Deirdre opens the door, a vision of opulence with onyx hair and topaz eyes. One look at her and Cassie forgets about Ben and the kids. She finds herself in the narrow entryway of Deirdre’s apartment. Cooking smells of oil and garlic permeate the air, settling in her throat.
“It’s been too long!” Deirdre exclaims, pulling her in for a hug. She wears ripped jeans and a white tank top with no bra. The pebble of her nipple presses into Cassie’s clavicle. The last time they saw each other was Deirdre’s wedding day. Today her ring finger is bare.
Cassie walks behind Deirdre, noting that even in her kitten heels she’s still a head shorter than her barefooted friend. The hallway opens to a one-bedroom apartment with an open kitchen and living room. The floors are parquet and scuffed. There’s not even a rug. It’s the antithesis of the borrowed penthouses where Deirdre used to take residence. To see her living like this is jarring, like finding a pedigreed Himalayan cat in an alleyway.
Cassie can usually find something complimentary to say about a home, but today she can’t even muster up a ‘nice place.’ Instead, she says, “I remember this table,” as they pass through the kitchen where the glass dining table sits. The back corner is chipped from when she banged it into a door frame during one of Deirdre’s moves.
“I think I’ll have this table until I die,” Deirdre says. Her voice is monotone.
She leads Cassie to the living room and motions to the beat-up sectional couch, its mottled cream fabric a testament to every spilled glass of wine and fallen canapé. Framed photos of Deirdre posing with celebrities and standing in front of private jets adorn the beige walls. A showcase of a fabulous life lived twenty years ago.
Deirdre raises an eyebrow and looks Cassie up and down, “I didn’t realize you were a Stepford wife.”
Cassie clears her throat and takes a seat on the couch, avoiding her gaze. She’s wearing a prim floral dress with balloon sleeves and a high neckline. This morning she’d selected it hoping to impress Deirdre with her current-season Zimmermann. Now she’s embarrassed, not only by her ostentatiousness, but also by the fact that Deirdre looks like a rockstar while Cassie dresses as if her life is a perpetual brunch.
“What a great view,” she says, relieved to have found something to remark upon. Across from her a window reveals a vastness of spring foliage in all shades of green with the Toronto Skyline in the distance—the futuristic CN Tower surrounded by a cluster of rectangles, like minions flocking to their overlord.
“Best thing about this shithole.” Deirdre gestures to the massive water bottle that Cassie put on the coffee table. “I’d offer you a drink, but it looks like you’re good.”
“I try to drink at least three litres a day,” Cassie says of her meal replacement. At a body weight ten pounds below average, it’s her preference to appear as a woman of great restraint—food never did it for her anyway.
As Deirdre lowers herself onto the couch, their legs touch. She settles here, inches from Cassie’s corner seat, despite the row of empty cushions. At first Cassie tenses up, but then eases into the familiarity of Deirdre’s limbs pressed against her own. A yearning brews inside her. That too is familiar.
“How are the kids? Your husband?” Deirdre asks.
Cassie tells her about how her kids are growing up so fast; her husband, so busy at work, but who makes time for them on weekends. Generic platitudes to move the conversation away from her home life. The mention of her family fills her with trepidation.
“What are you up to these days?” she asks.
“I’m making jewelry. I’ll show you,” Deirdre rises and goes to the bedroom. Without the warmth of her leg, the room feels cold.
Cassie rubs the gooseflesh from her knees and calves as if trying to scrub them off with friction. It reminds her of how she rubs her son’s arms over a towel when he gets out of the bath. She has the urge to leave. There’s no good reason to be here. What she and Deirdre had is best kept in the past, like the dusty memory of a wild vacation fling.
From the bedroom she hears drawers sliding open and banging shut, the faint murmur of Deirdre humming the disco song Hot Stuff—the song that played at the club the first time they were together. It was a seventies-themed event. Deirdre wore a sheer turquoise caftan that showed her bra and made her eyes glow.
Cassie looks at the front door longingly. If she leaves now, she can send Deirdre a message that the kids’ school called and won’t ever have to see her again. She reaches into her purse for her phone and then remembers it’s in the car, parked at the lot near her aesthetician. Today her family calendar shows a three-hour spa appointment. The phone is in her glove box, corroborating her alibi.
Deirdre returns with a wooden tea box. Its glass lid reveals square compartments filled with beaded bracelets. Cassie glances at the door once more and then resigns herself to an afternoon with her old friend.
“I started beading during the pandemic.” Deirdre sits on the couch and opens the box, taking out each piece with care.
“Oh, these are beautiful. Are they for sale? I’ll buy some.” Cassie says. She mostly sticks to solid-gold bangles or diamond tennis bracelets, but her six-year-old would like the crystal beads and colours.
“Yeah, I sell them on Etsy, but I make my living on Only Fans,” Deirdre stares at her hands, picks at the skin around her nails.
Cassie stifles a gasp. “What’s that like?” she asks in her most casual voice, careful not to appear judgemental. It’s the same voice she used when her daughter wet the bed the previous week.
“What? To be desired by many but loved by none? Business as usual,” Deirdre says. She smiles as if making a joke. It’s the painted-on smile of a porcelain doll.
Her words are a pang in Cassie’s heart. She puts her hand on Deirdre’s knee and gives it a consolatory squeeze. “I always…I mean, I…” she stops.
“You always what?” Deirdre looks at her with searching eyes.
Cassie quickly removes her hand and crosses her arms, “I forgot what I was going to say. Are you still modelling? Acting?”
Deirdre shrugs. “A bit, but I’m a weird age. Difficult to cast me. My agent says I’m too sexy to be a mom, but not young enough to be a daughter or girlfriend. So, for now it’s just webcam shows for horny dudes. Oh, I have some food, one sec.”
Deirdre gets up and busies herself in the kitchen. The chop of a knife, the clang of a dish. The invitation today was for afternoon tea. She’s made no indication they’ll be having any. Cassie decides she won’t give her the biscotti she brought—the good kind, from the Italian grocer. A cacophony of city noises from outside reminds her why she moved uptown. Sirens wail, horns punctuate.
She tries to recall how she once felt for Deirdre. Had it been love, or exploitation? The countless, seemingly endless favours. Building furniture, reading lines, rides to the airport. Cassie had jumped at the chance to help, wanting to ensure her friend was taken care of. Even today, a small part of her wants to sweep the gritty floors and put coasters on the coffee table. This apartment feels neglected—Deirdre seems neglected. Cassie feels a tinge of guilt knowing how well taken care of she’s been by Ben all these years. Her stomach tightens at the thought of her husband.
There’s nothing wrong with seeing an old friend. Her reverie’s prickly, like a person at the grocery store trying to return a carton of eggs they’d dropped.
Deirdre returns with a platter of berries and a can of whipped cream. She puts a dollop of white foam on a strawberry and takes a slow bite, “Best part of not doing runway.”
“I could never eat that,” Cassie says. It’s hard not to stare at Deirdre’s mouth. Her plush lips lifting and contracting as she chews.
“Don’t you have a cheat day?” She’s looking right into Cassie’s eyes.
Cassie’s face feels hot, melting in Deirdre’s gaze. She looks away in embarrassment, but it’s fleeting. With her hair and makeup done and brand-new outfit, Cassie feels put together and in control, while Deirdre, who’d always seemed on the precipice of greatness with her modelling gigs and TV commercials, picks at her cuticles in worn-out jeans. If there were an upper hand to this exchange, Cassie has it.
In this moment, Deirdre feels like an ex popping up from obscurity for one last tryst. Cassie pushes this thought aside. They were friends and now they’ve moved on. Looking around the modest living room, she wonders if Deirdre regrets not having married for money when she’d had the chance.
Deirdre runs her hand through her hair. She opens and closes her mouth as if wanting to speak. Instead, she takes a sip of water.
“What is it?” Cassie asks.
“Why did you stop calling me? I thought we were friends.”
“I’m married now,” Cassie crosses her legs and folds her hands on her thigh, a picture of chastity in her colonial-style dress.
“He can come,” she gives a flirtatious wink.
“Ben’s not into it.”
“Sounds like you found a good one.” There’s bitterness in her voice.
“What happened with you and Ian?” Cassie asks.
“Fucker left me for a better deal.” Deirdre snorts softly. Her jaw pulsates as she clenches and unclenches her teeth.
“What an asshole. I never liked him.”
“Yeah, I figured. You pretty much disappeared when him and I got together.” Her voice breaks, betraying her stony glare.
The shrapnel of her words tear into Cassie. The mention of Ian opens old wounds. “I couldn’t handle it,” she manages. She’d only met Deirdre’s ex-husband once, when she’d joined them in the bedroom. He’d watched the two of them have sex, making commentary like they were putting on a show. Months later, she sat in the pews of the city hall chapel digging her nails in her thigh as she watched them walk down the aisle.
Cassie swallows. She didn’t even invite Deirdre to her wedding. Surely Deirdre was offended by that. Is this visit meant to be an open forum on the ways they’d hurt each other? She opens her mouth to ask this but is interrupted by the kettle, screeching from the kitchen. Deirdre hurries off to make the shrieking stop.
Through the window, a network of clouds quilts the sky. A grey shadow is cast on the valley below, muting the greens, rendering the trees dark and listless in its underbelly. Cassie’s glued to the couch, anticipating the worst, ready for a fight. She takes a long swig from her flagon of a water bottle. The uncertainty is exhilarating.
Her life has become so routine, she feels like she’s on autopilot. She drops the kids off at school, does her workout, blinks and then she’s clearing the dinner table. So many hours lost in the mundanity of repetition, at times she forgets what day it is. But to be here fighting with an ex, or a friend, or whatever Dierdre was to her, is a break from the cycle. Her pulse quickens, as if on some cellular level she knows something big is about to happen.
Deirdre returns with two steaming mugs, places them on the coffee table. With a loud exhale she says, “This isn’t what I wanted to do today. Can we try again?”
Cassie is taken aback. In the past Deirdre would have told anyone who’d disrespected her where to go. This version of her friend feels like a different person. Dumbfounded, she nods.
Deirdre sits down beside her and pulls her in for an embrace. “It’s just nice to be here with you.” Her slender arms feel light on Cassie’s shoulders. So different from the weight of her husband’s.
At her touch, the tension leaves Cassie’s body, like a cleansing exhale. Cassie wraps her arms around Deirdre’s back, holds her delicate head in her hands, breathes in her lavender-scented shampoo. The sun peeks through the clouds, shining light into the room. A halo of peach fuzz shimmers off the side of Deirdre’s cheek. Cassie’s resolve is thinning, waning like the tide. “I really missed you,” she whispers.
With her face inches away from Deirdre’s there’s no more thinking; surrender is her only option. “I shouldn’t be doing this,” she mutters with whatever scraps of conviction she can dredge up. Later she’ll reflect on this day and remind herself how hard she tried to leave.
◊ ◊ ◊
Deirdre’s bed is a mess of sex toys and clothing, serpentine blankets. The two women lay beside each other, their bodies intertwined. It smells of pot and cigarette smoke cloaked in a veil of lemongrass from the diffuser. A breeze from the open window tickles Cassie’s neck. She closes her eyes and gets lost in this feeling of being free. “That was like the first time,” she says. Her voice comes out as a purr, raspy and satisfied.
“I still think about it.”
“Me too.” Cassie looks at Deirdre, her dark hair cascading over the pillow, her shocking blue eyes now softly lined, the regal tip of her nose, the deep bow of her lip. She doesn’t belong in this shabby bedroom with its beige walls and chipboard furniture.
“You are so, incredibly, beautiful.”
Deirdre basks in Cassie’s praise like a hot summer day. Head back, chest up, she preens. “A dude could tell me that all day long and it wouldn’t make me the feel the way I do when you say it.”
“Why do you think that is?” With the tip of her finger, she traces her hand across Deirdre’s jawline, the angles of her cheekbones. “You’re exquisite. You must know that.”
“When someone like you says so, I believe it. I mean look at you. You’re basically perfect. How have you had two kids?”
Cassie’s entire body feels warm. A genuine compliment from a woman she admires lands differently than the constant praise from her husband, who has to love her no matter what. Ben doesn’t even notice her cellulite, will never understand what it’s like to look in the mirror and find new things to hate. Until now, the grueling morning workouts and water fasts felt pointless. Lightheaded, she giggles. Her giddiness is contagious. Deirdre laughs too.
They hold each other, run fingers through each other’s hair, softly kiss. Cassie lays on her side, propping herself up with her elbow and takes in the sight of Deirdre who at last is looking like her former self, unburdened by her outcome. She lowers the sheets revealing her pert breasts. The decadence of her naked body fills Cassie with indulgence—a feeling she seldom entertains.
“You should come by more,” Deirdre says.
“You know I can’t.”
“But this was so good. This is how it should be.” She clasps her hand around Cassie’s wrist. “Please come see me again.” Her eyes shine with unspent tears.
“Is everything okay with you?”
“You’re the only one who ever cared for me.” Her voice is barely audible. “It was always you.”
“Why did you marry Ian? When you came back from LA with a ring on your finger, I was blindsided.” The words sprang up from the pit of her stomach like a bronco, bucking and thrashing on its way out. Cassie’s vision shakes.
“Blindsided?” Deirdre lets out a sharp laugh. “Did you want to buy me a ring?”
Heat creeps up from Cassie’s neck, spreads to both her cheeks. She’s suddenly aware of her nakedness. She looks down at her bare breasts and feels more exposed than the day she delivered her son vaginally in front of a team of medical students. She yanks the sheets up to her collarbone.
Dierdre’s looking at her expectantly, as if the question wasn’t meant to be rhetorical. The way Deirdre pries—the way she’s always pried. This is why they stopped being friends. With so many absent years between them, Cassie wonders if she can even call Deirdre a friend anymore.
Deirdre’s sitting up, speaking louder now. “You never once made me think there was a future for us. Not once. You would come over, sit across the room. No hugging, no touching, waiting for me to make a move. Always waiting, never doing,” she points a finger at Cassie as she chastises her.
“I didn’t want you to think I just wanted to have sex all the time.”
“Didn’t you?”
Cassie blushes. “I didn’t want to make you feel used. So, I waited for you to make the first move.”
“Cassie, I don’t make the first move. People hit on me.”
“Me too,” Cassie says softly. She remembers leaving restaurants with Deirdre, each unsure who would pay, who’d open the door, neither one prepared to take the lead. “You had all these guys buying you purses, giving you places to live. I couldn’t compete with that. All I could do was be your friend and hope for more.”
Deirdre sighs, her voice softens, “And I always wondered why you were sitting so far away.”
Cassie places a hand on Deirdre’s arm, keeping her touch light and non-committal. “I’m glad we’re talking about this. We’ve always felt unfinished.”
“We don’t have to be. We can start over,” she leans in for a kiss, but Cassie turns away.
“Deirdre, I’m married now. I have kids. It’s not that simple. I can’t just leave everything behind. I’m happy.”
“I see you on Instagram. Your life looks so perfect. I thought maybe it was fake, like you were just posting the good parts.”
Cassie considers this. Her Instagram is a shrine to beautiful family moments and themed T-shirts. She thinks of how many photos it takes to get the right one—everyone smiling, no signs of sibling battery or work emails. The hours after the post, checking back to see how many likes it generates, each thumbs-up and comment a pat on the back, re-affirming her life choices.
A spear of sunlight pierces her eyes from the exposed window. She winces. There should be a shade over that window; there should be curtains to draw. Her throat is dry. Her tongue thick and limp in her mouth. She looks at the tangled bed, at Deirdre, mascara smudged, lighting a cigarette, and realizes she’s made a terrible mistake. Whatever she and Deirdre once had—their tryst, their fling, whatever it was—is over now.
“I think I have to go.” She kisses her friend on the cheek and stares in her eyes one last time. “Don’t sell yourself short, Deir. Find the happiness you deserve.”
“Same to you.”
“I already have.”
“Then why’d you come over?”
◊ ◊ ◊
Cassie collects her belongings—bra and panties in the bedroom, floral dress on the couch—feeling naked even as she dresses herself. From the bedroom she hears the canned laughter of a midday sitcom. Deirdre’s watching TV in the bed, chain smoking, ignoring her. Cassie’s loath to leave on bad terms but understands this is how it must be. The uncertainty shrouding their relationship has dissipated. After today she’ll regard Deirdre as an old friend, nothing more.
She looks around the living room one last time—the wine-stained couch, the photos hanging on the wall like the vision boards they used to make—and pities Deirdre. These photos should be aspirations, not memories. She wants her friend to once again be the woman on a yacht donning an enormous sunhat, not the forty-year-old who lives in an apartment fit for a college student. The view isn’t nice enough to justify the rest of it. Deirdre should find something better.
Her mug of tea sits on the coffee table cold and untouched. She lifts it to her mouth, guzzles it down in one long sip. Adrenaline surges through her like after a five-mile run. Her stomach rumbles. Cassie picks up her purse and fishes through it for the biscotti she’d brought. She tears open the cellophane and shoves a hard cookie in her mouth. Chocolate chip—Ben’s favourite. She eats a second one and then, in keeping with social graces, decides to leave the rest for Deirdre, who did, after all, host her this afternoon. Cassie calls over her shoulder. “Lovely to see you again, Deirdre. Thanks for having me!” There’s no response.
As Cassie walks through the apartment, she tries to tally up the extra calories she consumed today but decides there is no point in rehashing what can’t be changed. It’s a rarity for her to take a mulligan on her diet, but today Cassie feels different in her body. No longer a woman of great restraint, but one of freedom and indulgence. Tonight, she’ll order Italian food from the place with the pillowy ravioli and melt-in-your-mouth burrata. On her way home, she’ll pick up more biscotti, for Ben this time. They’ll have it for desert with gelato. Her diet will start tomorrow. She opens the front door and leaves Deirdre’s apartment, closing the door softly behind her.
L.S. Redding holds a certificate of Creative Writing from the University of Toronto. In 2014 she was the recipient of the Marina Nemat Literary Award. She is a bisexual cis woman who resides in Toronto with her husband and two children. Follow her at https://www.instagram.com/l.s.redding/
