saltwater

The rest of the night flashes like a strobe light. On the cab ride home, Angelica bats her lashes at the driver until he turns the radio up, and Nadia rolls down the window to howl at the moon. They bring the rest of the coke back to the apartment and take enough to keep awake for two days. 

Sober Nadia is quiet and serious, but High Nadia is a motormouth, and Angelica loves it, cherishing every story like a secret treasure.

Nadia tells her how afraid she used to be of the water. “I was convinced I’d be stung by a jellyfish. Eaten by a shark. My father’s cousin forced me to learn to swim anyway. He told me that he was friends with all the creatures in the ocean, and all I had to do was say his name to make them my friends too. He was the one locked up at the tail end of that last heat wave. His cellmate bashed his head right before Christmas. A shame.”

Angelica learned to swim in the family pool. She liked the water fine, but she hated the smell of chlorine and the shrieking of the other kids as they chased one another, rowdy in a way she was never permitted to be.

Then Nadia shows off stacks of sketches-a dragon, a number 8, and a calla lily in Sailor Jerry style. She flips through the pages too quickly, like she’s shuffling a pack of playing cards, until Angelica holds them down with an open palm. 

“You’re brilliant. Really,” Angelica says. Her voice is soft with wonder. “I wish I had talent like that.”

“I’ll tattoo a Roman crown behind your ear. And on your back, I’ll put one of those saints you love to talk to.” 

Angelica scoffs, “Spare me a crown. No one wants to remember the widow of the defeated emperor.” 

“Not true. They’re on Wikipedia,“ Nadia smirks and shakes her head. “Do you really think of yourself as some pitiful abandoned wife? The same woman who planned kidnappings and dodged cops? Who humiliated thieving dealers and sexist crimelords? You are tough. You have brains! Spadino knew it. Aureliano knew it. Sometimes it even scared him.”

Angelica rolls her eyes, the drugs fueling her resentment. “And what use were they? Why did we want to live the way we did, anyway?” She grits her teeth. “It was all a waste!” Suddenly, the bitterness and misery are intolerable. She grabs the nearest bottle and shatters it against the bar.

The room is deadly quiet as she covers her face with her hands, shocked by the magnitude of her own rage and afraid of how quickly her mood turned. Am I losing my mind? 

And then Nadia bursts into laughter. “What a waste!” she agrees, clapping with bizarre delight. “Damn right. We were the only ones with any sense, in the end.”

Angelica can’t help but laugh with her. Her stiff jaw cracks. She thinks, The hubris was mine, too. But, at this moment, it doesn’t hurt to remember, and, for once, she’s not ashamed. Instead, she pops open a beer and raises it in a sarcastic toast: “To that better way to live, then.”

By the time she’s downed the beer, she’s content again, swaying her hips to the sound of the waves. Nadia is watching her dance from a barstool, talking a mile a minute: “Did you ever play hula hoops as a kid? I fucking loved that shit,” and “Aureliano was so crazy-eyed on coke, but you just look sharp.” and “I always wanted to get a German Shepard. I should adopt one now.  I’ll name him Flavio.” She asks, “Do you think he was a virgin? Where did he end up anyway?” and “The guy I lost it to was a three-pump chump. He dumped me for a blonde working the concession stand, can you believe it?” and “Do you ever feel like we pay for protection with pussy? Tell me that we’re as badass as I want us to be.”

Angelica twirls and mimics Spadino’s trademark bow. “Of course.” Then she falls back onto the couch. “Do you know what? I should’ve had sex with Flavio. I was only ever with Alberto. And he had to be strong armed into it with all that family/duty/inheritance shit. I had this gorgeous pink lingerie, and he was picturing Aureliano the whole time.” It is freeing to be able to speak openly about her husband’s secret; he has no reputation left to protect, and she can tell her own story. Still, the vulgar words taste strange in her mouth. “I’d hate to think my husband was fantasizing about a lousy lay. Was the Adami good in bed, at least?”

Nadia winks, “Oh, he got the job done. And he had the body of a god. But too rough to be Prince Charming. That’s the way of men, I suppose.”

Girltalk, Angelica marvels. Finally, she gets the slumber parties and salacious gossip she wanted for so long. Who would have thought it would come now, and at such cost?

“You are beautiful,” Nadia insists, sitting beside her, “and you were wasted on him. There’s still time.” She leans over and brushes Angelica’s cheekbone with the back of her hand, slow despite the stimulants rushing through her veins. “A face like this ought to be carved in marble.” 

Suddenly shy, Angelica offers, “You are beautiful, too,” and, silently, I think I might love you. I’ve never known anyone like you before.

They lose their speed and their coherence with every hour that passes, eventually collapsing in bed in their underwear. Angelica is too tired to care about anything besides the coolness of the sheets and the stars. 

—-

They spend the next few days lounging in t-shirts and fuzzy socks—Nadia has a seemingly inexhaustible supply—while Angelica groans that she’ll stay sober forever. They pop aspirin, chug coffee-even when it makes them sicker—and watch movies they’ve seen a thousand times before. Angelica takes a bubble bath in the giant porcelain tub. 

Nadia peeks in, and, when Angelica smiles in invitation, sits on the rim. “You were in here so long and were so quiet that I thought you drowned.”

Angelica moves to get out of the tub, nervous that she’s overstepping, but Nadia gestures for her to stay still, gathering bubbles in her cupped hand.

“I love this bathtub,” Nadia says, blowing a groove into the hill of bubbles in her palm. Angelica stretches her leg over the water like a glamour girl in an old-time movie. “Me and Aureliano barely fit. It was nice though. You know, he could fast-draw a gun like a cowboy, but he was so slow, too-“

“Yeah, I always thought he was like a lion. Big dick energy, is that what they call it?”

Nadia snorts. “Yea. Slow, but he was so rarely peaceful. Here, we could lay together and chill and there was no one else. No world outside.”

Angelica cocks her head. “And he liked bubbles?”

“He said he liked how they looked on my skin. But I knew he loved them for himself,” she laughs. 

And she’s still laughing, but her voice is getting raspier with the memory. Angelica scrambles to think of a distraction.

“You should get a rubber duck in here. I had a bath toy that was a dinosaur when I was little.”

“And then you grew up and married a dinosaur.” 

Angelica giggles. “His hair was ridiculous, wasn’t it? He spent forever on it every morning. It’s a good thing the Anacleti’s had so many bathrooms, or we would have been fighting over the mirror.”

Nadia turns to the mirror as Angelica steps out of the bath, wrapping herself in a fluffy dark blue towel and securing it against her chest. She rubs her shorn head a bit self-consciously and says, “You won’t have that problem here.”

Angelica gives into temptation, running a hand over her buzzed hair. “I like it.” 

Fingering a dripping lock of Angelica’s, Nadia replies, “I like yours, too.” She hands Angelica a bottle of her rose scented lotion and goes to the kitchen to put on the tea kettle.

When Angelica emerges from the bathroom in a soft black nightgown with satin trim, Nadia is sitting in front of her stack of drawings, spinning Aureliano’s ring around her finger. It looks comically large in her delicate hand. She taps on a drawing of an angel wing, then taps the side of her head. “I’m going to tattoo it here.”

Angelica slides her hands around Nadia from behind, pressing her face against the other woman’s shoulder. “Alright. I’ll come with you. I’ll hold your hand.”

“He saved me, you know?” she whispers. “I had no one.”

I had everyone, Angelica thinks. And somehow no one, too.

Instead, she says, “Now, you have me.” Her voice is strong. The truth feels simple and eternal. But she blushes, telling herself that she is merely flushed with steam.