Work Text:
“Do you want me to read you something?” she asks, filling the room with a brightness she can barely adjust to at ten in the evening.
She hums in agreement, a pause and she hears paper rustling and her gentle laugh, “yeah I figured you’d enjoy this as much as I do.”
Lisa doesn’t think she has to say anything at this point, how does she say yes, i do, all the fucking time without sounding desperate tonight? Her fingers feel colder at the tips despite it being the middle of summer and most of her shirt clinging to her back from all the sweat. She tries to focus on her breathing—in and out, in and out like a dulled out metronome and it makes the room spin more than it should.
She hears the little hum, “we always talked about going to Paris,” there’s a hint of nostalgia in her tone, “maybe I should learn a bit of French and read you something then?”
Lisa smiles at the teasing undertone and feels warmth creep to her cheeks and fingers, “I’d like that a lot.”
“Maybe I’ll settle on this one for now,” there’s shuffling and muted taps on the keyboard, “Oranges, by Gaby Soto.”
Pause
“The first time I walked, with a girl” she starts, her words coming out more airy than they usually are, “I was twelve,”
Lisa finds herself splayed out on the floor in the middle of the room. The fabric of the carpet clinging to her cool skin. She was beginning to see little white orbs out of the corners of her eyes, the ceiling looking more and more like a tapestry of black and somber green.
“Cold,” the word falls warmly around her, almost as if it intends to blanket her with its truth— she felt cold all over, not too long ago. Hyperventilating against the kitchen table and knocking the cup of stale coffee, leaving stains on her pretty tablecloth. “And weighed down.”
“This is very timely,” she says back between the brief pause, waiting for her voice.
“With two oranges in my jacket.” the room begins to skew when she laughs, “December. Frost cracking.”
She turns to her side, smelling the faint hint of musty lemon air freshener. Everything’s moving slower than usual; her breath, the subtle tick of the clock on the bedside table, Jennie’s faint breathing and the occasional wetness of her tongue on her lips.
“Beneath my steps, my breath —before me, then gone.” she starts again, softer, gentler. Like she’s holding them close to her lips, like a kiss. “As I walked toward her house, the one whose porchlight burned yellow.”
There’s a dog barking, and the click of her neighbor’s door. The brief break settles the room, the darkness, everything that make up her evening, She mutters a quiet fuck and looks up briefly on the bed, soft white light caught on the messy sheets, “Night and day, in any weather.” she says “A dog barked at me, until she came pulling at her gloves.”
Lisa could see it, muted yellow lights on Jennie’s cheeks and the furrow on her brows. Quick, a quiet little spark that goes away sooner than she liked. It calms the hammering in her chest, settles the quivers in her fingers.
“Face bright, with rouge. I smiled,” the giggle fills the room, “touched her shoulder, and led her down the street.” she fades away, pushing out the words at the end. Like she’s sharing a secret. “Across,”
Pause
Lisa feels the warmth in her toes, the sigh that comes from stretching them slowly.
“A used car lot and a line—of newly planted trees,” Lisa breathes, deeply, filling her starved lungs with the warm humid air and almost coughs out. The tightness in her temple softened with every word “Until we were breathing,” a gasp “Before a drug store.”
She could feel the stillness on the skin of her arms, Jennie’s voice felt far. “We entered,” she whispers, and for a second it wasn’t enough. The evening suspended, tightly wound up like an old mixtape pushing through the ends of a worn out song.
“The tiny bell bringing a saleslady—down a narrow aisle of goods. I turned to the candies, tiered like bleachers,” she comes back, excited, and it gets Lisa to breathe out. Bringing balance to the skewness of the room and a burst of color she sees on the corners of her eyes, on the bed.
“And asked what she wanted— light in her eyes, a smile.” There's affection weaved through the words and Lisa laughs, a burst of scattered sound that reverberates through her tired body and the aching in her head, “starting at the corners of her mouth.”
“I fingered—” her own laughter colors the room, “a nickel in my pocket, and when she lifted a chocolate that cost a dime,”
Lisa wonders if Jennie ever knows the kind of peace she brings into her life. Fingers on her hand that calm the thoughts that went too fast or too slow, or the touch that stayed— heavy enough to stop the almost constant spinning.
“I didn’t say anything,” her voice bringing her back to the now. More sure, more her.
“I took the nickel from my pocket, then an orange,” saying the last word with a tenderness she feels on her cheeks, “and set them quietly on the counter.”
Lisa stays there, wrapped up in the words and the dark and the quiet. The low thrum of the fan vibrates through the floor, keeping her there. Rooted. Savoring the quiet quivers and the slow waking up to the feeling of the present.
She takes in the room slowly; the ceiling, the fan, her hands, the whites of her socks against the shadows of the room, the barely open door.
“When I looked up, the lady’s eyes met mine,” and Lisa sees dark brown, washed with the white of the screen somewhere, quickly, like a memory of a dream you recall in the middle of the day. Her whole body relaxes at the image and she smiles, a hum beneath her breath.
“And held them, knowing very well what it was all about.”
Calm feels like liquid fire in her veins, warming the dampness of sweat on her skin. She laughs again, drowning out the honks of a car that drove down her street and the tears that pooled on her eyes. Black and green in a puddle before her. She reaches out blindly in front of her, joints brittled with the pressure of the day. She lets out another choke, arms steady and warm.
She feels; the cool air from the fan on her arms, the light itch on the back of her neck from her hair slicked with sweat, the fabric of the carpet on the back of her legs and the growing numbness on her elbows —the heady rush of warmth from her elbows to her face.
“Outside,” she says, voice close enough it felt like a kiss on her cheeks,
“A few cars hissing past, fog hanging like old coats—” Lisa sits up, the room firm and unmoving. “Between the trees.”
Her phone drew circles on the bed, the recording almost done.
“I took my girls’ hand, in mine for two blocks” she continues, the sound crackling from the speakers. “Then released it to let her unwrap the chocolate.”
She relishes the almost quiet, her neighbor’s faint footsteps, and the whirring of Jennie’s own fan almost drowning out the next words.
“I peeled my orange,” her voice full of love and patience. “That was so bright against the gray of december,” the silent devotion that came out despite the static.
Lisa moves to the bed, taking the phone into her hands, fingers smelling of spilled coffee and the sheets smelling of that lemon air freshener.
“That, from some distance,” her voice cracks, “someone might have thought —I was making a fire in my hands.”
The familiar click of the ending of the recording comes, and for some reason Lisa can taste the citrus in her mouth, if only for a brief second.
She presses on the yellow heart on her contacts and faint ringing fills her room.
“Lisa?”
What does she say?
“Is everything okay?” her voice was laced with sleep and yet more alive than she remembered.
“Im fine,” she says finally, staring at the smile on her face on her wallpaper.
“Did something happen, love?” she knows she’s more awake now, more worried.
“Just one of those nights.” she admits,
“Do you want me to turn on the camera?”
“No, no this is fine. I —” i miss you “ wanted to hear your voice, that's all.”
She hears humming, and a flurry of clothes and sheets shuffling in the background.
“Okay, want to tell me more?”
“I listened to you read.” she says softly, “it helped, Im feeling better now dont worry.”
“I can read you some more now.”
“You should get back to sleep, baby. I just wanted to say I miss you.”
“I miss you too,” she offers, like a salve to the thoughts racing in her mind. “Always.”
“Jennie?”
“Yes?” She plays with the sheets, when she hears her laugh, “I love you Lisa. I’ll come home to you soon.”
“Thank you.”
“Mhmm,”
“I love you.”
“I know baby,”
“Okay,”
“Lie down, and rest, I’ll read you some more.”