Work Text:
Cleaning the kitchen was on the top of the to-do list for days, practically weeks, by the time Suzanne really gets around to it. She’d been busy with work, she’d been busy with Kai, with Mia, with Michael, with everything and everyone but her very real to-do list. So now that she’s alone for the night, like she’s been waiting for, it’s finally the chance to complete any or all tasks. Still, even when she’s currently standing in the middle of her kitchen, grime covered broom in her hand, she’s barely getting around to filling up the dustpan sitting patiently at her feet.
Her thoughts are a thousand miles away from her kitchen, all chaos and all jumbled up sentences that should make no sense to her whatsoever:
You can’t find a decent date on a dating app.
Kick the man out of your bed-
Michael’s perfect long-lasting relationship is over before any of yours even began.
Do I seem…lesbian to you?
So great I wanna make out with ya.
But they all do make sense. That’s what’s so paralyzing to her now, when she should be in distress over a potential date with an eligible, decent single man. One that she hasn’t been on in months, not for lack of trying; certainly she’s tried. She has put herself out there on numerous occasions, striking up conversations with bartenders, waiters, salesman. She has flirted with colleagues and clients without shame or fear of rejection. It’s just that dating in this…economy…has proven to be difficult for a woman with her maturity and class.
Suzanne knows what she can offer, and especially knows what she can receive. However, something about now, something about the trajectory of her next possible relationship doesn’t seem familiar nor comforting in any usual way.
Suzanne sweeps the same spot over and over, until she registers the ding of her phone from the other side of the room, finally giving her an opportunity to pull her away from her perturbing mind. The incoming text message immediately dissolves the opportunity like melting putty in her bare hands.
Claire: Want to say hello to your new neighbor?
Before Suzanne can conjure any sort of reply to this, a series of soft, rhythmic knocking on her front door sends her heart right into the stratosphere. The chances of her late night visitor being that eligible single bachelor are slim to none, she fears.
Suzanne wasn’t counting on this. She hasn’t figured out how she was going to play this with—her—and she needs more time to get her thoughts and actions together. For her own sanity. But here is her time fleeting, forcing her to face her ambitious staple of unwitting affections in the dead of night while her kitchen remains sweep-less.
Her steps are light, clearly hesitant, and on the brink of escape. But she hasn’t climbed that fire escape since 2011 and she won’t be looking into doing it again anytime soon. Her only sane option is carrying her feet to the door.
“Finally, Suzanne, honestly how dare you keep your new neighbor waiting for her entrance?” Claire smirks devilishly at her as she enters, strutting past and abruptly sizing up the apartment. The wealthy woman’s pursed lips say all, but then Claire gives Suzanne a sweet smile.
“It’s funny I’ve never been inside of your home before tonight,” a tactical quick glance over Suzanne’s form. “I place the blame solely on you for not inviting me.” Her smile becomes another smirk in a blink of an eye, which surges something within the realtor…something desperate.
“It’s too small for you,” Suzanne says quickly and awkwardly, responding as if Claire was here to buy her apartment, not to visit. Which speaking of- “Your text. I need some context here.”
And before Claire could simply explain herself, she spins on her heels and saunters toward the sofa in the living room, expecting her friend to follow diligently as she begins speaking in candor.
“You wouldn’t believe the dreadful day I’ve had—my child still hasn’t returned any of my texts, calls or emails. I even sent a telegram. But not a peep! Fucking spoiled shit is what they are. And don’t worry, I ensured there weren’t any accidents, suicides, yada yada. They’re just blatantly ignoring me.”
Suzanne watches transfixed as Claire removes her designer shoes and makes herself much more comfortable on the sofa than anybody but Suzanne herself has (she usually berates Kai for doing the same thing on her expensive sofa).
“And then. My fat—excuse me—my doughy ex decided today would be the perfect day to haul me into another meeting between our lawyers and accountants, fucking cock-sucking leech,” she rolls the sleeves of her pristine blouse up around her elbows and begins to rub her shoulder. “Not only that, but the delivery boy dropped everything off on the wrong floor of the building. I had to call him back so I can watch him bring every single thing up to where it was all supposed to have gone in the first place! What the hell is wrong with people nowadays?” She puts up a freshly manicured finger to stop Suzanne from forming any inkling of a response. “Don’t answer that. I know it’s New York. The city that never sleeps—that never stops to think.”
Claire pauses finally, feeling the pull to glimpse through the dark, yet twinkling view of the window nearest to her, and then back to her friend. Her only friend, truthfully. Suzanne.
“God. Listen to me. How can you let me go on and on like that?” The older woman laughs almost sadly. “Like you haven’t sorrows of your own?”
They breathe in silence. Suzanne watching Claire, but Claire watching her fidgeting hands, trying to find something to hold, to graze, to touch. The sound of a clearing throat lets her eyes flicker to the others.
“Have you had a drink yet?” Suzanne offers, Claire barely hesitating to accept.
…
She seriously, in all sincerity, cannot believe Claire bought her buildings penthouse. And surely a penthouse nothing like the one she was just in before, where the world seemed so far below and the sky itself a real neighbor. Suzanne cannot and will not believe it. It’s even less believable when the divorcee provides the reasoning.
I need to be close to someone, anyone. I think…
The sentence stopped there, where Claire coughs on nothing but air, takes the conversation into an entirely different direction instead. Suzanne picked up on it, but with no real desire to hear out the rest of Claire’s real thoughts, she listens. She makes jokes and gives as much advice as she possibly can tonight, looking into the older woman’s inquiring eyes. Which is funny. Claire has yet to look at her like that.
It’s suddenly not funny anymore when she stops talking, ends her speech, and returns the look.
They’re on their second glass of wine, so she shouldn’t be so warm under her collar, not yet. Not now. But it’s on par with how the night was going anyway; Suzanne having to face something that she should have been facing in the beginning.
“Well, since you’re here, we should talk about that consent thing I earlier mentioned. At the club.”
“Oh, that?” Claire purses her lips again, turns away from her just to sip a long sip of her wine. “I know what consent is. Is your definition any different from Oxfords?”
“I hope not. But it’s nice to have a refresher on our lingo every once in a while.”
Claire stands, feeling a little too close to Suzanne on the sofa. It was fine before, minutes before, she hardly even acknowledged it. But at this moment, she has to. While holding her emptying glass, she offers refills. Suzanne continues her rehearsed speech, hoping, but not knowing for sure if Claire is digesting her words. The wealthy woman nods and nods and nods, appearing in tune but she herself can’t even tell what’s being processed.
They both down their third glass.
Claire reaches for the bottle, though practically empty, but she pours enough for her glass and Suzanne’s. The younger woman almost declined it, feeling the hazy effects she’s all too familiar with. But after watching Claire do what she otherwise could’ve requested Suzanne to do, it sort of reignited what had already started to burn within. And yeah, she wanted to keep drinking. Just to have that fallback excuse in case things go where she wanted to avoid at all costs all week, ever since the night at the club.
Some costs.
“So. You just didn’t want to be alone tonight.”
Claire looks at her. Just looks, doesn’t even try to deny her. Why bother when it’s the obvious? And Claire has enough juice in her.
“Not just that,” she finishes her glass and places it on the coffee table, now a soft gaze directed to her host. “I wanted to be with you.”
Suzanne doesn’t flinch at the statement. Or confession. Or whatever it is that could classify this very moment, where everything is suddenly sliding right into place.
“I was suppose to be cleaning my kitchen. Order some eggs that I forgot to buy; maybe make an omelette. But this,” she taking the hint and running full steam ahead with it, leans closer towards the unmoving older woman. “This is good, too.”
Suzanne halts before moving an inch further. She smiles genuinely for the first time.
“May I?”
Claire’s smirk reappears in all of its glory, already answering her query.
“May you what, Suzanne?”
“May I kiss you?”
They laugh faintly while Claire gives her full consent, Suzanne barely giving her a chance to when her full lips collide with hers.
And turns out, Suzanne didn’t want to be alone tonight either.