Evie's Job

by Tess Mackenzie

  “She’s beautiful,” Evie said, a little sadly.

  “No…” Natalie said automatically, then wondered if she should have.

  “Don’t be mean,” Evie said. “She is.”

  “Not really,” Natalie said. “She makes an effort.”

  “Don’t be an asshole. That’s not effort, that’s her.”

  “It’s a wedding photo. We were both trying.”

  “Yeah,” Evie said. “And you have to say that.”

  Natalie didn’t answer.

  “You look amazing too,” Evie said.

  “Oh,” Natalie said, surprised. “Thank you.”

  Evie went quiet, thinking, and Natalie waited. She didn’t want Evie to be upset. She understood the peculiar way self-doubts struck, becoming terribly tangled, complicated things to confront, and she was fairly sure that Evie was struggling with some kind of uncertainty as she looked at photos of Natalie’s old life.

  *

  Natalie wanted to reassure Evie without being unnecessarily cruel about Meredith. She didn’t quite know what to say. They were lost in a tangle of Evie’s feelings, and Natalie’s hopes and fears, and all sorts of other things, things that mattered to each of them about who they were, none of which were very obvious or easy to understand. It was a strange, delicate situation, and Natalie didn’t know what to say to help.

  And to make it worse, to make it utterly silly, suddenly she wanted to laugh.

  She wanted to laugh because Evie was sitting there, completely naked, and completely comfortable with being naked, apparently entirely oblivious to the fact she was, while staring at photos of Meredith and worrying about how Meredith had looked fifteen years ago. And Evie was doing that without knowing how harshly Meredith had always judged her own appearance, and how uncomfortable she was with her own body, and that Meredith hadn’t wanted Natalie to see her undressed in years.

  Natalie’s life with Meredith had been getting changed quickly, and never sharing bathrooms, and usually having sex with the lights off. With Meredith, naked had always been awkward, and with a nasty undercurrent of envy too, and Natalie had always felt that some of Meredith’s embarrassment had rubbed off on her, without her completely realizing. Natalie had become self-conscious, and she had stayed self-conscious until she met Evie. Only then had her discomfort started to lessen, mostly because of Evie. Mostly because Evie was so carelessly self-assured. Sometimes Natalie watched Evie, sitting on the kitchen bench, smoking under the fan, and was almost certain that Evie wasn’t aware of the way her legs were crossed at all. Or how far her shoulders were forward, or how her tummy looked, or anything else other than simply sitting. Strangely, being around that was helping Natalie. She was starting to feel comfortable when she was naked too. She wasn’t entirely sure why, when it seemed somehow as if the opposite ought to happen, but it didn’t, and so Natalie was. It was wonderful how much Evie helped without knowing she did, and Natalie was glad. She was glad, except that now Evie was self-conscious too, self-conscious about something different, something that equally ought not worry her, and Natalie wanted to be reassuring but didn’t know what to say, because Evie had never really been like this before.

  Natalie didn’t laugh. She made herself not. She thought, wondering what to say. “It was a long time ago,” she said, cautiously, in the end.

  “I know,” Evie said. “That’s the problem.”

  “How is it a problem?” Natalie said.

  Evie shrugged.

  “I want to say something to help,” Natalie said. “But really I don’t know what.”

  “I don’t either.”

  “What’s up?” Natalie said. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing really,” Evie said, but she still seemed a little sad.

  “Because I was with her so long?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “These?” Natalie said, and touched the album.

  “Yeah, I guess. I’ve never seen wedding photos of someone I’m sleeping with before. It’s never come up, I suppose.”

  “I imagine it’s odd.”

  Evie smiled wanly. “Oh it is. Have you? Seen photos?”

  “Well, no.”

  “So there you go.” Evie sat for a moment. She seemed to still be thinking. “What’s she like. I mean, what does she do? What’s her job?”

  “She’s ambitious,” Natalie said. “She’s selfish, too.”

  “Obviously,” Evie said. “The affair.”

  Natalie nodded.

  “What else,” Evie said. “What’s fun. What’s work?”

  “No fun, not really. Just work.”

  “Like you?”

  Natalie shrugged.

  “What’s her job?” Evie said.

  Natalie hesitated, unsure whether she ought to say. Then she remembered promising herself she would never be deceptive with Evie, and said, “She’s a lawyer too.”

  “Oh god,” Evie said, sounding flat. “Of course she is. Is she any good?”

  Natalie stayed quiet. She didn’t know how to answer that.

  “She is, isn’t she?” Evie said. “Good?”

  “She’s done well for herself, yes.”

  “What’s her name again?” Evie said.

  Natalie told her.

  “Oh fuck,” Evie said, sounding surprised. “That Meredith?”

  “Probably.”

  “The barrister?”

  Natalie nodded.

  “Doesn’t she have a law firm named after her.”

  “Not named after her,” Natalie said, then decided it wasn’t the time to explain named partnerships and equity shares if Evie didn’t already know. “She’s a partner at her firm, yes.”

  “Oh,” Evie said.

  “You’re upset,” Natalie said. “I want to help, but I don’t know how.”

  “Yeah,” Evie said, which wasn’t completely helpful.

  “What’s wrong?” Natalie said.

  “I’m not sure. She’s perfect and has a career and I won’t even find out if I can compete with her for another fifteen or twenty years.”

  “You don’t have to compete with her.”

  Evie looked at Natalie, utterly scornful. “Of course I do.”

  “You don’t.”

  “I really do. A little bit. Somehow.”

  “Evie, no. That isn’t how it is.”

  “It is to you. You like ambition and hard work, remember? You just said you liked that she was ambitious.”

  “I didn’t say I liked it. I said she was.”

  “You like ambition, though, you’ve said so before.”

  “I like it in me. Which is nothing to do with you starting some contest with Meredith. That’s just… wrong.”

  Evie didn’t answer.

  Natalie decided she needed to choose. She had to pick the person who mattered now over loyalty to secrets from years ago. “Meredith worries about getting old,” Natalie said. “She’s terrified of it.”

  “Okay. So…?”

  “Well, I assume she still is. And I assume that no matter what else, she’ll be horrified by your age if she ever meets you.”

  Evie looked at Natalie as if she didn’t understand.

  “If you’re worried about meeting her,” Natalie said. “And about how you’ll feel, then really don’t. She’ll feel something similar about you.”

  “Why would I meet her?”

  “I don’t know. In case you ever do.”

  Evie nodded. “So like with snakes? She’s more scared of me than I am of her?”

  “No that isn’t…” Natalie said, and stopped. “I just meant, that for worrying, you’ve got it back to front. You win by being you, that’s all. Even though you probably don’t think that, she will.”

  “Except,” Evie said. “She has the career and all I have is young.”

  “You don’t need anything else.”

  Evie looked at her for a moment. “You have to say that.”

  “I don’t really. And it’s also true. I mean, when you th
ink about it, all she has is a career now. She’s chosen what she has, and she’s stuck with it. You can do anything you like, and be anything you like, but she’s made what she has of her life and has to put up with it.”

  “Putting up with being a successful barrister?”

  “I’m not always sure she’s as happy as you’d assume.”

  “I suppose,” Evie said, and seemed to be thinking. “Is that the same for you? The putting up with the life you have?”

  “Not really,” Natalie said. “Not especially, no.”

  “Because of me?”

  Natalie nodded. “I suppose so, yes.”

  Evie nodded. She looked at the album, in front of her. She flipped pages slowly, looking at the photos. Then she closed the album and handed it back. Natalie put it on the floor.

  “It’s weird, sometimes,” Evie said. “Knowing you had this whole other life…”

  “I did,” Natalie said. “And now I don’t. Because now there’s you.”

  Evie sat there for a while. “Seriously?” she said.

  “Seriously.”

  “I know I ask this often, but this isn’t just fun still, is it? I mean, it’s not just fucking me until I’m too much trouble and then stopping. Is it?”

  “No, Evie. I promise. It isn’t. It never was.”

  Evie nodded. “Thank you. And sorry I keep asking.”

  Natalie shrugged.

  “I’m glad it’s not,” Evie said.

  “Me too. But do you mind if we go to sleep now?”

  “Oh god, sorry,” Evie said. “No, of course not.”

  “You’re tired enough to sleep?”

  Evie nodded.

  “You’re sure you’re ready,” Natalie said, concerned. “I mean, if you’re not…”

  “I am,” Evie said. “Turn off the light.”

  Natalie decided it was best just to accept that without arguing. She kissed Evie, and switched off the light, and held Evie as she went to sleep. She wasn’t sure if talking had helped or not, but she hoped it had. Hoping was the best she could do.

  *

  Talking to Evie about Meredith had started Natalie thinking. About Meredith, and also about happiness and fulfilment and what she wanted from her life.

  Natalie was happy with where her life was now. Happier than many people were, she suspected, and happier than she had been herself in a long time.

  She was happy with Evie, and happy with her career, too. Especially happy with her career. She was able to take only work which interested her, and did fairly well at it, and most importantly, she no longer had to work impossibly long hours. Until the separation from Meredith, she had been more single-minded about her work. Both she and Meredith had worked to the exclusion of most else in their lives. The separation had made Natalie rethink that, to reconsider the long hours and weekends in the office and giving everything to her job. It had made her wonder what she really wanted, and she had begun to realise that work alone wasn’t enough.

  She had realized that because of Meredith.

  Because Meredith had left, and left the way she did, Natalie had been forced to begin her life over in a way that many people never did. And despite the hurt it had caused, starting her life over, or at least thinking about everything as if she was, that had turned out to be a good thing. She had thought carefully about her choices, about the cases she took and the friends she needed and what exactly she chose to pursue with her time. She had begun to consider what she truly wanted, and what was only ingrained habit, and had done so for the first time since she was Evie’s age. As well, she had done so with a sense of stability and safety. She was already established in her career and had some financial security, a sense of security which she had lacked making decisions of that sort when she was younger. She appreciated that. Security almost made re-examining her life fun. Being able to start again, she had decided, or at least to question whether she ought to start again, that was actually quite special. It was a privilege she wasn’t sure many people had.

  She told herself so sometimes, to make herself remember the hurt had been worth it. She told herself that instead of a heartbreak, the separation had been an opportunity. An opportunity to be happier, to make her life better than it had been before. It made her feel a little silly to think that way, like the worst kind of self-help book, but it was also true. She was financially secure, and answerable to no-one, and she was starting to realise how few people were able to say that. People around her, people her age going through breakups and divorces, had terrible complications with children and joint mortgages and shared retirement accounts and ongoing bills. Natalie had avoided all that. As well, with the way the separation had happened, with Meredith simply leaving and not giving Natalie any choice about whether she did, there were few opportunities to hope for reconciliation. Meredith’s heartlessness had forced Natalie to simply cope. To cope, rather than hope or compromise. Meredith leaving had devastated Natalie, but had also forced her to move on as quickly as she could, since she obviously couldn’t have Meredith back. It had made her get over Meredith completely and very finally, and so she had emerged from her separation with few entanglements or emotional scars. She was starting to realise how rare that was, too.

  She had learned something from it all. Most people, she thought, had changes in their lives forced upon them. Most people were made to change, and so, quite reasonably, they resisted it. Usually, change was frightening, and people couldn’t break with their past, not without a lot of difficulty. Instead, once they got past their hurt, instead of moving on, they squandered themselves on trying to get back what they’d lost.

  Natalie understood why. She might have done so herself, if Meredith hadn’t left her so crushingly. But because Meredith had, Natalie had known from the moment Meredith left that she didn’t want back what was gone. She never wanted Meredith back at all. She missed some part of her old life, the friends she’d lost and some of the fun it had been being a couple who were successful together, but that wasn’t enough to hope for a reconciliation, and that made it all a lot easier. All Meredith was to her now was a friend she’d shared her life with, and the cause of some painful lessons, and the hope that through learning those she could make her relationship with Evie better.

  Because oddly, Natalie actually expected Meredith’s affair to make her relationship with Evie better. Natalie had failed with Meredith so spectacularly that she had no expectations with Evie. She had stopped assuming she knew what a relationship ought to be. After first, right after Meredith, she had been wary of a new relationship. It was part of why it had taken her so long to be with someone else. She had worried that once she was in one, she might slip into old, unpleasant habits. And she might well have too, she thought, except for two reasons. If Meredith hadn’t failed her so spectacularly, and if Evie hadn’t been Evie, as well. There were two parts to it, she had decided. Two parts that made her think things could work with Evie. First, because Meredith had been so awful, Natalie was willing to reconsider what she thought she knew, and second, because Evie was who she was, younger and so obviously full of complications, Natalie was forced to simply be in the relationship, rather than presuppose what she thought a relationship ought to be and try and make it that. Evie’s age forced Natalie to think about all the ways a relationship could work, and to consider what she wanted, and what Evie seemed to need. And it was better that way, much better, rather than her just automatically being with Evie the same way she’d been with Meredith, because that hadn’t worked at all. The terrible failure with Meredith made Natalie willing to try different ways of doing things, and she was lucky in that, she thought, and suspected it was quite rare too.

  As well, Evie might well be the perfect partner to share her life with now, Natalie thought. A much better partner than someone her own age, someone still competing and struggling for things in life which Natalie was no longer entirely certain she wanted. She and Evie were at different stages of their lives, and Natalie thought that was good. Evie
would have different goals, goals Natalie could support her in without needed to seek the same things. More than that, Natalie was starting over, starting again, and in a way Evie was too. Evie was beginning her life, and Natalie was restarting her own, and that seemed to be a good fit. Evie was about to discover what she wanted from life, and who she needed to be, and Natalie was going to find out what she wanted herself, and they could do that together. That was a relief to realise as well, and something to be grateful for. Natalie couldn’t quite believe how lucky she was. She was happy with Evie, and happy with her work, and everything seemed to be going well.

  *

  Evie and Natalie were sitting on the couch in Natalie’s apartment, watching the lights far out over the harbour. It was late. Natalie kept wanting to yawn. They were only still up because they hadn’t yet gone to bed, and there was no better reason than that.

  They had been out earlier. They had gone to a restaurant for dinner. Evie had been studying all day, and had phoned Natalie and said she felt like being dressed up and not at home, so Natalie had said they should go out. She made reservations, and went and collected Evie, and they had walked to the restaurant because the night was warm, and walking was part of Evie having a change from the apartment. Being dressed up was too, so Evie had worn heels that were probably a little high for walking all the way to a restaurant and back. When they got home she kicked off her shoes at the door, and walked carefully to the couch, and flopped down with her feet up on it, and sighed.

  Natalie had sat down beside her, and lifted Evie’s feet onto her lap. Mostly to be comfortable, the way they were sitting, but then she felt sorry for Evie and started rubbing one of her feet. Massaging it, almost without thinking, because heels all night wasn’t fun, and Natalie felt sympathetic even though it had been entirely Evie’s choice to wear what she’d worn.

  Natalie had rubbed, and Evie had closed her eyes, and murmured that it was really nice, so Natalie kept rubbing. After a while she switched feet. While she rubbed, she thought, about lives and choices, and money and restaurant bills, and buying Evie things too. She thought about nothing particular, not especially paying attention to mind’s wanderings, until she oddly, suddenly, realized that she still didn’t know something quite important about Evie.