast, buoyed by her friends and their love and how handsome Elphaba looked all night.
“Isn’t this just the best?” Glinda asks wistfully as Elphaba unlocks her door.
“I thought you didn’t like my apartment,” the green woman grumbles, “that’s why I’m moving in with you.”
Glinda huffs. “I do like your apartment; mine is just bigger. And I meant this,” Glinda clarifies to no avail. “This whole evening. You looking so nice, Crope and Tibbett and their rings, Fiyero being so utterly himself. It’s just the best.” Elphaba tugs at the collar of Glinda’s coat and the blonde lets it slip off her shoulders. When she doesn’t respond, Glinda turns to find Elphaba standing in the entryway, holding Glinda’s coat and looking at her with enough affection that Glinda can feel it in the air. “What’s wrong?” Glinda asks, even though she knows there’s probably nothing wrong, nothing at all.
“I love you very much,” Elphaba replies, a thin undercurrent of emotion lacing her voice.
“I know,” Glinda says—it’s not cocky, it’s just honest; Glinda knows it in her very marrow. “I love you, too. But you know that also.”
“I do.” Glinda hopes that’s not the last time she hears Elphaba say those same words to her. She pretends not to have that thought, though, just smiles to herself and watches as Elphaba finally hangs up her coat.
“Come on, let’s go to bed.”
__________
Winter’s bitter song rolls on; sheets of ice coat the sidewalks and then melt, one March afternoon sparkles so blindingly that Glinda has to squint through the freezing air on her way home. She stops at a corner store to pick up a tube of toothpaste and leaves with gloved fingers wrapped around a small bouquet of flowers that had seen better days.
It wasn’t difficult to make room for Elphaba’s things in her apartment. She had moved her record player across the room to make space for Elphaba’s writing desk, solid and oak and apparently a family heirloom. They swapped Glinda’s couch for Elphaba’s nicer one and Glinda had to stifle her amusement when she watched Fiyero and Elphaba try to maneuver her old sofa down the narrow staircase and out onto the curb.
Elphaba had shed her sweatshirt halfway down the five flights and Fiyero had mocked her for it. “Do you really need those kinds of biceps to be a poet, Thropp?” He teased as Elphaba hefted her side of the couch back up.
“And what are all your muscles for, pretty boy?” She fired back, groaning under the weight of the furniture. “Copy editing?”
“Stop it, you two,” Glinda scolded from the bottom of the stairwell.
“Or you could help, Glinda,” Fiyero suggested pointlessly.
“Looks like you guys have it handled, what with all those muscles.”
Glinda had pouted, but in the end she gave up a whole third of her closet space for Elphaba’s many button-downs. More often than not, when Glinda comes home, Elphaba is hunched over a book or her laptop, wearing one of the same faded t-shirts she wore in college. But sometime in between their years at Crage Hall and when Elphaba’s manuscript showed up on Glinda’s desk, Elphaba had learned how to dress: slacks and button-downs and the occasional blouse. She looks mostly the same as she did, though, and Glinda loves it. Loves that she can look at Elphaba and see, almost precisely, the same girl she spent lazy summer afternoons sitting next to on the quad. Of course, there are the few premature grey hairs, the new wardrobe and fresh tattoos, the beginnings of a wrinkle at her eyes when she smiles too widely. But, on the whole, Elphaba is the same woman she has loved from the jump.
How nice, Glinda thinks from time to time, that someone can be so the same and so different. That so much and so little can change. That Glinda can open the door to their apartment and find Elphaba curled around a mug and a book.
Elphaba looks up now as Glinda comes in, her hands full with her work bag and the toothpaste and now the flowers. The green woman stands to come take some of the load off her hands.
“What’s the occasion?” Elphaba wonders, stooping slightly to press her cheek to Glinda’s, lips at her jaw, warm and too quick.
“No real reason,” Glinda admits, shucking off her gloves and coat as Elphaba hunts for a vase in the kitchen. She won’t find one; Glinda knows this for a fact. “I do have a request though—separate from the flowers, I promise I’m not trying to butter you up.”
Elphaba sets a pint glass of water on the table for Glinda to deposit the bouquet. “Hit me.”
“My parents are going to be in town next week and they want to meet you.”
“Oh. Okay, yeah. I’m busy on Tuesday evening but otherwise free.”
“What?”
“I have a meeting with a potential agent on Tuesday - I think I told you about that. But if you wanted to do dinner with your parents, I’m free any other time,” Elphaba explains. Glinda blinks at her, surprised somehow. “What?”
“Nothing, I just thought I would have to talk you into it,” Glinda admits.
Now it’s Elphaba’s turn to throw a confused look her direction. “Why would you think that?”
“I don’t know! It’s a big step; that’s a big thing, meeting someone’s parents.”
Elphaba’s smile is slow and warm. “Galinda, look around. It’s been a year. We live together. This is already a big thing.”
Sometimes Elphaba does that, slips up, uses Galinda instead. The blonde isn’t even sure she notices; it just comes out. Usually when Elphaba’s saying something important, something she means, that old name makes an appearance whether she means to or not. Mostly, though, it happens in bed. Glinda never draws attention to it, loves that little slip-up, that little reminder that Elphaba has known all iterations of her.
“No, you’re right. I wasn’t implying that this isn’t anything. I just thought you would be more nervous.”
“Plenty of time for the nerves to creep in, I’m sure.” Her smile is lopsided when she says it. “Is that something you want, though? I know it was a little… tricky.”
“Excellent vocabulary from the novelist. And yes, I know. It was kind of tricky,” Glinda admits, toeing off her boots and meeting her girlfriend back on the couch, tossing her legs over Elphaba’s lap. “But that was a while ago, and we’re okay now. They were never bad about it, mostly just surprised, I think.”
Glinda had called her mom last year, when the spring was finally making some headway against the particularly brutal winter. She was on her way home from having drinks with Phannee and Shenshen, who were in town for a long weekend. They hadn’t done a great job of staying in touch after graduation—a phone call here and there on someone’s birthday, a liked instagram post—but they had asked Glinda to grab a drink while they were visiting and she had agreed.
It had been fine - nice, even. Lots of reminiscing about their college days, catching each other up on the last few years.
Eventually Phannee asked, “And what about you, Galinda, do you still see anyone from Crage?”
Glinda nodded over the lip of her glass - it was less endearing when it wasn’t Elphaba messing up her name. “Yeah, you guys remember Fiyero, right?”
“Oh gosh, of course!”
“Well, he and I work together at Shiz. Our offices are actually across the hall. We’re still good friends.”
Shenshen waggled an eyebrow, “Just friends? He was very handsome, if I remember correctly.”
“He was,” Phannee agreed.
“Just friends,” Glinda assured them.
“Which is crazy,” Shenshen continued, “because you were on the arm of a different boy every month. But never him?”
“Never him. He’s always been too important to me for that,” Glinda said. “But, hey, do you guys remember Elphaba Thropp?”
Phannee narrowed her eyes and Glinda could see her thinking hard. “Elphaba Thropp…” she murmured, “Elphaba… the green girl?” Glinda nodded.
“Don’t tell me you barely kept in touch with us but are friends with the green girl?” Shenshen said, laughing, though Glinda was having trouble telling what was a joke and what wasn’t. “I mean, were you even friends with her in college?”
“I was, kind of, yes,” Glinda said. “But she’s in New York now too and a writer. I just worked on a book of hers, actually. Anyway, we reconnected.”
“You and the green girl?” Phannee asked needlessly.
Glinda’s tone was harder, sharper, than she intended. “Elphaba, yes. And actually, we’re together. We’re dating. She’s my girlfriend.” Glinda felt like she had to say it in as many ways as she possibly could, just to get the point across.
Shenshen started to laugh again but cut herself off at Glinda’s expression. “Oh. You’re not joking.”
“I am not.”
“But, Galinda, why…? You had your pick of men at Crage—”
“And I still chose Elphaba. Even then,” she snapped, grabbing her purse and laying a generous twenty on the table for her drink. “She’s smarter and kinder and way fucking cooler than you’ll ever be.”
She walked out of the bar so calmly it scared her. But strangely, the first person she called wasn’t Elphaba. It wasn’t Fiyero, or Tibbett (who had proven himself to be good during a Glinda-crisis), or even Crope.
Glinda walked the long way home through the park, the sun just beginning to set, the spring just beginning to make itself known, with her phone pressed tight to her ear. It rang for long seconds and then, finally, suddenly, “Mom?”
“Glinda, honey, how are you?”
“I’m fine, Mom. I’m good.”
“Good, good. Oh, we’ve had just the most frightful weather the last few days, I swear…”
She let her mother ramble for a while, listening to her voice filter through the evening to her from hundreds of miles away. After Larena updated her on the weather, after she moved on to her book club and other neighborhood happenings, she finally said, “And Glinda, dear, how are you doing? How’s work? How’s Fiyero?”
Glinda grinned, despite herself. “It’s good. Really good, actually. I just edited a book that’s doing really well - like, bestseller well.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful! You’ll have to send us a copy,” her mother crowed.
“I will, I promise. And Fiyero is good - same as always. Sends his love, I’m sure,” Glinda said. “And, um, well. I’ve actually, kind of, been seeing someone.” Her voice felt so small and far away, so different from the woman who had just concicely and confidently stood up for herself and ended a friendship in doing so.
“Glinda, sweetie, you’re holding out on us! Tell me everything! What’s he like? Where did you meet? It’s not Fiyero, is it?”
Glinda barked out a laugh, “No, it’s not Fiyero. Um, we actually met at school, at Crage.”
“Really? How delightful. What an exceptional story to tell - this is going to be the talk of our next book club, Glinda, really!”
She still hadn’t done what she needed to do, hadn’t said what she needed to say. It was right there; she could feel the words in her mouth, getting all jumbled up in there. The sun was an orange glow between skyscrapers now.
“Yeah, Mom. The thing is… well, she’s very special to me. She’s very special, and I love her a lot. I think you would too.”
There was a terrible silence on the other line and Glinda looked up to realize she had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, people streaming around her.
“Oh,” her mother finally said. “Oh. Well, that’s something. She’s a…?”
Glinda filled in the blank. “She’s a woman, yes.”
“And you have always… I mean, have you always?”
She nodded, realized her mother couldn’t see, and said, so quietly, “Yes. Always.”
Her mom cleared her throat. “Okay, honey. Well, I’m glad you’re happy and that your book is doing well. Um, send me a copy for my book club, okay? I love you.”
The conversation was, apparently, over. “Oh, okay. Love you, too.”
Glinda cried on Fiyero’s couch that night.
It had been, to borrow Elphaba’s word, tricky. At least for a little while. But she talked to her mother the next week and Larena had apologized, explained that she wasn’t upset, that she was surprised, sad, even, that Glinda had never felt comfortable being herself. Glinda didn’t get into the long and tumultuous story of her first relationship with Elphaba, but she did try to explain to her mom that, while she may have always been interested in women, she didn’t let herself know it until much more recently. When she hung up the phone that time, she felt lighter. Tibbett had been right the first time, all those months ago: the world didn’t burn.
Glinda is pulled back into the present by Elphaba’s hand on her knee. “Hey,” she said softly. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“No, no, I know that,” Glinda assures her. “I was just thinking about it, is all. It’s fine. If you’re up for it, I want you to meet them.”
Elphaba nods slowly, thumb running a distracted arc beneath the hem of Glinda’s pant leg, across the bone of her ankle. It shouldn’t be distracting, but Glinda’s breath falters all the same. “I want that, too,” she says.
“Good,” Glinda says firmly. “How was your day? Any progress?”
Elphaba tilts her head. “A bit? I don’t know, it’s so different from the novel. I kind of miss the ability to just sort of…” she gestures with a sweep of her free hand, “let the plot take me somewhere weird.”
“Is that your process for writing prose?”
Elphaba shrugs, “I guess?”
“No wonder that manuscript was such a bitch to edit; you had no idea what you were even writing about!” Glinda laughs, head falling backwards onto the arm of the couch.
Elphaba smacks her calf playfully. “Hey, watch it. That book was the best thing I’ve ever done.”
Glinda sits back up, sobers slightly. “You really think so?”
“Of course,” Elphaba says with a disbelieving smile. “I mean, look what it got me.”
Glinda huffs. “Can’t be that much. Authors are woefully underpaid.”
“That’s not what I meant, my sweet,” Elphaba says softly. “I mean this. My life. You. I could write a thousand books and none of them will matter as much because that’s the only one that changed my life.”
Glinda is blinking back tears before she even knows how they got there. “Elphaba, baby,” she sits up fully and takes Elphaba’s hand in hers, “You have to keep writing now, you know that, right? Because you have so much more to say and I really want to read it.”
_________
It’s still too cold for the dress Glinda’s wearing, but then again, she’s always turning too quickly into the next season, eager for the change, to feel time passing. And she looks very good in it; she knows that. Elphaba’s wide-eyed expression confirmed it.
Elphaba is walking next to her, hands deep in her pockets, her shoulders nearly at her ears. “Elphie, relax,” Glinda prompts, pressing a hand between her shoulder blades. “You’ll be fine.”
“I want it to go well,” she says softly, “I want them to like me.”
Glinda stops them abruptly, pulls Elphaba in front of her. “They will like you because I like you. I promise.”
“I’m not sure that’s true… they don’t know about all the terrible things I’ve done.”
“Like what, Elphaba?”
“I don’t know!” She’s spinning out, clearly. Glinda has ten minutes to sort Elphaba out before they’re supposed to sit down at dinner with Glinda’s parents. “They don’t know about the time that I fucked you in the library - that was totally against the rules.”
“And they will never know about that. Why would you even think about telling my parents that story?” Her expression is nearly panicked. Glinda inhales sharply and pulls them both out of the middle of the sidewalk. “Okay, babe. Take a very deep breath and start being more normal, please.”
“I’ve never done this, Galinda,” she says, nearly pleading, “I’ve never met anyone’s parents. I don’t know what to do.” So much for her nonchalance last week when Glinda had broached the idea. The nerves did, in fact, creep in.
Glinda’s holding onto her shoulders. “Elphaba, my dearest darlingest idiot, it’s okay to be nervous. But I just need you to calm down a bit and remember that you’re just having a normal dinner conversation. That’s all it is. You’ll be okay. I’ll be right there the whole time.”
“You promise?”
Glinda holds up a pinky. “I promise.” Elphaba hooks hers to Glinda’s, expression serious. “You’ll be fine.”
“I’ll be fine,” Elphaba agrees, psyching herself up. “Come on.”
They’re steps from the restaurant when Elphaba stops suddenly again. “G, they know, right?”
“Yes, babe, it was a whole thing. They were just upset that I didn’t come out to them earlier,” Glinda reminds her, eager to get there, to get the initial meeting over with.
Elphaba clutches her hand harder. “No. Glinda. They know that I’m green, right? You told them that I’m green?”
“Fuck.” Glinda’s stomach drops. She knows how much Elphaba prefers when people know about her verdigris beforehand, how much easier it makes her life when she doesn’t have to deal with seeing the initial shock of it herself. “I’m so sorry. Okay, here’s what we’ll do. You walk around the block as slowly as you possibly can, and I’ll go tell them right now.”
Elphaba nods too quickly and Glinda dips into the restaurant by herself as Elphaba turns the corner with a stricken glance back at the blonde. Glinda just hopes that she does come back, that she doesn’t just keep walking until she gets to the end of Manhattan.
She steels herself and catches her dad’s eye from across the room. “Fuck,” she whispers to herself before plastering on the brightest smile she can manage.
“Glinda, honey,” her dad calls, wrapping her in an easy hug when she arrives at their table. “We’ve missed you.”
“Me too,” Glinda says honestly. For all her anxiety about this meal, she forgot how much she actually loves seeing her parents, how much she’s missed them in the year or so since she’s been home to visit.
Her mom is standing now, pulling Glinda into her. “Oh, my dear. We’re so happy to see you. Where’s Elphaba?”
Glinda extracts herself from her mom’s grip. “Well, that’s the thing.”
“Don’t tell me she’s not coming; we were really looking forward to meeting her.”
“Yes,” her dad agrees, “we’ve heard so much about her.”
“No, she’ll be here in just a second,” Glinda says quickly, too quickly. “Okay, the thing is, I was so caught up in telling you about her being a woman and me being a lesbian, that I forgot to mention a sort of curious thing about Elphaba.”
“What is it, honey?” Larena asks, concern clear in her voice.
“Well. So, Elphaba is so incredible and so lovely and smart and so, so beautiful,” Glinda has no idea where this sentence is going but she keeps at it, hoping to find the point somewhere along the way, “and also she is, well, she’s green. Like the color. The color of her is green.”
“What?”
“Green. It’s very pretty. She’ll be here in like two seconds, please don’t say anything weird,” Glinda begs. “You’ll get used to it in no time and it’s actually really lovely - I just need you guys to not be weird about it.”
They’re still standing around the table, Glinda not having given anyone a moment to settle in. Larena looks at her daughter with wide eyes, confused and a bit flustered (though Glinda attributes that more to the slightly unhinged way she delivered the news than to the news itself). “Okay. Yes, of course,” her mom says and Glinda feels herself exhale too loudly. “I would assume that’s her, then,” Larena finishes with a smile, looking over Glinda’s shoulder.
“Probably. She’s very singular.”
There’s a hand at the small of her back and then there’s Elphaba’s easy grin. “Hi, sorry I’m late.”
Glinda leans her shoulder into Elphaba’s, feeling some strange mixture of relief and anxiety and affection. “This is Elphaba,” Glinda announces needlessly.
Glinda watches as her mom breaks into the easiest, warmest grin she’s ever seen. There’s something underneath the smile though, an undercurrent of mischief, humor, that Glinda isn’t used to.
“Well,” Larena starts, and Glinda sends a prayer to whoever may be listening that the rest of her sentence is normal, “Glinda didn’t mention anything about you having tattoos.”
Elphaba laughs so hard that she nearly doubles over, and Glinda just rolls her eyes. “There’s only so many warnings she can provide, I’m afraid,” Elphaba says, still laughing.
“Come here,” Larena says warmly, pushing away Elphaba’s attempt at a handshake. “It’s wonderful to meet you, Elphaba.”
She’s beaming when she reaches over the table to shake her dad’s hand. Glinda wonders what she was so concerned about - what either of them was ever concerned about. Towards the end of the meal, with Elphaba answering a question about her novel for Larena (who had forced her book club to read No Good Deed last month), and her mom taking notes like there would be an exam on it, Glinda’s dad leans across the table conspiratorially.
“I think I understand now,” he says quietly. “I didn’t at first, and I’m sorry for that. But meeting her, seeing you with her. I understand you better.” Glinda doesn’t say anything, just feels her chest tighten with unexpected emotion. “You always tried so hard to be perfect, and I’m sorry if we ever made you feel like this kind of a life wasn’t perfect. It is, clearly. She’s perfect for you.”
It’s the crest of emotion in her dad’s voice that makes Glinda cry. “She is.”
“G?” Elphaba’s hand is hovering over her shoulder, like she’s not sure if she should be a comfort right now.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she laughs wetly. “Ignore this side of the table, please. Tell her about all the plot holes in your book that I fixed.”
Elphaba finally lets her hand settle, tugs gently at the shell of Glinda’s ear, and fixes her a look so filled to the brim with love that Glinda could die from affection right there.
_________
“Elphabaaaaa!” Glinda sings, coming back inside with two iced coffees from the shop around the corner. “Put that nonsense away.”
Elphaba raises her head slowly and, oh, Glinda loves her so much. Her hair is up messily, and she’s wearing boxers and a sleeveless t-shirt that Glinda swears she remembers from college. “It’s not nonsense, necessarily. I know it might seem like it most of the time, but I’m hoping it becomes sensicle soon,” she says softly, nodding at whatever verse she’s working her way through.
“It will. Regardless, you’re done for the day.”
“It’s 9 am.”
“And you’ve been writing since 5, I assume,” Glinda argues, handing her the coffee. “Doesn’t matter. You’re done for now. We’re having a lake day.”
“I’m not going to the Central Park lake.”
“No, dummy. Fiyero’s family has a lakehouse, like, an hour upstate. He’s driving. And you are coming,” Glinda demands. “Do you own a swimsuit?”
Elphaba does, in fact, own a swimsuit. It’s black and plain, unsurprisingly. But it’s a two-piece, surprisingly, and leaves little to the imagination. Not that Glinda has to imagine much—she ended the prior evening with Elphaba’s hips pressing urgently against her mouth. Now Elphaba is standing in the knee-high water, shading her eyes with her hand, the long line of her reflected blurrily on the surface of the water. Fiyero and Crope are barefoot and shirtless on the thin stripe of sand, arcing a baseball higher and higher with each throw until it becomes a speck in the blue of the sky.
Glinda is leaning against the porch railing next to Sarima, a homemade shandy in her hand, the sun beating down warmly on her back. “I’m glad you’re here,” she says to the newcomer. Though they had known her as a tangential friend of Elphaba’s, Fiyero had officially introduced them to Sarima a couple of months ago. She’s not a regular at their Thursday night drinks yet, but she’s coming around more and more often.
Sarima lifts her glass in response. “Me too. You guys are a good time.”
“If a little bit insane,” Glinda qualifies with a grin. “Yero’s been my friend for a very long time, and it’s rare that he brings someone around. This isn’t a shovel talk, I promise.” Sarima laughs genuinely. “I just mean that you guys seem solid. And I like you independent of that, also. If you were Elphaba’s friend before this, then that’s enough of a vote of confidence for us.”
“Happy to hear it,” she replies, still laughing. “And hey, thanks for making space for me. I know you’re all very tight-knit. And I’ve had trouble before—with guys and their best friends being weird and jealous.”
“No, all the other women here are gay, so you’re in the clear,” Glinda teases.
“Yeah, you two have something special going on,” Sarima says, nodding at Elphaba, who’s still standing in the shallows, teaching Tibbett how to skip rocks. “I don’t know the whole story but Fi said it was complicated once.”
“It was,” Glinda nods slowly. “I was… well, let’s just say that I’ve done a lot of growing. And I’m lucky she has a deep well of forgiveness.”
“Glinda!” The blonde snaps her head up from where her gaze had been lingering on the ground below her. Elphaba is giving an exaggerated wave from the shore. Instead of responding, Glinda gives a long whistle of appreciation. “Don’t be crass,” Elphaba yells, “come swim with me.”
Glinda turns back to Sarmia, squeezing her arm on her way off the porch. “Thanks for coming, you’re a good one.” And then she’s loping down the back steps, pulling her t-shirt off and tossing it on a beach chair. And then she’s running across the hot sand into the small waves lapping against the shore, spraying up water as she goes. Elphaba is grinning at her and Glinda doesn’t slow down.
“Where are you going?!”
“We’re racing,” Glinda tells her breathlessly, water up to her hips now, pointing out at the floating dock some fifteen yards out before diving under the surface of the lake. She hears Elphaba splash in behind her.
When she surfaces halfway to the dock, Elphaba is making clean strokes through the water, her hair a dark rope, her body a green ribbon.
Glinda wins—only by virtue of her headstart—and brags about it as she hauls herself up onto the warm wood of the dock. She lies out, limbs spread across the dock and Elphaba flops down next to her. They stay like that for long minutes, the sun a red glow behind Glinda’s eyelids, the sound of Elphaba catching her breath, the rocking of the water below them, their friends laughing from the shore, too far away to hear distinct voices but close enough to know the joy. Glinda would rather this moment not end. She always feels this way during the summer, though, syrupy, wanting the days to last forever.
It reminds her of the summer she and Elphaba spent together at Crage, TAing and doing research on a nearly empty campus. Spending the day on the quad, in the library. Ending up in bed together until it became too close to something real and one of them would leave. Only to do it all again the next day. As much as she didn’t understand that relationship, she remembers feeling this same way: like she wants the sun to stay high in the sky and let the summer have its way with her.
Eventually, she feels Elphaba sit up next to her, feels a hand on her sun-warmed skin. “God, you’re so beautiful,” she says, softly enough to be a prayer.
Glinda cracks an eye open. She loves Elphaba in the summer: the smattering of freckles on the bridge of her nose, the shorts and t-shirts she wears that let Glinda admire all the tattoos, the smell of sunscreen and sweat. “Look who’s talking,” she smirks, sitting halfway up, one hand braced behind her, the other tangling into the strap of Elphaba’s suit. “So pretty,” Glinda murmurs, tugging the green woman into her. Elphaba responds immediately, hand glancing across Glinda’s hip, smiling under Glinda’s mouth.
Elphaba’s hand creeps dangerously higher the longer they kiss, until her thumb is running a teasing line across her ribs where her suit ends and her skin begins. Glinda gasps into her mouth at the exact same moment that Fiyero yells across the water, “Hey! Keep it PG, girls! No one wants to see all that!”
Elphaba’s laughing against her, lips still pressed to Glinda’s. Glinda pulls her hand away from the back of Elphaba’s neck to raise a middle finger in the direction of Fiyero’s voice before she pushes off from the weathered wood and straddles Elphaba’s lap without breaking the kiss. Elphaba’s hands land at her waist and she huffs a laugh into Glinda’s mouth.
“Grab my ass,” Glinda demands against Elphaba’s lips.
“What?” She laughs.
“Just do it.” Elphaba complies easily and Glinda finally pulls away, turns around towards the shore, yelling, “Is that better?”
Elphaba’s laughing so hard that she falls back against the wood of the dock, eyes closed against the sun or her joy; Glinda can’t tell. She beams at her anyway and ignores the jeers from her far-away friends.
“Come on,” Glinda says, standing from Elphaba’s lap and holding out a hand to her. “Time to get back.” She hauls Elphaba to her feet and then they’re standing too close again and it becomes too easy to press up and kiss Elphaba long and hard.
Elphaba pushes her off the dock and into the lake before diving in after her, beating her to shore.
_________
“Hi. You ready to go?” Elphaba peeks her head around Glinda’s office door.
Glinda knew she was here. Elphaba had texted her earlier: “Hey, I’ve got a meeting at Shiz this afternoon. Let’s get dinner after?” So it’s not that Glinda got nothing done all day; it’s just that she had been looking forward to the end of her day since it began.
And now, here it was—Elphaba in a blazer, her bag over her shoulder, a half-grin on her face.
“Hi. Just about ready. Come in for a second.” Glinda finishes up an email while Elphaba looks around her office, stooping to examine her bookshelf. “Are those new pants?” Glinda asks, gaze flickering between her computer and her girlfriend.
“Yeah, they’re corduroy. You like ‘em?”
Glinda nods, “Very cute,” before returning to her work.
Elphaba is still at the bookshelf and pulls out a thin volume from a poet that Shiz had published a couple of years ago. “You mind if I borrow this?” She asks.
Glinda waves a hand before returning to the keyboard. “Go for it. What’s mine is yours, and all.”
Elphaba moves on, picks up a picture frame on Glinda’s desk. In it, a photo from when Glinda was young, her parents on either side of her, blonde hair done up in pigtails. “You were cute,” Elphaba murmurs.
“I’m still cute,” Glinda replies, hitting send and shutting off her monitor. “What’s going on? You’re antsy.”
“No I’m not.”
“You’re touching every single thing in my office.”
“I’m naturally curious.”
Glinda rolls her eyes and comes out from behind her desk. “Hi,” she says again, kissing Elphaba quickly. “Let me grab my stuff and then we’ll go.”
They’re on their way out when Fiyero leans out of his office. “Hey, you guys going to drinks?”
“Yes, but in the way that you do when you’re in a relationship with someone. Romantically, you know,” Glinda explains.
“What?”
Elphaba steps in. “I think she means that we would love to invite you, but we have a date planned.”
“Right. Concision has never been her strong point.”
“Tell that to the very concise novels I edit,” Glinda teases. “Anyway, we’ll grab a drink tomorrow, Yero, as we always do. Have a good night.”
He dips his head. Elphaba waves. “You guys too.”
They step into the elevator and Elphaba hits the button for the ground floor. “Or we could go to the third floor,” Glinda suggests.
“Why would we do that?”
“That’s where the conference rooms are. Remember? When I saw you again for the first time and almost threw up because you looked so pretty?” Glinda says.
“Is that what happened?” Elphaba hums. “Seemed to me like you were about to rip me apart.”
“Oh,” Glinda says, elevator doors whooshing open, “I was.” She tosses a rogue look over her shoulder. “I like a look of agony.”
They find themselves at a restaurant in SoHo, all candlelit and intimate and much too nice for a last-minute date night. Elphaba is dressed too nicely and has been acting strange since she appeared in Glinda’s office. They’re halfway through their first cocktail when Glinda gives her girlfriend a curious glance. “You’re either about to give me really bad news or you’re going to propose, and I don’t think it’s the latter. What’s going on with you?”
Elphaba’s sheepish look is an answer enough. “I have something to tell you,” she starts.
“If you’re going to propose, this is not the way. I need a little more than a nice meal on a Wednesday evening.”
“I’m not proposing, Glinda.”
“Shame.”
“I’m nearly ready to publish this collection and I’m going to publish through Shiz but you can’t be my editor,” Elphaba says in one long, run-on sentence.
Glinda narrows her eyes, eats the too-sweet cherry from the toothpick in her cocktail without taking her gaze off Elphaba. “So who is, then?” She asks.
“Milla.”
“Milla?! Milla from work?”
“Yes, Glin.”
“But she’s so boring.”
Elphaba takes Glinda’s hand from over the white tablecloth. “That actually doesn’t matter all that much. She’s Shiz’s only poetry editor and I wanted to stay with Shiz - I had a really good experience publishing my novel—”
“Because you were in love with your editor.”
“—but I needed someone objective, someone who edits poetry. She was my only option,” Elphaba explains pleadingly. “Baby, you have to understand. I love you, I think you’re so fucking good at what you do. But it’s a conflict of interest, really.”
“Were your interests conflicted when you came to me the first time? How about when you kissed me after I gave you the advanced readers copy of your book?” It’s a rhetorical question, mostly. And Glinda knew this would happen; she’s known from the jump that Elphaba isn’t going to let her edit any of her work again. She’s very rigid in that way.
“Galinda, you have sort of always conflicted my interests.”
Somehow it’s the most romantic thing Elphaba’s ever said.
_________
“Really, Elphaba, are there no perks to this relationship?” Glinda whines. It’s a Monday night. The spring is honest this year, arriving early and not leaving for long months. Elphaba is a long line in the grass, the slant of her body against the blanket, an open bottle of wine propped against her hip. Her poetry collection comes out tomorrow and Glinda just knows there’s an advanced copy at the bottom of the tote bag that Elphaba won’t let her hold.
“My sweet, you can buy the book tomorrow like everyone else.”
“Am I not special?” Glinda pouts.
Elphaba leans forward, palm against Glinda’s cheek. “You’re so special. You’re everything. But I do not have a copy for you to read.”
“I know you do, Elphie.”
Elphaba huffs and grabs her bag from the other side of the picnic blanket, plops it on top of Glinda’s stomach. “Have at it, darling. Nothing in there for you except a wine opener.”
She’s not lying. There is a book of poetry among the picnic supplies, but it’s just Pablo Neruda with a dozen dog-eared pages and more verses underlined than not. Glinda doesn’t even know the title of Elphaba’s book. She hasn’t been allowed to read a single word, hasn’t been given a single hint. It’s so unlike her first book, when Glinda was almost as familiar with the text as Elphaba was.
“It’s not fair,” she whines again. “It’s like you don’t even want me to read it.”
Something passes over Elphaba’s features at this, something Glinda can’t quite place. “I do, Glinda. I really want you to read it. All of it. I just can’t be around you when you read it - that’s too much pressure.”
“I’m going to love it, you know that, right?”
“You might not,” Elphaba points out. “And even if you do, I can’t stand the thought of watching you read it.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know? Read it in private and then tell me what you think later?”
Glinda shakes her head as much as she’s able from the ground. “You’re so high maintenance. Just don’t forget about your coming out party tomorrow night. I’ll have finished it by then, I hope you know.”
“I’ve been out for years - I don’t know why I need a party now.”
“You’re not funny.” Glinda rolls her eyes at Elphaba’s smirk but sits up and looks hard at her. “I’m really proud of you, Elphaba Thropp. You’re my favorite poet-turned-novelist-turned-poet-again.”
“I love you, too.”
_________
Glinda is standing outside the bookstore before it opens and the clerk gives her a curious look as they unlock the door. “Do you guys have Elphaba Thropp’s new poetry collection?” She asks too quickly, without even pretending to look around.
The clerk taps on their computer for a second before saying, “Yeah, we haven’t even unpacked them yet. Let me grab a copy from the back.”
“Can you grab three, please?”
He returns with three slim hardback books and sets them before Glinda and she runs her hand over the cover with something akin to reverence. The cover is simple - a navy blue background with embossed gold lettering: Thank Goodness.
Glinda feels a tightening in her chest that she can’t name. She traces a finger over Elphaba’s name. There’s a spark of joy, gladness, pride, just plain, unbounded love.
“That’ll be $44.97,” he interrupts. “And we should have some signed copies in later this week if you wanted to stop by for one of those.”
Glinda shakes her head. “No need, she can sign these at home.”
Glinda holds a copy tight to her chest as she calls in sick to work and sits at an outdoor cafe with a coffee and her girlfriend’s new book. She cracks open the spine and is already struck with a cresting wave of emotion at the title page:
Thank Goodness.
A new collection from New York Times Bestselling author Elphaba Thropp.
The epigraph is from a poem that Elphaba had read aloud to Glinda when they were twenty years old: “Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty.”
The dedication page reads only: For Galinda
_________
When Glinda arrives at the Peach & Kidney that evening, it’s just Elphaba in their usual booth, her nose buried in a book. Glinda is already talking when she slides in across from her.
“I mean, Elphaba, I knew you were good, I knew you had something special going on but I think this might be a new type of sorcery,” Glinda says, still clutching the collection. “There is something really, really close to magic here. I mean it. And you can tell—or maybe just I can tell because I have known you for so long—who the influences are. Like, I read some of this and I hear Dickinson and I hear Oliver and Stevens and sometimes I even hear something more ancient and Sappho. But it’s all so fresh and arresting.”
Elphaba’s grin, which had started off so small, so timid, is starting to make itself known. Glinda plows on. “I feel like I know you better and somehow that hurts because I was supposed to know you the best. Which is silly, I realize. But it feels so lucky that I get to know you differently through this. I just. Wow. I’ll have more to say once I read it again but I am so totally in awe of you.”
“So it’s okay?”
“I know you’re fishing for compliments, but I will give them anyway. It’s more than okay. You’ve done something really fucking special.”
“You read it all?”
Glinda nods. “Of course. I bought three copies—which was nearly $50, by the way, so feel free to get the first round. What am I talking about? This is your party, of course I’m buying. What can I get you? Where are the boys?”
“They’ll be here soon.” Elphaba reaches across the table and grabs Glinda’s wrist before she can stand. “You read all of it?”
Glinda huffs. “Yes, Elphie.”
Elphaba raises an eyebrow at her. “Even the acknowledgements?”
Glinda cocks her head. “No, I didn’t know there were acknowledgements. I was so moved that I just had to sit with the text for a while. I didn’t think to look.”
Her grin is a soft little thing, private and almost scared. “Maybe you should read those really quick,” Elphaba suggests, letting go of her hand. Glinda’s look is loaded with a question that Elphaba doesn’t answer. She just nods back at the book. Glinda opens it again and skips to the end. “Read it out loud… if you want.”
“Okay." She clears her throat. "‘Many thanks to everyone who made this book happen. Thank you to all the wonderful people at Shiz Publishing House for taking not one, but two very different chances on me as a writer. Thank you to my editor, Milla, who helped sculpt these poems into their final shape.
‘I owe a debt of gratitude to my sister, Nessa, who has been reviewing my work since before she could read. And to Fiyero, who has become something of a brother to me. C&T for your constant and caring friendship.
‘And to Glinda, who found me again, who introduced me to myself again. To Glinda, whom I wrote this book to impress. To Glinda, whom I’m hoping will agree to marry me if she reads this far.’”
Glinda’s breath is sharp. She looks back up from the page to find the woman she loves sporting a nervous grin. A velvet box open on the table between them.
“Only if you want to.”
“Oh,” Glinda says, chest aching. “I do. I really, really do.”