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When Stella spotted him at the store, her first instinct was to duck out of sight.
She was tired, it was late, this wasn’t the time to get drawn into one of those intense - things with Ray. She didn’t enjoy it and quite honestly she didn’t think he did either, but something in him seemed to just make him put himself through it, every single time they saw each other. So it would be better if they didn’t see each other, wouldn’t it? Mike was expecting her, and it would just be easier not to do this now.
What was he doing here anyway? They were miles away from his place – had he known she would be here? Was he following her? But his cart was already full, he’d obviously been here a while; and what was he even doing, buying vegetables? Since when did Ray buy vegetables? Neither of them had liked buying groceries when they were married. Maybe doing it together would have been bearable, but if she wasn’t working, Ray was, so it had always come down to lists on the fridge in the end. She would not be the person who got in from work at 10pm and found they had no toilet paper. She just would not live like that. Ray didn’t seem to care though, and when he went out with a list she’d written, he always came home with something like steak, and beer, and some novelty donuts, and strawberries, and none of the things they’d needed and that had been written down, right there, by her, for him to pick up.
She hovered at the end of the aisle where he couldn’t see her, waiting for him to finish. It was Ray, for god’s sake, how long could he look at vegetables for? It wasn’t like he was going to cook them, what was this? She just needed tomatoes, if he would just make up his mind –
And then Constable Fraser appeared from round the far corner, holding an eggplant.
Stella couldn’t hear what they said to each other, but she knew Ray well enough that she could read it from here. It was some kind of protest at how gross eggplant was – yes, there he was, pointing at it with both hands like it was something new and truly disgusting that no right-thinking American would bring anywhere near his mouth. Fraser was listening to him with his head on one side, for all the world like he was carefully considering this reasonable, adult argument against eggplant. Ray’s back was to her, and she saw him make a vigorous gesture and then Fraser’s face changed somehow. There was something – fond? Indulgent? Like he knew perfectly well Ray was talking nonsense, but he found it all irresistibly charming all the same.
And that was a surprise. She knew Ray hadn’t really kept up with most of his old friends. They were mostly married, with kids, now. What would a single guy find in common with them any more? So at first, when she’d seen him with Fraser round the 2-7, she’d been slightly relieved to see he’d made a friend. The Mountie was away from home, that sort of put him on a level with a divorced guy in his thirties, needing friends and finding that they’d all quietly settled down while his own marriage was unravelling.
All the same, she didn’t much like Constable Fraser. Maybe because his reputation preceded him – it seemed like every woman Stella spoke to who had any connection with the 2-7 knew about him, and thought he was god’s gift to women. Perhaps it was unfair of her, but she was predisposed to dislike him on those grounds alone. Any guy with that kind of buzz about him just couldn’t help but be an asshole.
Then when she met him, he wasn’t quite the kind of asshole she was expecting, and that threw her a bit. Not that she let it show. (Or maybe she did. Had she been maybe a little bit too aggressive? Too obvious in the way she showed him she didn’t think he was so special? Well, he hadn’t seemed to notice if she had.)
It wasn’t that she got to know him, exactly, but she saw him around – the whole thing with Orsini, he was there with Ray. And she still didn’t really like him. He was formal; old-fashioned; he seemed pretty boring, actually. Sure, he was nice enough to look at, but she couldn’t quite see the appeal. Certainly she couldn’t imagine Ray, her Steve McQueen Ray, would choose to hang around him, not if he’d kept up with his old friends.
Then a few months in, she’d started to think there was more to him than met the eye. Just little things – a raise of the eyebrow; a quick look at Ray that she just knew nobody else was supposed to notice; an odd remark that most people would take one way, but that could equally be taken entirely another way… She almost wondered if it was all an act, if he was having everybody on the whole time with the boyscout thing.
It made her take a look at her dislike, and she wasn’t all that proud of what she saw. All the things the guys at the 2-7 said about Fraser – he worked all the time, he was driven, he was formal, he was stand-offish, he was humourless – well, if she was being honest, people might say the same about her. And that was fine by her – she wanted to be a successful lawyer, not a social butterfly. Her mother had been the life and soul of the party, and Stella had seen how that worked out, thanks. She didn’t need to make nice and laugh at shitty jokes to get on: she could get on because she was good. Maybe Fraser thought he was that good too – he didn’t need to pretend to be like these people if he wasn’t. Either way, he and Stella weren’t going to pretend to like each other, and that was fine. Ray had a friend; Stella didn’t need to feel so damn responsible for him. They were divorced.
Right now though, Ray and his friend were in her way. The Canadian Consulate was somewhere round here, she remembered. That must be why they were here. Two single guys shopping together? That didn’t seem quite right, but honestly so long as they did it faster she really didn’t care. For a moment she was even tempted to leave her cart, tell Mike she’d been too tired to pick up dinner, they could order in, couldn’t they? But dammit, they needed condoms, on the phone she’d said she would get them – there was a little thrill to buying condoms, now. After all those years married, faithful and on the Pill, she could do this with anyone she liked, be the kind of woman who bought condoms, no big deal.
So she walked all the way around, picked out wine, and looped the whole store to avoid them. Only then when she was about to turn into the personal health aisle, there they were again!
Shit, shit, shit! She stopped suddenly, again forced into hiding at the end of the aisle until they would just move on already. What the hell were they looking at now? Ray had bought the same shaving cream since he was old enough to shave, how could it take him this long to pick it out?
She dared a look out past shampoo on special offer stacked up at the end of the aisle, and they weren’t standing by shaving cream. They were closer than that. They were looking at – were they looking at condoms? Oh that was just great. They were divorced, sure, but that didn’t mean she wanted to know Ray bought condoms. She just wanted him to be ok - happy, even - but from a bit further away. Who was he using them with anyway? He’d never been a bar guy, surely he wasn’t planning on picking up strangers with someone as unlikely as Fraser as his wingman – or did he have a girlfriend he hadn’t told her about? Then she kicked herself for the tiny pang the idea gave her, because really, that was what she should want, wasn’t it? For him to have moved on enough that he had a girlfriend he wouldn’t tell her about?
But that didn’t sound right either. Ray, with a girlfriend she’d not heard about? Ok, sure, he hadn’t called much, the last few months. He’d seemed – cheerful, when she ran into him at the precinct. Smiling a lot. Little looks at the Mountie, like he was in on a secret that nobody else knew. She’d been dating Mike since Labor Day, maybe that was why she hadn’t noticed those midnight phonecalls drying up, the ones where he was sweet, that made her think, I grew up with you, you know me, what harm will it do if you come over one more time?
She peered out again: Fraser was holding a box, a box of condoms, and appeared to be studying it intently. But even from here she could tell he was doing it for effect. She saw Ray rock on his heels, take the box and drop it in the cart, shaking his head in mock exasperation. When you’ve known a guy since he was 13, you know mock exasperation when you see it.
And Stella had seen it before. She’d seen the way he smiled too, with his heart in his eyes, the way he was smiling right now. She’d seen it aimed at her. And right now, it was most definitely not aimed at her: it was aimed at Fraser and it didn’t even know she was alive.
Suddenly her heart was thumping. She knew she ought to walk away, go get those tomatoes while Ray was busy here. But she stood there while Ray reached out and fisted his hand in Fraser’s shirt, pulled him a rough step closer. And the kiss he didn’t give him was so clear, so unmissable, it was as if it was written all over the space between them for anyone to see.
Stella leapt back out of sight, too surprised to know what to do. For a moment she just stood there, pretending to stare at the shampoo pyramid until the colours blurred. She was practically spying on them, she realised – Ray would think she was following him round the store if he saw here lurking here. Nobody would believe she was picking shampoo, all the bottles were the same.
She turned and walked away as fast as she could without attracting attention, heels clicking on the hard floor and blinking furiously. Why hadn’t he told her? More to the point, why did she still care anyway?
Back in the fruit aisle, it hit her that he had told her, more or less: those times when she’d looked appraisingly at someone in the street, or an actor in a movie, half the time he would agree with her in a lot more detail than you expected one guy to notice about another. She’d thought it was just Ray, telling her everything that crossed his mind until she wished he’d keep something back that she didn’t have to share with him.
And how about when they were really young, that guy he used to hang out with – Joe something? – how he’d been curious, how maybe Ray would have taken him up on it, “But I’ve got you, I can’t look at anyone else, you know?” he’d said. Then, at that age, she’d been blown away by the force of that adoration, all of his livewire attention focused on her, and she’d hardly given a second thought to what he might have done if she wasn’t in the picture. She was in the picture, she was the whole picture, and that was all that counted.
Had he done it anyway? For a second, as she passed condiments for the third time, she was convinced he had. All those years together, based on a lie: Ray had always wanted guys and he’d hidden it, used her to cover up, he’d been cheating and she’d missed it -
But no. It hadn’t been like that. She knew it in her bones. Ray was always where he’d said he would be, always came straight home from work, came looking for her sometimes if she wasn’t there. By the end he drove her crazy, following her round like a dog, like he had no kind of life outside of her, and she just couldn’t deal with that much need. She used to wish he would go out with the guys like everyone else’s husband – disappear for hours, roll home drunk and stinking of smoke and cheap perfume.
But he never did.
He was always, always there. Waiting for her, wanting her attention like he couldn’t survive without her. He hadn’t had a secret life. She knew he hadn’t been cheating.
She walked faster, gripping the cart till her knuckles turned white. Stella Kowalski, you fucking princess! You tell him to move on, and now you’re going to cry when you see that he has? What did she want, Ray trailing round after her for the rest of his life like an insurance policy? In ten years’ time she could take him back if she was single and didn’t like it anymore, and he’d be – what, grateful? That wasn’t fair, was it? If they were over – and they were over, they were divorced and staying that way – then one day Ray would meet someone new, and it was none of her business who that someone was. It wasn’t, it wasn’t, it wasn’t. None of my business, she muttered under her breath, and a woman picking up pasta looked at her curiously.
Stella plastered a social smile on her face and slowed down.
Alright, so she was – jealous? Was she? She couldn’t even put a name on what she felt. But whatever it was, she was damn well going to swallow it down and never let him see until she’d dealt with it.
Stella took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders and smoothed down her hair. Then she walked back to the personal health aisle to pick up the condoms, her heels calm and deliberate again, sounding just like they did in court. Poised. Professional. In control.
She didn’t let herself slow down or speed up or hide as she turned past the shampoo again, but it was still a relief to find Ray and Fraser had gone.
They weren’t waiting in line when she paid and took her bag either, and that felt like another reprieve. She could do this another day – next time she saw Ray, she’d have worked out what to say. What not to say. How to look like she was fine with it until she actually was fine with it.
She hadn’t quite managed either of those things as she crossed the parking lot in search of a taxi, but she was completely in control of herself again.
Only then, damn it all to hell, there was Ray’s car, right in her path.
That car she’d loved when they were 18 and been sick to death of by the time they were 25 – she’d recognise that damn car anywhere. Even without Ray leaning against the passenger side door, Fraser pressed up against him, arms braced on the roof.
She stopped dead. There was enough light to see Fraser close the gap between them, and there across the dark lot was the kiss they’d been too discreet to exchange inside the store. This was a kiss that didn’t know it had an audience: Ray letting Fraser tip his head back back back to deepen the angle, his hands coming up to grip Fraser’s shoulders as they made out.
She shouldn’t be watching this, she knew she shouldn’t be watching this. It sent a weird thrill of recognition through her. She’d made out with Ray up against this car: in the front seat, in the backseat. More than made out, in fact – she’d fucked Ray in this car. She knew what it felt like to have Ray in her arms, the smell of him and the car, how intensely he kissed, his weight on her.
She’d never seen it from the outside before. Never thought she would, either. That this strange Canadian and Ray, her Ray, would be blocking her way out of a parking lot quite like this.
For a moment she almost lost her nerve and fled back inside.
But this was her way out, dammit. She’d never find a cab out back, and she was not going to hide from Ray. This had to be done sooner or later, so it may as well be now. With Mike waiting for her, their dinner in her bag, condoms she was going to use with him in her purse.
So she headed across the lot, and made sure they could hear her coming. Thank god for heels.
Sure enough Fraser stepped back and looked over his shoulder at the sound of her footsteps, and both of their faces changed as they recognised her. It was like something out of a bad farce, she thought hysterically and almost laughed.
Straightforward was best, she decided. No mock surprise.
“Hi Ray. Fraser. I thought I saw you inside,” she said, stopping a few feet away.
Ray began, “Stella. Hi – I - ” and scrubbed a hand through his hair.
He hadn’t seen her inside, that was pretty obvious. And now, here she was! Appearing out of the autumn twilight when he least expected her, at the worst possible moment! She almost wished she’d said hi over the condoms – anything had to be better than this, breaking up a makeout session up against that damn car. She could see him wondering how much she’d seen, how she was going to react, and she didn’t know if she could stand to see him take a guilty step away from Fraser like he had to hide this from her.
But he didn’t. They’d only moved far enough apart for them both to straighten up and acknowledge they weren’t alone. Ray’s hand was still on Fraser’s arm, like he hadn’t even noticed it was there. And why would he? Every time she saw him with Fraser they were like this, like neither of them ever got the memo that guys don’t stand this close together, not unless they want people to talk. Why hadn’t she noticed before? Why didn’t people talk? Or - did they talk, but just not when she was around? Because there were people who’d love that, weren’t there? Ball-breaking Stella Kowalski, turned her husband queer!
Conversation deserted her.
“Well, nice to see you. I’m just gonna get a cab…” she gestured to the street beyond the parking lot.
The two of them exchanged a look, and Fraser gave the tiniest nod at whatever question he read in Ray’s face.
“Where you headed? You – uh – you wanna ride?”
No point being coy now. “51st street. Mike’s place. But I’m fine, there’s no need…”
“It would really be no trouble,” Fraser said. She looked hard at him. Was that supposed to mean something? But he just stood there and met her gaze, and she couldn’t tell.
What the hell, she thought. They’d think she had a problem with their – their – relationship, Stella, goddammit – if she refused. It would be easier to get a ride. Even if it meant travelling in this car. This car she loved in spite of herself, and all the 20 year old memories tied up in it from when they were both different people. How many miles and city blocks had she watched go by from that passenger seat? All Ray’s friends wanted to ride up front, and he would never let them if Stella was in the car. Your girl got the front seat, everyone knew that, he’d say.
“Well, if you’re sure,” she said, and Fraser was already opening the passenger side, flipping the seat forward and bracing his hand on the roof to slide into the back before she stopped him.
“I’ll go in the back,” she said before she’d had time to think about it, and they both turned to look at her.
“You’re taller than me,” she added, willing Ray to understand. “You should go in the front.”
And after a second he did. He ducked his head for a second, and when he looked up he was smiling.
“Yeah. Ok,” he said.
Fraser didn’t.
“I’m perfectly comfortable in the back - ” he began, but Ray cut him off.
“Uh-uh. Front’s your seat. Thanks, Stell.”
They looked at each other with a flash of that old understanding, and Ray tugged Fraser back with a hand on his belt so she could slip in with her bag.
“Ray - ” he protested, his old-fashioned manners clearly finding this un-gentlemanly in the extreme.
“It’s your seat,” she repeated.
“I really don’t see - ”
“Shut up and get in the car, Frase.”
Ray pulled up in right in front of Mike’s building. He was parked illegally, but Stella didn’t say anything and neither did Fraser.
Even in the dark she could see Ray put a hand on Fraser’s leg to stop him leaping out to let her out the back. Ray cut the engine and got out himself, flipped the seat forward and took her bag as she slid out. It was awkward to do in her fitted skirt without letting it ride up, and she took his offered hand without thinking about it. Back when this back seat meant something different, she didn’t even own a skirt like this.
But now she had a wardrobe full of them, and they suited her. She wasn’t the girl in Ray Kowalski’s back seat any more, and the front seat was someone else’s.
Ray stood in front of her on the dark sidewalk, hands in his pockets.
“Thanks for the ride, Ray.”
“Yeah. It was no trouble - s’on our way.”
She didn’t ask where they were going. Groceries, condoms – they were going home, to eat dinner and fuck. Same as she was, really. Ray hadn’t asked who Mike was. It wasn’t his business, any more than what Ray did was hers.
“Well, it was kind of you. Both of you,” she said with an awkward nod towards where Fraser waited in the car, carefully not looking at them.
“Any -” he cut himself off and his smile flashed in the dark. “Ok, maybe not anytime, but - you know.”
She couldn’t help smiling back. “Yeah, I know, Ray. I’ll see you around, ok?”
“Yeah, sure. See you around, Stel. Have a nice evening.”
His feet shifted like he was going to lean in and kiss her on the cheek, but then he didn’t. Maybe he thought she wouldn’t like it. Maybe he thought Fraser wouldn’t like it.
“You too,” she said.
When she got to the top step of Mike’s building she turned and raised a hand. Ray was facing away from her, manoeuvring the car out into the street. But Fraser saw, and raised a hand in return.
Then the car had pulled out into the traffic and Mike’s voice was saying “Stella? Come on up!” on the intercom, sounding happy she was there, and she wasn’t going to think about Ray any more tonight.
The door buzzed, and she pushed it open. The GTO’s taillights flashed in the glass then disappeared out of sight as it fell closed behind her.