Chapter 8

Marlo zipped expertly through the streets of downtown San Francisco, stopping off at the end to pick up some dinner from her favorite bistro. Not long after, they pulled up to an apartment building in Lower Haight.

Meghan wandered through the living room with the food as Marlo went into the kitchen to grab some drinks. One wall was full of photographs, of Marlo with her dad, with Frederick and Jacinta, and with Fiona and her sister Sophie. The bond between the six of them was clear.

“I’m guessing you not going to the birthday dinner tonight is a big deal,” Meghan offered when Marlo returned.

Marlo shrugged, “I don’t really care, honestly.”

“I’m also guessing that’s not entirely true,” Meghan said with a slight smile.

Marlo scoffed and sat down on the sofa, “Fine. It’s closer to the truth to say that Fiona doesn’t really care. Same difference, though.”

“When was this one taken?” Meghan tucked her legs underneath her as she pointed to a photo frame on the table next to the sofa.

“Right before Fiona took over as CEO of the Edevane group,” Marlo slumped into the sofa, “She was getting ready for a gala or something.”

Meghan stared at the photograph. Fiona was seated at a vanity, facing the mirror but looking at Marlo’s reflection. Marlo was standing behind Fiona, smiling at her. Even a fool would be able to recognize the love radiating from Fiona’s gaze.

“She loves you very much,” Meghan said, pointing at Fiona.

Marlo smiled bitterly, “Yeah, I know.”

“Oh,” Meghan misunderstood, “You don’t feel the same way…?”

“Hm? No, of course I love her. She’s my best friend,” Marlo muttered. And I just picked a fight with her because I got jealous. I’m an asshole.

“No, no,” Meghan tapped the photo, “She loves you. Look at the way she’s looking at you.”

Marlo wanted to look at the photo, but she couldn’t get the image of Fiona and RJ out of her head, so she leaned back against the sofa and closed her eyes, “You’re reading way too much into that.”

“I disagree. Did she look at you like this when we dated?” Meghan put the photo frame down.

Marlo scoffed, “Whatever. Probably not. I don’t know. Why?”

“Because!” Meghan shook her head, “I think something’s finally making sense. Look, I don’t regret the time we spent together… and I think we really prefer being friends… But… um, you and me didn’t work out for many different reasons, and I’m only now realizing the biggest reason was probably Fiona.”

Marlo opened her eyes and stared at Meghan, “Huh?”

Meghan grabbed the photo frame and placed it in front of Marlo, “Stop kidding yourself, Marlo. She loves you.”

Marlo looked at the photo, “She doesn’t love me like that.”

Meghan looked skeptical.

Marlo sighed, “She had an affair, years ago. With some woman. Earlier today, she made plans to go see that woman again. She doesn’t love me like that.”

“That’s why you were disinvited from the dinner tonight? You confronted her about this other woman?”

“Nope,” Marlo placed the photo frame face down next to her, “She doesn’t know I know. I picked a fight with her. It’s a mess.” Marlo buried her face in her hands, “It’s a total mess.”

“Hm,” Meghan scratched her head, “Quelle scandal… Messes can be cleaned up, you know?”

Marlo stretched, “Maybe.”

“And from what I see, it’s not that messy,” Meghan mused, “You love her?”

Marlo nodded wordlessly. Jacinta knows, so who cares if everyone else knows that I’m the loser with the broken heart?

“Like, you love her a lot a lot?”

Marlo nodded again. Loser, loser, loser, loser…

“I bet she loves you back. Just as much.”

“Then why is she going to New York to see a woman she had a fling with?” Marlo’s voice shook.

Meghan was quiet for a moment, “Probably because she thinks you ran off with me tonight… You put me on the guest list, remember?”

“She’s never given my dates a second thought,” Marlo noted, “I think you’re reading too much into it.”

“Anyone looking at this photo would see what I see,” Meghan insisted, “You’re too stubborn to admit it. No wonder you can’t commit. If Fiona’s the love of your life, no other woman would ever measure up!”

“Food’s getting cold,” Marlo grunted, she didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

Before Meghan could say anything in response, an orchestra of pops cut through the quiet night: Birthday fireworks were exploding enthusiastically over San Francisco Bay. Marlo wondered how Fiona was doing. Meghan’s words made her feel even worse. Maybe all this time, I’ve been pushing Fiona away… and tonight, I fucked up and made it ten times worse…

Meghan didn’t revisit the topic again and took it as a win when she’d catch Marlo glancing at the photograph every now and then.

Chapter Four: A Helpful Intermission (Long Island, New York)

Fiona blinked her eyes open. Someone was gently shaking her awake.

“Ma’am,” it was Tanya Cross, her head of security, “We’re here.”

“Thank you, Tanya, I appreciate you making all this happen with very little notice.”

Tanya smiled, “Of course! I’m always up for a trip to New York! Ready?”

Fiona nodded as everything was loaded into a waiting car. She sent a quick text to Mona to say that she’d arrived.

They wove through the roads of small town of Brookes Cove before winding through a long driveway to Mona’s house. Fiona barely had a chance to stretch before Mona flung the front door open.

“Honey!!” Mona gave Fiona a big hug, “Welcome! How was the flight over?”

“Long, but uneventful,” Fiona hugged Mona right back, “This is Tanya, she keeps me from doing anything crazy, and keeps my mother from indulging in insane paranoid fantasies of me getting kidnapped.”

“Welcome!” Mona smiled warmly. She pointed at the right side of the house, “You guys must be pooped. We’re going to put you in this part of the house, it’s partitioned off a little; two rooms upstairs and a small den downstairs. Perfect for when my parents or the in-laws come to stay. Liz is a fricking genius – she had this built earlier this year.”

Fiona smiled, “Thanks for waiting up for us.”

“No need to thank me! You’re welcomed any time!” Mona replied, “You’re the last to arrive, most people got here this morning, and the neighbors will be shuttling through all weekend. Go settle in, and we can catch up in the morning.”

Fiona followed everyone into the house. When she’d freshened up, she went down to the kitchen; she was too jetlagged to go straight to bed.

“I’m making tea” Mona opened a cabinet, “Do you want some?”

“Sure,” Fiona slid into a seat at the kitchen table.

“I thought you’d want to crash…” Mona put the kettle on.

Fiona stretched, “I’m on West Coast time… and my brain is on hyper-drive so I wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mona brought over two mugs of tea to the dining table.

“Not much to say – I can’t even get it to make sense in my head.”

Mona blew on her tea, “Make sense of what? RJ getting married? What are you going to say to her tomorrow?”

Fiona shrugged, and cupped her hands around her mug, “I curious – deeply curious – to know what changed her mind. That photo of her and Lauren, they look so happy. And she was absolutely adamant that it wasn’t what she wanted.”

“You can’t help who you fall in love with, Fiona. RJ fell hard for Lauren. We didn’t really believe it at first, but she did. Why’s this important to you?”

“I took a page from RJ’s book. I realized I shared her preference for simplicity. Relationships – especially in my context – are complicated. She thought the same. I felt like I found an ally in RJ. But it turns out she was the marrying kind, too!”

Mona looked up quizzically, “Relationships for you are complicated because why? You basically run the world?”

“Because people have expectations and I may not want what they expect me to want…”

“But… who cares?” Mona raised an eyebrow, “It’s your call. What you do want?”

Marlo. Fiona sighed, “Something I can’t have. Kind of makes it moot; what other people expect.”

“But who cares,” Mona repeated, “What’s standing in your way? To get what you want?”

“Marlo.” Fiona said quietly.

Fiona nodded. The secret was hard to talk about.

“Oh, honey,” Mona knew Marlo quite well – she was, after all, Fiona’s best friend. During college, Marlo had visited quite regularly. Oh, I see… Mona nodded, suddenly thinking that she understood the issue.

“Marlo has a hard time with you falling in love, right?” Mona guessed, “I mean, it makes sense, I guess.”

Fiona looked up her friend, confused, “What? What do you mean?”

Mona tilted her head, “You said Marlo was the one standing in the way of you having a love life. And I think it makes a lot of sense. But -“

“Wait,” Fiona interrupted, “Sorry… hang on, can you explain what you mean?”

Mona leaned back and took a moment before she responded, “When you said Marlo was the one standing in the way. I thought about all those times she visited you, and all those times we all hung out together, and it was clear – at least to me – that she was in love with you. That’s why I said it made sense to me that she’d be the one who’d have the hardest time with you being in relationships… you know, if she’s still in love with you.”

Fiona’s mouth opened and shut. She blinked a couple of times and stared down at her tea, speechless with shock. What? It can’t be true…?

“I thought you knew, Fiona,” Mona was surprised… and even more confused now, “I’m sorry. I thought you knew.”

Fiona was numb. Nothing was connecting.

Mona sat forward and put her hand on Fiona’s, “Oh sweetie, I thought you knew. The first time she and I met, do you remember? She joined us for Spring Break – you’d convinced your parents to let you come with us to visit my dad’s family in Barbados?”

Fiona nodded, “Yes, they agreed only because Marlo was going to come along.”

“Do you remember that fight you had with Marlo when she first arrived?” Mona lifted her eyebrows.

Fiona frowned and thought back to her freshmen year. Her eyes narrowed, “Yes! She said she was pissed because my parents made her ditch plans with her girlfriend or something.”

“That was her story,” Mona crossed her arms, “She stopped being pissy once I told her I wasn’t trying to date you.”

Fiona stared at Mona in disbelief. Mona gave a knowing look, “Cross my heart, that absolutely happened. She got crazy jealous after she heard my mother talking about how well you and I got along.”

Fiona’s mouth dropped open, “It can’t be true. She dates… so many other women! I mean, she’s told me I’m not her type more times than I can count. She’s never shown any interest in me. She doesn’t even look at me that way!” Fiona’s voice broke at the end.

“… And you… want her to?” Mona was quickly reframing her hypothesis; all of a sudden, it seemed unbearably obvious. “Oh, Fiona, maybe you and Marlo just need to talk about this!”

Fiona was finding it hard to focus on any one emotion; there were dozens flying at her at once: excitement, doubt, bewilderment, surprise, sadness, helplessness, hope…

After a few moments of silence, Fiona asked quietly, “Did RJ ever tell you what happened that night? After dinner at your place?”

Mona shook her head, “No.”

“Remember I told you there was something about RJ that I couldn’t quite put my finger on?” Fiona brushed an errant strand of hair off her face, “I didn’t figure it out until RJ left. I mean, RJ was wonderful…”

Fiona blushed at the memory. Mona chuckled, “She used to get a lot of good, uh, reviews…”

Right at that moment, a woman’s soft and urgent moan drifted into the kitchen.

Mona smiled wider, “… and Lauren certainly would agree!”

“That’s coming from their room?” Fiona blushed again.

“Pretty much the same thing as last night…” Mona chuckled, “Maybe it’s sounding familiar to you?”

Fiona held her hands up, “What happened that night stays happily in the past, but my point was more about my realization that being with RJ was my brain’s clumsy way of recognizing my feelings for Marlo. I grew up with Marlo, and I always felt safe and completely at home with her. It’d never occurred to me that I’d been in love with her all this time. I thought falling in love would be this thunderbolt thing. But it just is that way with Marlo. I love her. And I feel stupid saying this, because it’s so obvious now… but it wasn’t before. But Marlo wasn’t much help, she’s shown no interest in me…”

Fiona stopped to catch her breath. I love her! And… just maybe… she loves me back!

Mona finished up her tea as she let Fiona process her thoughts. Eventually, she asked, gently, “Why talk to RJ? Seems to me that this is something you and Marlo need to sort out…” Mona got up and put her mug in the dishwasher.

Fiona shrugged, “At first, I was mad – I thought I had this kindred spirit in RJ in that we’d keep life simple… and then she goes off and gets married! I wanted to get her to tell me what changed. Now, I think I actually want to talk to Lauren…”

Fiona laughed softly at Mona’s blank look, “Well, if Marlo and I have been in mutual denial about how we feel about each other, I need some tips from Lauren on how she won the heart of the famous ‘one and done’ RJ Kan.”