Chapter Text
Day Three Hundred and Sixty Five: Evening
“Bea! Oh my God, you absolutely shouldn’t have!”
Camila stands stock still at the kitchen counter marvelling over the cardboard box of doughnuts Beatrice had picked up earlier this morning.
“I wanted to,” Beatrice says from where she is lounging on the couch. “The lemon curd one is for me but you two can have at the rest.”
“Should I be worried about you being so generous all of a sudden?” Lilith asks as she sets down a large wooden bowl on their dining table.
Beatrice stands up to help set the table.
“Can’t I just do a nice thing for my friends?”
“I dunno,” Lilith squints at her before ducking into the cabinet above the sink for plates. “We have a farmer’s market round the corner but you got up early to go to the one that’s half an hour away.”
“That’s the one with the doughnuts,” Beatrice reminds her as she counts out three sets of utensils.
“Well, I’m not complaining,” Camila announces through a mouthful of fried dough.
“You couldn’t wait to have one until after dinner?” Lilith groans.
“Yeah Camila,” Beatrice piles on, setting the utensils down next to each plate. She’s happy that Camila is enjoying her treat but she applies a playful sternness to her voice. “Lilith has been slaving away all afternoon over this meal.”
“I need my energy!” Camila defends herself emphatically, a ring of powdered sugar around her lips. “We’re gonna be up all night getting Bea back on the apps!”
Beatrice rounds the counter and obscures her facial expression by going to retrieve the cloth napkins from their drawer. She’s trying to have a good attitude about tonight. She really is. But the idea of picking out a photo to ‘show off her good side’ and writing a bio that makes her sound a lot more playful and extroverted than she knows she’ll be on a first date is almost enough to cost her her appetite.
“Oh, I hope it’s not all night,” she says as she joins her friends at the table.
Camila puts a hand on her shoulder. Beatrice forces herself to focus on her friend’s face and not the fact that Camila has yet to wash that hand.
“I’m willing to be here for as long as it takes,” Camila swears solemnly.
“And I’m going to bed at eleven.” Lilith shakes out her napkin before draping it over her lap.
“It’s Friday, Lilith! You should be living it up with us!”
Lilith begins to dole out generous scoops of her Indonesian rice salad onto Camila and Beatrice’s plates.
“Forgive me if I don’t consider what is basically administrative work ‘living it up’.”
She scoops some of the rice onto her own plate.
“Pssht!” Camila scolds. “Cut it out! You’re gonna scare Bea off.”
“I can hear you both,” Beatrice reminds them, calmly spooning some rice into her mouth. She covers her mouth with her hand to speak. “And don’t worry, Camila. I have resigned myself to this evening’s plan.”
“It’s gonna be great, Bea! I just know it!” Camila takes a bite of her dinner. “Lilith, this is fucking fantastic.”
“So you always say,” Lilith drawls. She’s playing it cool, but Beatrice can tell she’s quite pleased.
“It’s even better than the last time,” Beatrice adds. “The cashews really pull it together.”
“I only used peanuts last time,” Lilith tells her. “That might be why.”
“Thank you for dinner.”
“Thank you for doughnuts.”
“Right!” Camila claps her hands together. “Since we’re all here, why don’t we get the ball rolling?”
“How about we just enjoy each other’s company and this delicious meal–”
“Bea, it’s been like six months since you’ve been on a date. Time is kinda of the essence here.”
“I doubt 30 minutes will make or break the exercise,” Lilith interjects. Beatrice shoots her an expression of gratitude.
“Fine!” Camila, outnumbered, throws up her hands. “What do you guys wanna talk about?”
Lilith immediately launches into a story Beatrice has heard already about how she watched one of her colleagues flood the office pantry while trying to replace the large water bottle that sits atop the water dispenser. Beatrice reminds her to add the detail about how she noticed that he had taken off the safety stopper but didn’t try to warn him about the deluge that would ensue.
“I wanted to see what would happen,” Lilith shrugs.
“Was it worth it?” Camila’s face is twisted with empathy for the poor guy.
“Absolutely.” Lilith’s eyes are shining. “We have guys coming next week to redo the carpet.”
“I think you may be what they call ‘chaotic neutral’,” Beatrice says.
It makes Lilith’s smile wider.
“How are you, Camila?” Beatrice redirects the conversation when it appears as if Lilith has retreated into her mind’s eye to watch the incident take place again.
“Oh, I’m great!” Camila bounces happily in her seat. “Went out with Todd again last night.”
Lilith makes a sound to indicate that she has returned to their conversation.
“Be nice,” Beatrice warns her. “Todd is nice.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Lilith parries. “But since you’ve said it, Todd is nice. Nice like white bread and plain water are nice.”
Camila, unruffled by Lilith’s dig at her date, folds her arms in front of her chest and raises an eyebrow at her friend.
“You can just say you’re jealous, you know.” A sly smile begins to form on her face. “We can always set up your profile next.”
“Ha!” Lilith barks. “Please. I’ve evolved beyond that sort of thing.”
“And I haven’t?” Beatrice butts in, now offended.
Lilith places a hand on her chest before she replies.
“With all the love in my heart, no.”
Beatrice pretends to catapult the rice from her spoon at Lilith who calls her bluff and doesn’t flinch at all. Instead she takes a long draw from her glass of water.
“I saw you looking at Ava’s profile the other day.”
Beatrice’s jaw goes slack. Fucking traitor.
“I was working.” Beatrice announces as she squints at the green bits on her plate. “Is there coriander in this?”
“Oh, I’m sure you were.” Lilith ignores her question.
If Beatrice hadn’t cleaned the flat after her market run this morning, she might have used this moment to make good on her threat to fling rice at Lilith’s smug face.
“I still can’t believe that our Beatrice kissed the Ava Silva on holiday!” Camila gushes.
On the flight home, Beatrice had made a promise to herself to work on being more forthcoming with her friends. There was no way to do that without telling them about what happened with Ava, but while normally a person who does things in wholes, Beatrice had elected to keep a portion of the story for herself. As far as her friends were concerned, she and Ava had shared but a kiss.
“You didn’t know who she was at the time,” Beatrice reminds her as she deflates in her seat.
“But I do now! You kissed a celebrity!”
“You can relax, Camila,” Lilith chimes in. “She’s just an influencer.”
“An influencer with two million followers! You can’t say she’s not a celebrity.”
“She also has a boyfriend,” Beatrice says. It’s the first time she’s voiced the fact. “So that’s not going anywhere.”
Ava starting to date again was an inevitability. She’d said as much herself. She wanted to be attached, to share her life with another person. The part that had been most surprising to Beatrice was the swiftness with which it had happened.
It couldn’t have been more than a week after Ava had touched back down in L.A. – a guy, curly haired and mustachioed, started appearing in her Instagram stories, in the mix of group photos at clubs. As time went on, he began appearing on the main feed – on Ava’s arm at events and in collaboration posts for a unisex perfume brand. Thankfully, there were no bedroom or bathroom pictures like before – nothing to allow Beatrice to imagine the more intimate parts of their relationship. After what happened between Ava and her ex, it made sense that she wanted to be more careful with what she put out there. And Beatrice was grateful that there wasn’t that kind of photo to look at, because at the end of long weeks when she was collapsed in her bed from both mental and physical exhaustion, disappointing as it was, all she wanted to do was look.
It would have been crazy to think that she and Ava had a shot at something more than their tropical tryst but the appearance of this man was an affront to Beatrice nonetheless. She tried to focus on the positives: Ava’s growing prominence, her successful campaigns, the smile that went all the way up to her eyes. It’s enough to know Ava is doing well and that she is happy.
“And that’s why you’re getting back on the apps!” Camila claps her hands. “We’re going to find you your Todd!”
“I think it’s pronounced ‘toad’,” Lilith says, earning her a firm kick in the shin from Camila.
Beatrice volunteers to do the washing up after dinner. She takes care to scrub every inch of each plate and even chooses to wipe the dishes instead of letting them air dry in the rack as she would normally. She wraps the leftovers with cling film and rewraps them when her first attempt produces more wrinkles than she’d like. She takes so long that Camila stomps into the kitchen, Beatrice’s phone in hand, to scan her face and get started on going through her photo gallery for potential profile photos.
Her fingers are pale and pruney when Beatrice joins her friends poring over her phone on the couch. Lilith is almost done with her post-dinner wine and Camila’s glass on the coffee table looks about as full as it did when Beatrice had poured it for her.
“What do you think of this one?”
Beatrice has to lean back to get her eyes to focus on the screen Camila thrusts in her face.
“It certainly is a photo of me,” Beatrice says non-commitally. “But I don’t really wear dresses these days.”
“Hmm,” Camila’s face scrunches thoughtfully. “That’s true.” She uses her index finger to continue her scroll, Lilith squinting at it behind her. “Do you have any photos of just you in a suit?”
It’s unlikely. She only wears suits to work events, so any photos of her in a suit would have other people in it. But Beatrice still racks her brain for a memory of a photo like that. Maybe she can check her work Dropbox for one. She is starting to get up to retrieve her laptop from her room when her phone pings. It’s the regular chime, not the one set for work messages, so Beatrice guesses it’s a reminder text of an upcoming payment or some other benign promotional message – nothing she has to worry about hiding from her friends.
In unison, Camila and Lilith lean in closer to the phone and then look up at Beatrice.
“What?” Beatrice says quickly, feeling put on the spot.
“Pass it to me,” Lilith tells Camila, who obeys wordlessly.
Lilith swipes around a little before holding the phone against her chest and turning on Beatrice.
“Do you have something you’d like to tell us?”
“I was about to fetch my laptop–”
“No.” Lilith interrupts. “I don’t care about that. I’m asking– are you expecting a text?”
“No,” Beatrice responds, now more confused. “I’m not.”
“Well, you have one,” Lilith says, handing Beatrice her phone.
Beatrice unlocks her phone slowly. She eyes her friends with suspicion, discomforted by their expressions of shock and horror. It takes her a moment to even find the message because the notification for it is gone. It sounded like a normal text. She opens her messages app.
All the air is sucked from the room.
Beatrice blinks twice to make sure she’s not seeing things. But Camila and Lilith had seen it too. And even after blinking, there it is, clear as day.
Unknown number: Hello Broody Beatrice. :)
It can’t be.
But who else would know to call her that?
She has so many questions in this moment but she only asks one.
Beatrice: Ava?
The little typing bubble appears straight away. Beatrice could throw up.
Unknown number: The one and only. ;)
Beatrice’s stomach has twisted itself into a pretzel. Her mouth is dry as the desert. She tries to speak twice before any sound comes out.
“It’s Ava,” she tells her friends.
“Silva?!” Camila shrieks.
Lilith puts her empty glass down and picks up Camila’s, immediately taking a big swig.
“I thought you guys didn’t exchange numbers,” Camila continues.
“We didn’t!” Beatrice is staring at her phone in disbelief.
“Then how–”
“I don’t know, Camila!”
Beatrice’s hands shake as she types out her next question.
Beatrice: How did you get my phone number?
She can’t take her eyes off the screen when Ava’s typing bubble appears. What Ava says next is beyond comprehension.
Unknown number: You gave it to me.
Beatrice: ..?
The next message that comes in is a picture. Beatrice doesn’t parse what she’s looking at until the second picture appears.
The first photo is of a paperback book, the cover slightly worn and edges crinkled like they’ve been exposed to a little too much humidity. The second photo is of the book open, Beatrice’s business card, as she had left it, wedged between the pages.
Unknown number: I was banking on this being your personal number.
Unknown number: Considering it’s 9pm where you are, I think I was right?
Beatrice shakes her head. Ava hasn’t changed one bit.
Beatrice: Yes.
Ava’s text bubble appears again. Beatrice watches it intently, as if taking her eyes off of it will make it go away for good.
Unknown number: I don’t have a lot of time to chat.
Unknown number: Can I call you?
Beatrice looks up at her friends. She still can’t quite wrap her head around what is happening.
“She wants to call me.” Her voice sounds far away to her ears.
“Say ‘yes’!” Camila urges in hushed tones as if Beatrice is already on the phone.
“Put it on speaker,” Lilith instructs.
Beatrice: Okay.
Her phone springs to life in her hands. Beatrice almost drops it. She touches the green circle to accept the call and then toggles it into speakerphone mode as Lilith had told her to.
“Hey Bea.”
Ava’s voice emerges from the phone, playful and sultry. Beatrice immediately takes the call off speakerphone and brings the receiver to her ear. She can’t do this in front of her friends.
“Hi, hello,” she fumbles. “Sorry, just a moment.”
Beatrice stands and motions to Camila and Lilith’s twin expressions of displeasure that she’s going to take the call in her room. She doesn’t wait for acknowledgement before speed walking away from them and shutting her bedroom door behind her. She stands facing it, her arm extended, palm against wood. She lowers her head and keeps her voice down.
“Hello?”
“Hi Bea.”
With her eyes closed, Beatrice can see the smile on Ava’s face.
“Ava.” It really is her.
“It is so crazy to hear your voice,” Ava says.
Beatrice moves to sit on the edge of her bed.
“Likewise. I can’t believe you’ve had my number this whole time…”
Beatrice allows her sentence to trail off. She’s happy to hear from Ava. She doesn’t want to start things off by whinging about how she wishes Ava had reached out sooner.
“I’m sorry it took me so long,” Ava says. “I wanted to text you right away but my phone basically exploded when I got back to the States.”
“No, yeah, of course.” Beatrice winces as she thinks about it. “Your shitstorm.”
“It was bad, Bea.”
Beatrice reclines onto her bed.
“I dunno,” she smiles. “I think you guys handled everything as well as you could have. I mean, the results speak for themselves, right?”
“I was in a lot of trouble with my manager and I’ve basically been locked out of my Instagram account until I can, quote, ‘learn to control myself.”
“Oof,” Beatrice puffs out her cheeks. “And who knows when that’ll be?”
Ava laughs and the weight of Beatrice’s week slips from her shoulders.
There was an instance, around Christmas the year before, during which Beatrice had replied to one of Ava’s Stories. She’d been out drinking and though she was washed up and ready for bed, the adrenaline from the evening was still coursing through her body and keeping her awake. Ava looked great in her outfit for that evening, it seemed to make all the sense in the world to send a fire emoji. That is, until she woke up the next day.
Beatrice, embarrassed by her moment of weakness, had to remind herself that hers was one reply of hundreds of thousands and Ava wasn’t going to see it. She feels better now knowing that, because Ava was locked out of her account at the time, she definitely hadn’t.
“So listen,” Ava’s voice jolts her out of her memory. “I’m going to be in London next week.”
Beatrice’s breath catches in her throat. She listens to the hollow whir coming from Ava’s side. It sounds like she’s in a car.
“Beatrice?”
“Huh? Yeah! Sorry. I’m here.”
“I’d love to see you,” Ava adds. “Y’know, if you’re around.”
Beatrice doesn’t need to check her work calendar to know it’s time-blocked to high heaven.
“I’m around,” she says hastily. “I can be– yeah, I’ll be around.”
“Great!” Ava almost shouts it.
The prospect of seeing Ava again is exhilarating to Beatrice until she remembers that their circumstances have changed. Ava is seeing someone now.
“Are you travelling alone?” Beatrice asks.
“Well, no–” And Ava sounds apologetic as she says it. “It’s for a work thing, so my team is going to be with me – but I’ve told them I’d like some personal time to sightsee and stuff so I’m hopeful I can sneak away.”
Beatrice should just rip the plaster off.
“What about your boyfriend?”
“My boyfr– wha– oh! Hans?!” She sounds like she’s smiling. “Yes, Hans will be with me, too.”
“Great,” Beatrice forces air out of her lungs so her voice is more than a whisper. She’ll have to think of an activity for three people to do.
“Are you seeing anyone?” Ava pries.
It’s tempting to lie – it feels like Ava is rubbing it in – but Beatrice decides on the truth.
“No.” She covers her eyes with her forearm. “But my friends are in the next room getting ready to set me up on the apps again.” “I thought you hated the apps.”
“I do,” Beatrice sighs. “But I agreed that I’d give them one more go.”
“I’m a little surprised.” Ava’s tone is needlessly flirtatious.
“They were really insistent,” Beatrice tries to justify going along with it.
“No, not about that.”
“Then what?”
“That an accomplished advertising professional such as yourself wouldn’t recognise a PR relationship when you see one.”
Beatrice sits up.
“So wait– you’re–”
“Not seeing anyone either,” Ava completes her sentence. “But hey, thanks for confirming that my team’s done a good job of covering my ass.”
“Why didn’t you call?” Beatrice asks. It slips out before she can stop it. She tries to walk back the neediness of her question. “Or text? Or send me an email – Jesus – you have almost all my information.”
“I know,” Ava gloats. “I even found you on LinkedIn. You look cute in a suit.”
Beatrice’s cheeks are burning.
“You could have–”
“And I meant to,” Ava sighs. “I tried to go out there right after the holidays, but Peggy – my manager – she had me on an even shorter leash back then. I didn’t want to reach out until I knew I could see you. I guess I didn’t expect it to take a literal year.”
This whole time. This whole time Beatrice has been daydreaming about Ava, she’s been thinking about her too.
“Fuck, Bea, I’m out of time.” Beatrice can hear voices in the background. “It was so nice talking to you.”
“Right, yeah, okay.”
“Hey, maybe when I’m done with this shoot, if you’re still up, we can talk again? Discuss logistics for next week?”
Looks like Beatrice will be staying up all night after all.
“I’d like that.”
“Cool beans.”
Beatrice snorts.
“Cool beans.”
“Bye Bea.”
“Bye Ava.”
Beatrice can hear Ava start talking to someone else before the line cuts out. She stares at her phone screen. She and Ava had only been on the phone with each other for three minutes but those three short minutes had managed to close a year-long gap in Beatrice’s life. She adds Ava’s number to her contacts.
Her phone buzzes.
Ava Silva: Skip the apps tonight.
Ava Silva: Tell your friends you’ve got a hot date next week. ;)
Beatrice’s cheeks hurt from smiling.
Beatrice: They’re never going to let me live this down.
She massages her face to relax the muscles. This is going to be impossible to explain to Camila and Lilith. Her phone buzzes again.
Ava Silva: Why would you want to? xx
When Beatrice turns the handle of her bedroom door she hears two things: a whispered swear and two sets of feet running a hallway’s distance away from her door. She decides to give her friends an extra five seconds to catch their breath before reappearing in the living room.
Lilith is sitting with her legs crossed pretending to look past the window into their opposite neighbour’s flat but Camila is looking directly at her, in classic Camila fashion, with her arms folded and an eyebrow raised.
“So–” Beatrice starts to explain.
Camila points an accusatory finger at Beatrice.
“You two did not ‘just kiss’.”