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Stacey acknowledged once, long ago, that she and Dawn were both peripherals, satellites, for the Connecticut crew. Bouncing in and out of their lives. People like Kristy (apprentice car mechanic at the local body shop and still not dating, never dating) and Mary-Anne (ever the secretary, now answering phones for a doctor's office while taking classes at the state school, and engaged to Logan) never left Stoneybrook. But Stacey and Dawn always had other plans.
Their choices for university sent them careening away from their old friends, catapulting them both to the same coast. Stacey had gone off to Caltech to study Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics. Dawn of course went to Berkeley to double major in Environmental Science and Public Policy, because where else would she go and what else would she study?
They weren't that close, geographically. Five and a half hours maybe, if traffic was good. They weren't that close emotionally, either. They never saw each other during their college years, preferring instead to "like" each other’s political posts on Facebook and leave it at that. But that didn't mean Stacey wasn't keenly aware that Dawn was there, just up the coast. After Stacey graduated and secured an entry-level position at a startup in San Francisco, Stacey decided to call on Dawn.
They met at a cheerful, brightly lit vegan nook for lunch. They ate quinoa salads and drank fair trade green tea and reminisced about the time before, about the people that weren't there. "How's Mary-Anne doing?" Stacey hadn't spoken to her since a week or two after she started at Caltech. Not directly, anyway. (Mary-Anne posted the cutest pictures of her cat, still, always.)
Dawn shrugged. She had a nose ring now, just a tiny stud. Her hair was just as long as it used to be, and just as white blonde -- save for a teal streak which Dawn had braided. She looked grown up, but still exuded that casual cool that she always did. Stuff changed, but Dawn was still Dawn and that was comforting. "Oh, you know. The wedding’s in… well, next month, I think? Yeah."
Stacey noticed two things. 1) Dawn seemed fairly blasé about her stepsister's marriage. It wasn't the attitude that was expected. 2) Stacey hadn't gotten an invite. She'd just assumed that they were having an abnormally long engagement, but now she realized she had simply been snubbed. "Oh. I didn't realize."
Dawn smiled, a pleasureless, tight smile. There was something there. Pain? "Yeah, I guess Logan told her they had to get married or he'd leave."
Oh. "Wait, what?"
Dawn smiled again, but this time her mouth twisted into a smirk, just this side of a sneer. "Mary-Anne put it off for a while I guess and he was getting tired of it."
Hm. Why did Mary-Anne not want to get married? And why would she go through with it if she didn't? But instead of asking those things, Stacey asked, "Are you going?"
Dawn snorted. "No." She added, a moment later, in response to what Stacey was sure was an obviously stunned face, "I've just got a lot going on, you know? I have an internship this summer." It didn't sound like that was the only reason, or even a particularly strong one, but Stacey didn't push.
"Yeah, well, I wasn't invited." It likely didn't compare with whatever interpersonal trauma happened between Dawn and Mary-Anne (and maybe Logan? but he felt very much like a footnote, an afterthought), but Stacey was a little hurt and it felt safe to air her grievances here.
Dawn nodded. "I'd wondered. I don't know, shit just moves on, I guess?"
Stacey considered that while she sipped her tea, warm and satisfying. The tea made it feel better, the uncaring movement of time. The loss of friends, not sudden but surely enough. The pain too awkward to ask about. The feeling like a better resolution was so close at one point, but the opportunity passed long ago. Shit does just move on.
"What about Claudia? You two were always close," Dawn asked, seeming happy to change the subject.
Stacey felt a familiar, dull ache in her stomach. Claudia.
“Please don’t go to California!” Claudia begged, tears streaming down her face. Her makeup was a hot mess, smeared and dripping. She was squeezing Stacey’s hand, as they sat on the edge of Claudia’s bed. Her nails were digging into Stacey’s skin.
“Claud – “ Stacey began, but she was cut off by Claudia’s devastated wail: “I LOVE YOU. I need you.”
Stacey felt terrible. Caltech and MIT had both accepted her, but Caltech offered her a better package and she’d be stupid to turn it down. Claudia desperately wanted her to go to MIT, to stay near her, to love her forever. Stacey couldn’t. She couldn’t do any of that. She was 17. But she felt like the world’s biggest asshole for what she was doing to Claudia. Abandoning her. “I love you too.”
Claudia looked skeptical and tears continued to well up in her eyes.
“No, baby, I do. I love you so much.” Stacey hugged Claudia then, held her close. Let her snot and her tears and makeup absorb into her designer blouse. It didn’t matter. Not right now. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Claudia looked up. Eyes shiny, hopeful. “Will you stay then?”
Stacey felt tears form in her own eyes. She blinked them away. “I can’t.”
Claudia changed then. She pushed Stacey away, and stormed to her bedroom door. She threw it open. “FINE. Then go. Fucking leave!”
Stacey did, then. She left, and she didn’t look back. She threw away the blouse.
Stacey blinked, unsure of how long she’d drifted off into memory. Dawn was watching her carefully. “Um, no, I haven’t talked to her in a while.” They’d never told their friends about their relationship, or their breakup. They’d never reconnected. Stacey assumed either Claudia was too paranoid to use Facebook or had pre-emptively blocked her, because she never showed up in the list of people she may know. She laughed under her breath. “Shit just moves on.”
Dawn looked curiously at Stacey. “There’s more there, isn’t there?”
Goddammit. She wasn’t supposed to ask. Stacey did not like to talk about these things. She had never spoken about what happened. She didn’t even really like to think about it, or Claudia. Or the way she still missed her crazy style and her whimsical outlook. Or her skin, and how it tasted. And her lips, soft and hungry. God. It was so long ago. “Um, I mean, no. Not really.” Stacey tried to look anywhere but at Dawn’s eyes, which were soft and inviting, but felt like they were boring into her anyway. “Okay.” She exhaled. Spread her palms on the table to feel more stable. She guessed this was her coming out. “Claudia and I were not just friends in high school.”
Dawn didn’t giggle. She didn’t even look particularly surprised. She just listened.
“And when I decided to go to Caltech, we broke up.” Stacey swallowed hard. “Claudia wasn’t very happy with my decision.” There, it was out.
Dawn seemed to be thinking hard. After a while, “Mary-Anne and I weren’t just stepsisters.”
That did surprise Stacey, but she tried hard to remain calm and mature about the matter. “I didn’t know that.”
Dawn shook her head, “Yeah, no one did. No one does, except Logan.”
Logan. Mary-Anne had dated him since forever, including while she was hooking up with Dawn, apparently. “Oh. Is that why – “ Stacey cut herself off. It was not her place to prod. Was it? Maybe it was now, maybe that was what they were doing now. Dawn knew her secret.
Dawn smirked, and nodded, acknowledging what they both knew the question was and answering at the same time. “Yeah.”
They poked at their salads, a silence settling over them until Stacey broke it, musing, “God, the BSC is gay.”
Dawn laughed then, a hearty chuckle, the first real smile Stacey had seen from her that day. “And surprisingly Kristy is still not admitting anything.”
“I think maybe she’s asexual,” Stacey suggested. She’d never mentioned that to anyone, but it definitely made sense in her own head.
“What, really?” Dawn seemed to be trying it on for size in her head, running over the memories. “I guess it does make sense. I just hadn’t ever thought of that.”
“Mallory and Jessi?” Stacey asked suddenly. They both knew what she was asking.
“You know, I think they’re probably straight.” Dawn shrugged. “Who knows. I wouldn’t be surprised either way.”
Stacey agreed. Silence drifted around them again, but it wasn’t awkward. Stacey looked across the table at Dawn then, and they locked eyes. Dawn was always beautiful, but Stacey had never realized exactly how beautiful. She’d always been distracted by Claudia, and the boys she used to pretend she wasn’t in love with Claudia. Now, so far removed, with just Dawn here, she felt bad for that. Dawn was perfect. Stacey wondered if she’d been told that enough.
Dawn licked her lips. It was subtle, but in their little world, the bubble of their table, it meant everything. “You, uh, have any plans today?”
Stacey shook her head furiously. She hoped she knew what Dawn was asking, the question buried in between the words. “No, I am… totally free.”
“Your apartment’s a few blocks away, right?” Stacey had mentioned that in her email when she’d suggested the restaurant.
Stacey hadn’t had sex in a year and a half. She’d been too focused on finishing her degree, and the men and women around her bored her senseless. At least, sexually. But Dawn – God, Dawn did not bore her. Not even a little. “Yeah. Just like 5 minutes.”
Dawn raised her hand to get their waiter’s attention. “Excuse me, check please.”