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“What I don’t understand,” Nancy huffs, hauling a box through the threshold, “is why you needed me here to help. Surely your dad would have been enough.”
“And miss the chance to drag all the girls to one spot for the first time in a year?” Cynthia asks, sparkle in her eye as she accepts the (rather light) box from Nancy to set beside the newest tower. “C’mon, Nance, it’s not that bad.”
“Five flights of stairs, Zdunowski,” Nancy retorts.
“You’ve been here twenty minutes,” Cynthia says, shoving past the Pink Lady to help Lydia carry a box through the door. “If it’s that bad, the fire escape’s right out the window, take a breather there.” She waves an elbow in the general direction, checking the top of the box for the neat, compact handwriting that denotes it as bedroom.
The apartment is small, smaller than the old one back in Rydell, but Cynthia’s good at downsizing. The move has been a long time in coming, Lydia had been in San Francisco for over a year, waiting for Cynthia to finally say goodbye to the mechanic shop and join her. A year since they’ve been so close to each other, the first time they’ve given the whole living together thing a shot. Cynthia’s nervous about it, of course she is, but it’s not like she isn’t excited.
Cynthia’s truck has done most of the lifting for the move, packed tight with boxes and a smattering of furniture (an end table and dresser, mostly, removed from her pops’ apartment with his blessing). It’s an older thing, a project from her senior year of high school that her pops gifted to her at graduation, dropping the keys into her palm with an “I’m proud of you, kiddo.” She’d not expected a car, had scrambled to get her license proper but as soon as she’d managed it she was unstoppable.
“Why do you get to stay up here and direct us?” Nancy whines, snapping Cynthia out of her thoughts. She’s leaning against one of the undecorated walls, dramatically fanning herself. Lydia chuckles, pausing on her way into the apartment proper to press a chaste kiss to her cheek. Even after so many years, Cynthia flushes and Nancy groans. “Right, nevermind. I’ll take breaking my arms moving heavy boxes over watching you two be… domestic. ” With that, she’s out the door again, leaving the two of them in a brief moment of peace.
“I’m exhausted,” Lydia declares, hands on her hips. “And in desperate need of alcohol.”
“After we get everything, babe,” Cynthia says. “There’s only a few more boxes, assuming Jane and Olivia couldn’t manage them, even after their move three months ago.”
It’s been rough, having the Pink Ladies so split up. Olivia and Jane have taken up residence in Boston of all places, in their own, similarly sized apartment. Cynthia was, perhaps, the only one not surprised by the announcement of their living arrangements, having seen the looks the two girls exchanged throughout senior year. Jane stares at Olivia like she hung the stars themselves. It’s a sweet, new thing, only a year and a half old, and Cynthia can recognize its fragility. She’s happy for them.
Cynthia is not looking forward to another trip up the stairs but knows Nancy certainly won’t, and Hazel is busy sorting boxes in the meager kitchen. Sure enough, when Cynthia slips out the door to assist the others, Nancy is leaning against the railing, looking at the city with a cigarette in her hand. Cynthia snatches it and manages a healthy drag before Nancy recovers it, holding it aloft as though it were a trophy. She opens her mouth to say something, but is interrupted by bickering coming up the stairs. Both Olivia and Jane emerge seconds later, balancing a stack of boxes each.
“Alright lovebirds,” Cynthia says, easily accepting Jane’s stack with a wink. “No bickering before we’ve finished setting up.” Olivia, with all the maturity of a seven year old, sticks her tongue out.
“You can’t be mean to us,” Jane says. “These are the rest of the boxes.”
Cynthia will never admit it, but she’s a bit impressed.
Once all the girls are settled in the apartment (settled being an exaggerated approximation of the situation, with boxes scattered about and almost nowhere to comfortably sit) Cynthia lets the door fall shut and saunters over to the fridge to pull out the case of beer she’d bought on the way from Rydell.
“Bottle opener?” she asks Lydia, who perches quietly on the kitchen counter while the Pink Ladies poke around in boxes and start a brief, but violent pillow fight with Lydia’s small collection of throw pillows. It’s like they’re in high school again, like none of them ever grew up, though Hazel is participating, a distinct change from their high school years.
They’ve grown the closest since the Pinks moved around the country. Hazel remained close to Rydell, despite her continual expressed need to get out of the town, get out of California. She’s been wrapped up in computer work, though, confidence growing the closer she got to a goal she’d only whisper to Cynthia during their occasional sleepovers: space.
It’s good to see her fit back into the Pink Ladies with so much ease.
“Box marked dishes,” Lydia says, thinks better of the instruction, and goes to find it herself. It leaves Cynthia a single, sweaty moment of peace to surveil her new kingdom.
There’s a stretch of counter that separates the kitchen from the living room, currently stacked high with boxes and bags and the small wooden coffee table dragged with them from Lydia’s old apartment. Beyond that, the small hallway that splits into two tiny bedrooms, one they’ve claimed for themselves, another to be converted into whatever they please once they’ve settled a bit further. Lydia’s hand brushes her back as she passes by, dropping the bottle opener into Cynthia’s waiting hand. Her lips press against Cynthia’s cheek as she pops open the bottles before her.
“It’s all ours,” Lydia says, words soft in Cynthia’s ear. Shivers trail down her back and Lydia grins, allowing Cynthia to catch her in a kiss that lingers more than it was meant to. Olivia’s wolf whistle from the living room causes Lydia to pull back, blushing. Cynthia, however, juts her chin, collects the bottles of beer, and carries them to the waiting Pink Ladies.
“Are we allowed to bicker now, your royal highness?” Olivia asks as Cynthia hands her a beer. She takes a healthy swig, leaning back against the box pile behind her, crossing one leg over her knee. Jane sits close beside her, not quite touching. They’re not as used to it as she and Lydia are, even after three years together. Cynthia wants to reach out, to reassure one of her closest friends that she’s safe, but it will come with time. She barely believes it herself.
“Bicker away,” Cynthia says, holding up her bottle. “A toast! To new starts. And my lovely wife.” She tilts the bottle in Lydia’s direction, where the girl is pouring a glass of wine. Where she found the glass, Cynthia hasn’t the faintest clue. The girls lift their bottles in turn and Nancy adds an additional whoop of excitement.
They’re married in name only, in the way that Cynthia calls her my wife when they’re among friends, in the simple gold band that she wears on a chain about her neck, tucked under her shirt. There’d been a party back at Rydell, before San Francisco, but it feels decades away.
They party well into the evening, drinking and swapping stories. Jane and Olivia complain about Boston, Jane about the local politics and Olivia about the utter lack of motivation in her students. Hazel announces that she’ll be moving out of Rydell soon, though promises to delay for a while so they all can recover. Nancy begs off early, needing to catch an early flight back to New York for one fashion thing or another. Hazel is quick to follow, wrapping Cynthia and Lydia in a tight embrace with a whisper in their ears of how happy she is for them.
The two couples sit in comfortable silence for several minutes before Cynthia pushes to her feet and surveys the suddenly staggering amount of boxes. It’s hard and yet so easy to believe that her life, that Lydia’s life, are both wrapped up in all that cardboard.
“So do you want to help us unpack or do you want to slip out while our backs are turned?” she asks, laughing when Olivia and Jane exchange grimaces.
“We’ve been unpacking for months ,” Jane says. “Or what feels like it anyway. I’m sick to death of unpacking.” She sets her beer to the side. “What’s the plan now, for you two?”
“Well,” Cynthia begins, “I’m set to start at the shop in a couple days. Gil says they should be alright with me being…well…you know.” She gestures to her body and Olivia hums, sympathetic. “And you’ve got a few auditions coming up, right?” She turns her attention to Lydia, who smiles, still bashful around the Pinks, even after all these years. “Living life, you know. Hopefully easier here than back in Rydell.” It hadn’t been bad persay, not outright. None of the high and mighty suburbanites ever thought deviants would grace their little burb, and no one else cared that much , not if you’re useful like Cynthia is. Still, there’d been comments and she’d been far enough from Lydia that her absence was a sting.
San Francisco would be better. It had to be.
They sit and swap tales until the shadows grow long and the sun begins to sink in the sky. Jane’s recent political campaigning in Boston has her riled in a dozen different directions and Cynthia smiles each time Olivia lays a hand across Jane’s and whispers something in her ear that gets her to settle, however briefly. Lydia retires to the bedroom to make the bed, currently just a mattress against the floor with a box of sheets, pillows, and a blanket dropped on top of it.
The three of them sit, sipping beers, staring at anything but each other for a few, precious seconds.
“I appreciate your help,” Cynthia says. “I’m really glad the two of you could make it, I know it’s a long way to come for something pretty small, at the end of the day–”
“Hush,” Olivia says, and then she wraps Cynthia in a hug that feels like home. Cynthia exhales, sinks into the embrace, the familiar scent of Olivia’s perfume around her. “We’re happy to come, we’re happy for you. For both of you. I know how big of a deal this is for you.” When she pulls back, Cynthia has to quickly scrub the tears starting to form in her eyes. For a single afternoon, everything had felt like it used to, the Pink Ladies gathered around, making jokes, complaining about the world and everything in it. It had felt right, the five of them in the tiny living room. She doesn’t want it to be over already.
“We’ll be here all week,” Jane says. “If you’d like, we can visit tomorrow and help with whatever you need.” She pats Cynthia’s shoulder, then, as if thinking better of it, hugs her as well. “Now we best get going. I’m sure you and Lydia want some time on your own.”
She has the audacity to wink, and the last of the Pink Ladies part with Cynthia swatting Jane’s shoulder in an effort to get her out of the house faster. They’re not gone before Olivia’s wrung a meeting time for the following day out of her and then, suddenly, the apartment is quiet. The sounds of the city bleed in a bit through the walls, but Cynthia’s already getting used to drowning them out and the only other major thing is Lydia bustling about in the bedroom.
Cynthia saunters (well, she does a little half jog half walk that makes her limbs all spindly, like an ungainly sixteen year-old again) to the doorframe and smiles at the sight before her. Lydia’s back is to her, and she’s wrestling with the fitted sheets Cynthia’s pop bought them as a going away present. She’s changed into a pair of Cyntia’s BVDs and an old t-shirt, giving Cynthia a great view of her–
“If you’re going to stand there, you could at least help.” Lydia’s teasing, but Cynthia feels thoroughly chastised, and steps over to help her. “Everyone seemed alright. Are Jane and Olivia–”
“Getting by,” Cynthia says. “I don’t want to ask if it’s easier, out there. Hell, it might be easier here, but they’re alright.” Between the two of them, it’s easy to make the bed, spread out the blanket, prop up pillows, survey their work. “It feels worse, with them. Like I’m suddenly realizing how much danger we’re in but they’re my best friends and I can’t protect them.” She laughs, more than a little cynical. “Maybe that’s how they felt when we told them about us.”
“They’re strong,” Lydia says. “I mean, the two of them practically made Jane’s campaign all those years ago. They have each other, and us, and the Pink Ladies and the T-Birds, to some extent.” Cynthia opens her mouth, but Lydia holds up a hand. “I know it’s not enough. It can’t be, but it’s better than nothing.”
Cynthia wants to argue. She wants a retort, a witty thing to say to ease the sudden weight of the room. It’s not safe, their not safe, but she’ll be damned if she lets Lydia go. Things are getting better, and Cynthia’s sure they’ll be able to find a bar, a club, a some thing some where so they can exist in public.
Still, when Lydia draws close and Cynthia has the opportunity to kiss her, to properly kiss her, it feels like coming home. Lydia is familiar and yet still so exciting, and Cynthia’s flushed red when she pulls back. She cups Lydia’s face in both her hands.
“We’ve got this, doll,” she says. “However scary it might be.” Lydia leans into the touch, kisses Cynthia’s palms before pulling her hands away, laughing.
“You’re so dramatic,” she says, and then she tugs on her hands until they’re tumbling back into their new bed, laughing.
Later that evening, much later, when Cynthia’s sure that Lydia is asleep, she slips out of bed and navigates the maze to the kitchen. There’s a single window, just above the sink that overlooks the city, blinking with light, even so late at night.
“This won’t be their last visit,” Lydia says, and her sudden presence in the kitchen makes Cynthia jump what’s probably a foot in the air. “We’ll go to them, or they’ll come to us.”
“I miss them so much when they’re not here,” Cynthia admits, and it’s nice to rest her head against Lydia’s shoulder when she comes to stand beside her and look at the window too. It’s easier to talk like this, at her and not to her. “I thought it would get easier the older we got but it feels worse now than right after we all graduated.”
“There’s more time with them,” Lydia says. “And we’ll savor what we have.”
“I love you,” Cynthia says. She doesn’t dare kiss her, not in front of the window, not when there’s even the slightest chance someone could watch. Even here, she’s terrified of getting caught.
“I love you too,” Lydia says. “Come back to bed?”
How could Cynthia say no?