Chapter 2

{FE} Hey – why did you leave so soon?

{FE} What got into you today? Can you pls respond?

Marlo decided to use a generically believable answer, {MW} Summer’s ending too soon. Feeling blah.

{FE} Same. Are you coming back over tonight?

Marlo grinned, a mischievous instinct was taking over. {MW} Does Princess Fiona require the company of this humble servant?

{MW} No, your highness, I most certainly will not. Marlo was smiling wider now, enjoying the momentum of her teasing.

{FE} You = horrible.

{MW} Something vexes you, my liege?

Before Marlo could type her next word, her phone rang. It was Fiona.

“Yes, your majesty?” Marlo chuckled.

“Marlo, stop it.” Fiona sounded more amused than anything.

“I can’t help myself. This is way too much fun.”

“Yeah, until someone gets a hold of our texts and gets the wrong idea…”

“Fine. I’ll keep it offline…” Marlo was well aware of the intense interest from the tabloid press on all things Edevane, and of Fiona’s almost obsessive determination to stay under the radar.

“Thanks,” Fiona sighed.

“You’re welcome, Princess…” Marlo started laughing, “SORRY! It’s too tempting!”

“Asshole.” Fiona was laughing as well.

“Guilty as charged.” Marlo stretched.

“Are you coming back over or what?”

“I’m going to dinner with Dad. And then I think we need to knuckle down and figure out where I’m going to live.”

“Don’t be a stranger, Wright. I’m definitely not happy about you being three thousand miles away when school starts.”

“You can’t have everything, Fiona…” Marlo said this lightly, but her heart was pounding.

There was a beat of silence before Fiona sighed, “I’m going to miss you, that’s all.”

“Come by tomorrow?” Fiona said, “Please?” She couldn’t have guessed the effect her words had on Marlo.

“Okay,” Marlo agreed. She could never say no to Fiona.

“Promise.” Marlo ended the call and sighed. This is so stupid.

“Life’s not fair,” she reminded herself of Frederick’s words, “Just deal with it, Marlo.”

Chapter One: – A Pleasant Dinner (The More Recent Past – Five Years Ago, New York City)

Fiona’s phone trilled for what felt like the hundredth time that day. Unlike all the other calls though, this one made Fiona smile. She picked up immediately.

“Marlo!” Fiona’s phone screen switched into video call mode, and the image of her best friend materialized out of a million pixels of color and light.

“How’s the Big Apple?” Marlo was somewhere outside. It was bright.

“Fine. Too many meetings. Dad’s starting to feel sick and tired of bankers and consultants.” As always, the mere fact of talking to Marlo was enough to make Fiona feel better about her day.

Marlo grinned, “They don’t do themselves any favors… But you’re almost done!”

“It’s grueling, for sure. But I’m not complaining – we’re sitting on a winning lottery ticket. A little pain with the bankers is worth it!”

If anything, Fiona was understating the reality of what was going on. Many years ago, her father had tinkered with a new construct for semi-conductors. Recently, Frederick dusted off the patent for it and started to develop potential applications for solar panels. Somehow, the Silicon Valley types got wind of the research and the wild bids for the intellectual property came flooding in. Access to Edevane’s technology would make a lot of money for a lot of people.

Marlo frowned, “They’d sell you off piece by piece if they could. Be careful.”

Fiona’s heart warmed with Marlo’s concern, “Dad and I play good-cop-bad-cop pretty well. Nobody’s touching our IP until we say so. Anyway. Never mind them. How’s your reunion going?”

Marlo shrugged, “Saw a couple people last night that I hadn’t seen in years, which was nice. Some rando came up asking me for an autograph this morning.”

Fiona laughed, “Which one was it this time? Did they think you were Tilda Swinton or David Bowie?”

This was a regular occurrence for Marlo, and the cases of mistaken identity ramped up exponentially when Marlo went back to LA.

“Tilda. I just signed it. I was already late, and you know how people get all snippy when I say I’m not who they think I am…”

“Well, I’m sure you made Tilda’s fan very happy today.”

Marlo raked her free hand through her short blonde hair, “Yeah, I guess. What are you up to tonight? You said you might go to your reunion dinner… but if I know you, you’ve already come up with a million excuses not to go… am I right?”

Because Marlo and Fiona graduated the same year, it was inevitable that their reunion years would coincide on a regular five-year cadence. Fiona joined the Edevane Group soon after graduating, but Marlo continued her studies in Los Angeles, going on to earn a PhD in Chemical Engineering. Marlo could have had her choice of labs in which to work, but she chose to take on work as a consultant, conveniently, most often for the Edevane Group’s technology business in San Francisco. Nobody found it necessary to comment, as Marlo was almost a member of the family.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Marlo wiggled her eyebrows. She knew she was right. Fiona’s reunion invitation sat under a pile of papers on her desk, relegated to collect dust. After a day of meetings, Fiona was not at all motivated to be social.

“I was totally going to go!” Fiona protested, “But I changed my mind when our last meeting of the day dragged into its third hour… I’ve had enough meeting and greeting for a while. I’m going to stay in. Don’t look at me like that. You know you’d say yes to beer and pizza with me if you were here…”

“True,” Marlo nodded, “But I’m not there, so go be social instead of hiding at home.”

Fiona put on an exaggerated pout, “Don’t wanna.”

Marlo couldn’t resist teasing her friend, “Life isn’t fair, your highness, suck it up and deal!”

“You’re impossible, you know that?” Fiona smiled back at her friend affectionately, “Enough with the princess bullshit. And what plans do you have? Some hot woman waiting to jump into bed with you? Oh. My. God. You’re blushing! You totally do!” Fiona shook her head, “You do, don’t you, Marlo?”

For as long as Fiona has known her friend, Marlo’s always had an easy charm about her. Even before Marlo came out, girls would flirt with her. They were drawn to her in a way that Fiona had to marvel at. As Marlo grew up and settled into her gender identity, there was a seemingly endless supply of women who wanted the handsome butch to sweep them off their feet.

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with having a little fun!” Marlo wiggled her eyebrows.

“A little fun? Dr. Marlo Wright, I know you and your exploits! Might as well change your name to Don Juanita…”

Marlo grinned, “Jealous? You should try it sometime!”

“Try what? Being one of your one-night stands?” Fiona laughed. This was a long running joke between the two of them. Over the years, so many people have speculated about their friendship – and whether it was something more – that they decided along the way to join in. For Marlo, it was the perfect bluff: she could flirt with Fiona under the pretense of joking around. For Fiona, she could enjoy Marlo’s advances without confronting her own curiosity when it came to her feelings for Marlo. Marlo was never far from Fiona’s thoughts in any given moment, but Fiona never allowed herself to think too deeply about the reason; there were too many ‘what ifs’ and insecurities standing in the way.

And so Fiona bought into the running joke without reservation, “”You know I’m not that kind of girl!”

Before Marlo could answer, Fiona’s call waiting pinged, “Oh! That’s Mona calling me. We’ve been playing phone tag all day. Have fun tonight. Call me tomorrow!”

Marlo saluted casually as her image disappeared and Fiona took the incoming call.

“No, Mona, don’t make me do it.” Fiona was half smiling as she said this. Ever since they were assigned as roommates freshman year, Mona Winchester and Fiona have maintained a deep and steadfast friendship. In fact, Mona’s outgoing nature was the biggest reason why Fiona didn’t spend her four years in college camped out in the library.

“Fiona, you don’t even know why I’m calling!” Mona was fully prepared to dust off her ‘come have some fun’ persuasive reasoning.

Fiona started to pace a worn path around her room, her phone pressed against her ear. She knew Mona was calling to coax her out to their Class dinner, “No, Mona, I really have no interest catching up with two hundred of my former classmates… I don’t need people getting into my business.”

“Your business as in the fact that you’re an heiress? Or your business as in the fact that you guys hold the key to the biggest technological leap of the next quarter century?”

“All of it. They wanted me to keynote the renewables seminar tomorrow. Luckily, I fly to London tomorrow night, which made it plausibly legitimate to decline without offending anyone. I think I should stay in bed until my flight leaves.”

“Come on! You can crawl into bed when you get to London. Seriously!”

“I have no more energy left to deal with people… or drive out to campus…”

“I’ve got you covered. Fiona, it’ll be ten or twelve people, at my apartment. It’ll be totally private and a ten-minute ride from your place. A mini-reunion off-campus,” Mona explained, “We’re too old for keggers anyway. This is the first time we’ve all been in the same city at the same time in years! “

“I’ve been in meetings all day; I don’t think I’m up for another set of new faces.”

“You know most of them – there’s only maybe one person you haven’t met; a friend of Liz’s from the west coast. I promise you it’ll be better than sitting in at home going over pitch books with your dad.”

Mona was right about one thing, Fiona was done with work, “I don’t want to talk any business. And no mention of my family.”

“Check and check. Everyone coming tonight already knows about your family and are long past caring. RJ – Liz’s friend – wouldn’t give a rat’s ass even if you told her you were the Queen of Mars.”

“I bet the Queen of Mars doesn’t have to deal with the paparazzi!”

“That’s because the Queen of Mars doesn’t own the largest privately-held company in the world that’s sitting on a bunch of patents worth billions of dollars…”

“Ugh,” Fiona grimaced.

Mona was quick to reply, “Oh come on, Fiona. No one who’s coming tonight cares about any of that. And if they do, I’ll rip them a new one, how about that? Now get your ass over here.”

Fiona chuckled, “Okay. I guess I’m in.”

Two hours later, Fiona felt unexpectedly grateful to Mona: The evening was turning out to be quite pleasant, enjoyable, even. Mona had engineered the exact right group of former college friends, all of whom treated Fiona’s family background as a quirk rather than an identity. She’d forgotten what it could be like to spend time with true friends. It was as if Mona knew it’d been something Fiona had deeply missed but couldn’t even articulate. It made her feel – if only for one night – free from all the duties and obligations she’d been carrying around. Fiona meandered into the kitchen where she found Mona giving the caterers last minute instructions. On a whim, she gave Mona a massive bear hug from behind.

“Ooof!” Mona turned and tilted her head maternally at Fiona, “What was that for?”

“To thank you for dragging me here tonight. It’s good to be in this world for a little bit. And much better than any of the reunion events on campus tonight.”

“I’m so glad!” Mona hugged her back, “Liz is almost about done with bedtime with the kids and dinner’s ready. Thank god for caterers… Who do you want to sit with?”

“Surprise me,” Fiona smiled.

Mona inclined her head slightly, “Challenge accepted, come on through to the dining room.”

Fiona followed Mona towards the long rectangular table. “Sit with Ivar,” Mona indicated to an empty chair, “he decided to quit academia last month, so he’s going to have lots to say about that… and he’s a good drinking buddy. I’ll join you in a sec.”

“Ivar!” Fiona remembered the tall bespectacled Swede from way back when. The two friends embraced and started catching up immediately.

Mona smiled happily and pointed the rest of the party to their seats. With three places still empty, Mona looked around for her wife, whom she eventually found in the hallway, liberating two bottles of wine from RJ.

“Come on, you two, we’re about to get started. RJ, you kind of cut it a little close! We weren’t going to wait around for you to get your butt in gear.” Mona gave RJ a friendly pat on the back.

RJ shrugged in apology, “Sorry – I was helping my dad out with something.” The three of them made their way into the dining room. Liz grabbed a seat in the middle of the table, leaving RJ the choice of the head of the table or the empty seat opposite to Fiona. She chose the latter. Mona took her seat at the head of the table, with Fiona on her left, and RJ on her right.

Fiona was deep in conversation with Ivar and didn’t fully register RJ’s arrival. When one of the waiters interrupted to offer Ivar his choice of wine, Fiona turned and laid eyes on RJ for the first time. Mona, ever the consummate host, saw her opening, “Fiona, this is Rowan Kan, Liz’s friend who’s visiting from San Fran… better known as RJ. RJ, this is Fiona Edevane, one of my dearest friends from college.”