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Obviously, Carol knows that Helen is pissed at her, but she isn't going to bring it up unless she has no other choice. As she hears the sharp jet of water against plates and the harsh clunks of them being dropped into the sink—despite the perfectly working dishwasher—Carol accepts that she has no other choice.
Sighing guiltily, she walks into the kitchen, stopping a couple feet from Helen at the sink.
"Are you washing those plates or testing their resistance?"
Helen closes the tap, turns around. "That's funny," Helen says. "Why couldn't you be this funny during dinner?"
"I was funny," Carol protests.
"You were mean," Helen says. "They're our friends, Carol, and I work with Jane, remember. I'm gonna have to see her tomorrow and it's gonna be real fucking awkward—"
"I know! I know!" she says, throwing her arms a little. "But, come on, you heard that dig—"
"That dig was a compliment!"
"I didn't expect to like it so much – that's what you call a compliment? Oh, your book sounded like dogshit to me at first, but actually, it was okay!"
Helen levels her with a look that immediately embarrasses her. "And do you think you might be projecting a little, here?"
Carol crosses her arms. "No. Yes. You have to admit it was still bitchy of her."
This is one of their little disharmonies; Helen sometimes stays neutral rather than unequivocally taking Carol's side, because she cares about 'fairness' and 'being social' – never mind that Carol is her wife, and that they're only friends with Jane and Rachel because they know very few other gay people.
"And you can admit that you've just made my life a little harder," Helen says.
"I can," she says with another sigh. Helen turns back around to pick up a utensil, one Carol knows is already washed. She approaches her until she's standing at her side, hips pressing against the counter. "I'm sorry, this is stupid." Helen agrees with a nod. "Come on, give me a smile."
Helen gives her a comically wide-eyed, closed-lipped smile, like: There. Happy?
Carol chuckles lightly and kisses her temple. I'll take it, she thinks.
They had met in the fall of 2010 when Carol was working as an editor for Artemesia Publishing and Helen was managing a particularly difficult new writer of theirs. He was a real pain, never trusting Carol's judgement, always taking every suggestion personally, yet insisting on harassing her by text or e-mail everyday. So, Carol had made Helen her main point of contact, just so that she wouldn't have to deal with him.
She had, essentially, like an asshole, dumped her share of the inconvenience onto Helen's long-suffering lap. But you have to understand that at some point, it'd stopped being about her client entirely. And Carol liked to think that—and this would be confirmed later—Helen didn't really mind it because she got to exchange with Carol.
She felt seen. Her head was swimming. Everything fell into place. Et cetera, et cetera. All that cliché chick lit bullshit started making sense for her.
The first time they'd met in person, Helen had smiled at her like she could see right through Carol. She'd hidden so much of herself all throughout her life; her sexuality from her conservative Polish parents, her politics from the childhood friends she was stuck with, her wants from everyone else. And Helen just saw it.
It was scary to be known, but easy to let it happen. She became more honest with herself. It could be said that she had no choice; Helen wasn't satisfied by Carol's usual stories: the family dog that died when she was fourteen; the chainsmoking grandfather who would only once use his lighter in the day, because he'd light his next cigarette with the dying end of the previous one; the cousin who hit on her at their uncle's wedding and pretended the next day that he'd been drunk. The kind of shit you say so you can pretend you're revealing something about yourself, while keeping everything that matters underwater.
In consequence, there was some overflow onto her everyday life.
Mom, Dad, I'm gay.
Kelly, shut the fuck up about civil unions.
Helen, I want to be a writer.
Safe to say, Carol's life completely changed.
(And all that's very important, really, but here are some things about Helen, too: she had her first girlfriend in her sophomore year of college and it ended terribly; her parents are the accepting, hippie kind; she's of a curious nature and could find something to marvel at, that everyone else would miss, in a literal pile of shit; she's often and surprisingly negative but Carol sometimes misses it, because Helen usually has to balance her out; her favorite book is Lament for Julia by Susan Taubes; she loves Carol more than anyone else on earth.)
"It doesn't feel like it's supposed to," Carol says, three drinks deep.
"Carol," Helen says. "I'm watching the reviews rolling in, you know, and they're almost all great."
Carol scoffs. "Rolling in. Like... a garbage truck," she says, smirking fleetingly at the wordplay. "I never wanted to be this kind of writer. I'm— I'm what I used to laugh at. Fuck."
"What did we say?" Helen asks, setting her glass soundly on the table.
"What did we say?" Carol murmurs into her glass.
"This is just to get your feet wet," Helen reminds her. True, but she's made so many fucking concessions; it had began as an exciting project. "It's your first book, and it's a success. You're in, okay? Now you can write that sequel they're already begging for and then use the momentum to sell them on a story that you want to write. And people will read it, simply because there's your name on it."
"And other people, serious people, will avoid it because there's my name on it. They'll say: Oh! That pirate sex book lady wrote this, guess I won't be buying it, after all."
"Or. You can look at the glass half full instead of half empty, for once."
"Speaking of half empty glasses—"
"Nope," Helen says. "You're cut off. Any mopeyer and you'll need a personal raincloud."
"Mopeyer?" Carol says. "You just want me to correct you so I feel better." You bitch, she'd have added if she were in the mood to joke, which she isn't.
"I want you to stay coherent so we can celebrate properly. Later. In the dark. Do I need to wink, or are you starting to get it?"
Carol almost laughs at that. Almost. Helen can't wink. She insists that she can but she really can't. She just blinks with a smirk.
"You really want to go to bed with the author of Tides of Wycaro?"
"Yes," Helen says simply. "Badly. She's a real romantic."
"No, she really isn't," she says with a frown.
"Sure, she is. That's why the book works so well. You, Carol Sturka, have the soul of a romantic."
"Take that back."
"Nope. You're a big, sappy, sexy romantic. Deal with it."
Carol traps Helen in her gaze, eyes narrowed, like a battle. Helen's defense against her attitude is a wide and unserious grin that she holds for far longer than Carol expects.
Carol breaks first eventually, lets out a chuckle so small, it shouldn't even count as a victory for Helen, but it does. "You bitch," she mutters fondly.
Her book sucks, but she's lucky, isn't she? That Helen loves her. Sometimes, she thinks she doesn't deserve it, because she keeps caving in to her fears. Making the love interest of her protagonist a man. Not even pecking Helen when they visit her parents. She even got worried when they legalized gay marriage because it's an option now, and she can't bring a hammer to that fucking closet once and for all.
But – she can always be better. Her next book, her serious book, will be full of Helen. It couldn't be about anything else.
Her life isn't everything she wants it to be; she'll be the first to admit it. Unprompted. So it's good that Helen knows her bone-deep, because she can feel herself getting cruel, sometimes: when she complains about the shitty books that payed for their home, when she listens to Helen's notes that make those books less shitty and then still calls them shitty, when they lay in bed together, listening to The Smiths, and Carol can only think about all the ways she's disappointed herself in the last decade, and most of all, when she realizes how rich her life is and keeps it to herself. Because she thinks that makes it more precious somehow, but deep down she knows it's just what she tells herself.
Helen knows it, but Carol should tell her. Bitter Chrysalis is supposed to say it all, but what if it never comes out? What if a double decker bus crashes into Carol and she never completes it? God, at least, she'd be going first.
"Hey. I love you," she tells Helen, because she feels guilty about that last thought. But also not really. She means it too much. She watches Helen's expression shift, eyebrows raising before relaxing, the corners of her lips tugging up. "There's that smile."
"I love you, too," Helen says, before pulling on her cigarette, cheeks hollowing out.
That sight never gets old for her. It still makes her heart race. She should – linger more. Take some moments to marvel at the beauty of the world. Or just acknowledge it. Carol has so much of it right in front of her.
She'll take Helen to Spain, maybe. Or Algeria. It doesn't matter, just someplace Helen can indulge with every attention and Carol can learn to do the same through her. They'll do everything they've ever wanted to do, and everything that they haven't even thought of yet, and later, things that haven't even started existing.
She tells Helen exactly that later—well, a more offhand version of that—to which Helen just laughs and says that there's no rush.
"There was a line in Bojack Horseman that made me think of you, yesterday," Helen says.
Carol gapes, stunned. "You watched Bojack without me?"
"Oh, stop it, we've finished it twice, already."
"Alright. What is it."
"Don't fetishize— wait. You feti— fuck, what was it? No, yeah, that's right: you fetishize your own sadness."
"... And you thought of me?"
"Yes. I don't why I thought you'd take it well."
"I don't know either."
Helen snaps her fingers like she's just remembered why. "Oh. Right. Because Bojack says this to Diane, even though he's totally projecting. I thought you'd like the comparison to her."
"And to the washed out, statutory rapist, junkie horse."
"But mostly Diane. It's cool how she stopped trying to make her sadness meaningful by writing some deep book about it, and just wrote what made her happy."
"Is there a subliminal message I should get, here?"
"No, actually," Helen says, looking sincere. "You're not that sad. You're just a snob. Keep writing that deeply serious book."
Carol snorts. "I will," she says. She takes a deep breath for some reason, and it's only then that she acknowledges that her feelings are a little hurt. She's not sure why. Helen senses some tension in the silence and puts a hand on her knee. "I just— what if the happy book is all I can write?" And it doesn't even make me happy?
She holds her breath a little, anxious to what Helen's reply might be.
That wouldn't be so bad.
Oh, the best-selling book series is all that you can write? I want a divorce.
So what? Wycaro is still good. Come on.
Helen says, "It isn't. You have a lot in that brain." She brings her hand to Carol's face. For a second, Carol thinks she's going to knock her knuckles against her temple, but Helen just brushes some hair back.
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because I know you," Helen says, shrugging.
Carol tilts her head into Helen's open palm, closing her eyes. She lets herself take comfort in Helen's words. She lets herself believe them. She realizes that she does, she really does.
Later, after the end of the world, she'll go back to her home that isn't one anymore, and talk to Davis Taffler through the TV. She'll futilely try every number in her address book. She'll smash a glass against the wall. She'll drink until she passes out. And she'll dream about Helen.
It will be an old memory. She won't get to make new ones, even in her dreams.
"I think I'm a year away from menopause."
"You are not a year away from menopause."
"No, I think I am. My mother hit it young. Younger than I am – I'm on borrowed time, Carol."
"You're ridiculous."
"Oh, I get it. I'm getting old, you don't find me attractive anymore."
"Y— Yes, that's it. Get out of my house. Take your menopause with you."
"Wow! Here I thought you wanted to grow old together."
"I do."
"Oh my god, Carol. And you say you're not a sappy romantic. You couldn't even keep up the act thirty seconds."
"Shut up."
"It's okay. You know we're doing it right now, right?"
"What?"
"Growing old together."
"We are growing older. Thank you. Not old."
"Race you to the finish line?"
"You're so morbid, baby. Fine, yes. I'm faster anyway."
"Well, I'm older."
"Maybe I'll die of cancer." (Carol had decided then to make Helen stop smoking, or maybe start smoking herself.) "You don't know."
"And I'm morbid, huh."
"I don't know, that sounded good to me."
"How about we die together? At the same time?"
"Hm. I'd very much like that. Deal."
"Alright. Deal."
She'd actually convinced herself that it could happen this way.
But as of right now, she's still on the bed of the truck, staring down at her unresponding wife, thinking that they should have more time, that if anyone deserves it, it's Helen. Because Carol is stupid and bitter. She never learns her lessons, and there are still so many moments she let slip away. Helen never takes them for granted like she does.
There's movement around her and she's terrified. People who had dropped fucking dead are now walking. Everyone else woke up, so why not you? Why not you?
They're supposed to go to Sicily again, next year. Buy a little townhouse that's old enough to still have latin words on the front, and spend three times as much money on renovating it. Try sailing. Learn Italian. Eat new foods. Have a daughter.
But fuck those things, Carol wants the same shit she's always had. She wants to lounge in bed with Helen, watch The Golden Girls and breathe her second-hand smoke, continue the fucking book tour, drink good whiskey, make love in every hotel.
Come on, she thinks insanely, give me a smile. Please.