Post 2 of 2
“Lovely to meet you, Shannon,” Tara said as they were introduced to Arthur’s wife.
Willow had to marvel at Tara’s ease with… well, people. This was Tara Maclay they were talking about. A girl who’d once been so painfully shy that she’d had a stammer. A girl who used to hide behind her long, beautiful hair. And now… Now Tara was the belle of the ball.
The only belle that Willow liked to ball - but without the actual ball - new metaphor to abuse please, brain.
But she was. Tara had blossomed. Willow liked to think she’d had a large part to play in that, but in truth she was simply one factor amongst many. Being at college, dealing with new people all the time, all of their experiences back in Sunnydale… Yeah, it was hardly surprising that Tara’s shyness had been beaten down and kicked in the head by the sheer wonderfulness of the woman.
And people were taken with her too… Willow had found herself returned to being the awkward one, like it’d been back in the bad old days. BT. Before Tara. Her awkwardness manifested in babbling, most of the time, and had never really gone away. It’d just been masked by being the loquacious one of a couple. Tara couldn’t have ever hoped to go on be a teacher if she hadn’t overcome that problem she had. At least not a good teacher, and Tara was going to be the very best.
It probably helped that Tara’s shyness had - initially - been about making friends and she had bucket-loads of friends now. They both did. And it hadn’t hurt that no one had told she was a demon for some years either.
“Willow, isn’t it?” Shannon asked, offering her hand to her.
“I guess I must be, Tara’s girlfriend and all.” That might, she thought as soon as the word had slipped from her mouth, been a mistake. There was a portrait of Jesus here in the hallway and a big old cross. Perhaps the whole ‘a raging homosexual has a girlfriend’ thing had been a bit up front. On second thoughts though… no. That was why they were here at all.
Oh, and the fact Arthur owned the company she worked for. Outright. That had something to do with it too, while she was being honest with herself.
If Shannon had any feelings about the girlfriend thing, then she wasn’t showing it. Of course she was younger than her husband - considerably if Willow was any kind of judge at all - as in, a whole other generation. Some uncharitable thoughts crossed her mind then, but she had no basis for them and she squelched them as baseless and generally not very nice. Tara wouldn’t have been impressed with her for thinking them, that much was certain.
“I’m sure you’re more than just her girlfriend, or one of my husband’s employees,” Shannon said, then leaned in as if sharing a secret. “If we’re going to get on at all at the company and in life, then you have to be more than either of those things. You need to be a woman in your own right. Take it from someone who knows.”
How did you answer a statement like that? “Umm, I will. I mean, I am.”
More and more surprising then, she thought. Shannon knew what people thought about her, seeing her as some sort of trophy wife trading compatibility and her own life for access to money. Understanding that, she rebelled against it. Which was… yeah. It was probably as healthy an attitude as you could get in those circumstances. How easy would it be to lie back in the jacuzzi, enjoy the manicures and spend the money?
“Good. Shall we go inside, Arthur’s cooking, or else he’d have welcomed you himself. You’re not vegetarians are you?”
Because every lesbian was a vegetarian or a vegan? “No,” Willow shook her head firmly. “We both eat…” She paused as - unbidden - a different but very similar word to ‘vegetarian’ sprang to mind.
“Meat. We eat meat. Is it barbecue?” Tara wondered.
“Heavens no, I’m too afraid he’d set fire to himself. But he’s quite a good cook, he always ate properly before we met and now having him do that… it’s a perk.”
One of many, by the sound of it. This wasn’t a woman who looked weary of her marriage or even forcing additional cheerfulness. Which was heartening, actually. Because no matter the age difference they’d been together long enough to have a teenage daughter, ready to go off to college, and that was a long time. Willow had never doubted that she was going to spend her life with Tara and she looked forwards to it being a long and happy one, but even she had to gulp when she thought about just how long a time that was. As in… ‘Holy Moly’ and she’d been lacking in examples of really good marriages that had lasted that long, what with one thing and another. Neither Tara nor her parents were… well, that was something she didn’t want to discuss at the dinner table. The whole Sunnydale thing was a difficult topic.
Witchcraft was also out.
So in terms of what defined her - if you excluded Tara, witchery, where they’d come from, being into girls and anything remotely to do with technology and work - then… she might actually have a little bit of a problem. Maybe the question wouldn’t come up except… it was kind of what they were here for, wasn’t it?
“Arthur, Tara and Willow have arrived!” Shannon clearly wasn’t afraid to shout in her own home, even in front of company. She could imagine that her boss, who was softspoken, had grown to accept it over the years. That and a teenage daughter. Outnumbered in his own home, she recognised a certain amount of Ira in him, now she thought about it.
“Miss Rosenberg,” he said, obviously recognising her.
“Sir.”
“You must be Tara?” Arthur asked. He was wearing an apron that looked as it had seen plenty of use and the stains wouldn’t quite wash out. Beneath that, the same shirt and tie you’d have expected at the office. Between that and Shannon’s - obviously expensive - dress, it was pretty clear that she was under-dressed. The choice had been driven by the blouse she’d wanted to wear, which matched the dress that Tara was wearing, but then the only thing she had that matched and worked were the trousers. It occurred to her that, since her interview, Arthur hadn’t not seen a part of her legs.
But if he was upset about the choice then he gave no sign. Instead he held up his hands, the washed them before offering one to Tara to shake.
“Very nice to meet you,” he said. “Willow’s told me absolutely nothing about you.”
“That’s not true,” Willow insisted by pure reflex. “Except if it is.” Okay, this was the boss and his home. Arguing might not be the best idea. And what had she actually said to him? “It wasn’t like I was hiding anything,” she explained to all three of them. “More… I was focused on my work.” A grade one excuse, surely. They didn’t come much better and more appropriate than that.
“Gah!” Shannon said, throwing up her hands. “No! No talk about work, the company or that office. Any of you. Right?”
“Umm, right,” Willow said.
Arthur and Tara said nothing.
“You must be sick of it too,” Shannon said to Willow’s girlfriend.
“The novelty hasn’t worn off yet,” Tara told her, with a look that might have been significant.
“It will… trust me. But that’s no reason for you not to talk about yourself.” With a smile, Shannon led Tara away, ostensibly to get her a drink, but there was another guest here and she was thirsty too.
Tara didn’t seem to mind though and so Willow found that she couldn’t really protest. Not when she was stood watching her boss… cook things. Quite what he was cooking was a different matter. Only the ingredients for salad were in evidence at the moment, but on the stove and in the oven there was more going on. Smells that… yes, her boss probably was a good cook if you judged him on the scent alone.
Can you smell, what the boss is cooking?
Searching for something to say, Willow settled on the obvious. “Thank you for inviting us over, it was very kind of you.”
“I did invite you over for a purpose,” he said, but not unkindly. It was more like he was cutting through the pleasantries she felt were necessary and being honest.
Note to self, cut through the pleasantries. “All the same,” she said. “It remains a nice gesture.” Dang. Not only was she still engaging in pleasantries, now she was arguing with the boss at the same time.
Arthur seemed to let it go though and carried on with his preparations, stirring something he had on the hob that smelled sweet and good.
“Your wife seems lovely,” Willow said.
She thought perhaps she’d made yet another mistake then. It wasn’t like she was saying ‘and I’d love to get in her pants’ or anything, because she really wouldn’t. But to a man who was doing what he was doing tonight, that might be the subtext that he chose to read into it. After all, didn’t a lesbian want every piece of candy in the store? Not this one, but there was your popular mythology. A dyke was attracted to every woman in the world, while every straight woman could somehow be pickier about men. How was that supposed to work?
“Thank you,” he replied after that moment where his eyes had hinted at what she’d been afraid of, before common sense overcame the ridiculous. The only thing eating all the candy would get you was fat, and there was just one piece of candy that she wanted to - and did - eat and this metaphor was getting to the end of it’s useful life since ‘eating’ was probably a topic she didn’t want to blurt her way into babbling about.
“And I can’t wait to eat,” she said, led directly there by her treacherous brain. “Eat dinner, with you. And your wife. And my girlfriend. Who is Tara. Tara is my girlfriend. We’ll all eat together. Oh gods… God. God. One God. Oh God.”
“Miss Rosenberg?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a little strange?”
“Oh yes,” she said, back on safer ground and therefore happier. She thought she must’ve dealt with those slips quite well. All things considered. “I get that all the time.” Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to say in front of your boss, but on the other hand it’d taken her away from the things that might easily be misinterpreted.
“So did I,” he admitted. “It’s a part of how we get into this business, people like you and I.”
Okay… unexpected. Now they were a ‘you and I’? They were equated with each other on some level? Wow… because wasn’t that like some sort of success?
“I guess…” she said, hesitantly. It didn’t seem appropriate to take that into being too familiar. “Sir.”
“Arthur, tonight,” he said.
“And I’m - ”
“Willow, I know. Can you chop, Willow?”
“I’ve never cut down a tree… oh… Yes, I can chop,” she’d realised that he was talking about the salad, tried to make a joke and realised it was a stupid thing to attempt. “But…” She looked over to where Tara and Shannon were talking, already sat like best friends. Their body language just screamed ‘comfortable.’ Already.
“Don’t worry about them,” Arthur said. “Shannon’s just taking the chance to find out all about you.”
“You mean us, as a couple?” she clarified as she started to slice tomato.
“No, I mean you. My wife believes that if you want to know a person you ask the person they love.”
“Oh.” She glanced over there again, caught both Tara and his wife laughing, looking her way.
What were they talking about?
There was so much Tara could say… A lot that she wouldn’t. Unless she was super comfortable and charmed… Not that her woman would ever betray a confidence, or share something that was really very private. But there were enough things that were embarrassing enough for their friends to know, let alone her boss. Amusing little anecdotes.
Would Tara do that to her? Had she done anything recently to deserve it?
Oh, Tara would be be suitably contrite later, if she did. Blaming it on oversensitivity and getting down on her knees to make the apology. While that was no bad thing, still…
“Don’t worry, Shannon doesn’t bite,” he said, mistaking her concern.
“Tara does… not. Either. Tara doesn’t. No biting from Tara.” Damn…
“Good to know. Peppers, you like peppers?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Well, they won’t slice themselves.”
Willow set to it, only slightly concerned about staining her fingers. “You…”
“Hmm?”
“Nothing.”
“Speak your mind, Miss Rosenberg.”
“I was wondering where your daughter was,” she admitted. That was, after all, why they’d been asked to come over.
“Frequently my worry too, I assure you,” he said.
She stayed silent, unsure of what she was supposed to say. What to do was easier. Peppers were her salvation.
“She’ll be down for dinner,” Arthur said when it became obvious she didn’t have any real reply. “Under protest, but she’ll be down all the same.”
“That’ll be… nice,” Willow said. It seemed like a nice neutral thing to say.
“I suppose,” Arthur said to her, “you’re wondering what it is that you’re supposed to do here tonight. And how. Moreover you might be worried about the consequences?”
“Ah,” Willow said. “It had crossed my mind.”
“There are no consequences,” he assured her. “It’s not like I can hold anything against you, though if you or your partner are in the least bit successful then I’ll certainly consider it a great personal favour.”
“It’ll be my pleasure,” Willow said. “As I’ve told you before, I like to succeed. It’s… something I like.”
“Quite.”
The more she talked to him without the office around them, the more she realised that - in many ways - this was Rupert Giles with an East Coast accent, that was where he was from, she was sure. Perhaps he needed to be handled in the same way… No, she told herself, resting the knife against the board. Three weeks into her job she didn’t start ‘handling’ her boss. Not in any way.
“But seriously,” she said. “What is it you want me to do?”
“Yeah, Dad, why don’t you tell her what you want her to do?”
Willow turned, looked at the newcomer in the room. “You must be, Lacey.”
——————————
Watching Lacey and her parents interact was - in some ways - like watching one of those TV shows that was supposed to be funny, and the canned studio laughter certainly found funny, but then you wondered why every episode was like every other one. And that was what she was sensing, the tensions that existed around this table were old ones. This wasn’t something new that had just started happening when their daughter had outed herself in the last few months. That had just been ‘one more thing.’
Oh yeah, Lacey was Gay. That was Gay with a capital Gay.
And Lacey was all in favour of pushing that into her parents face.
It was actually Tara that told her that, though they hadn’t discussed it in the slightest. But her girlfriend’s reaction to people was always enormously valuable to Willow. Whether when her lover was shy or now she was more confident, she’d always been able to trust Tara’s judgement. Knowing her girlfriend so well she could pick up on the nuances of Tara’s reaction without actually having to discuss it with her at all. It wasn’t that Tara would ever show dislike - okay, sometimes she did when it was a really strong reason for doing so - but the eyes, the expression, the way she breathed.
And through Tara, as well as what her own eyes and ears were telling her, she’d come to her own conclusions about Miss Lacey.
Frankly, the girl was determined - absolutely determined - to get her parents pissed at her.
Okay, she was a teenager, but she was about to go to college and should know better by now. Moreover, Willow wasn’t sure that her parents deserved it. It was tough to judge someone on less than a three course meal - without even reaching desert - and maybe you shouldn’t do that at all, but she was able to see what was driving Arthur and Shannon to distraction.
Their little girl had gone away and suddenly, in her place, had come an in your face young woman, looking to assert herself through her sexuality. There was out, there was proud and there was just plain rebellious. Lacey didn’t seem to be willing to meet them halfway. On anything. She wanted everything her own way, she wanted absolute acceptance and if she’d gotten it then she’d have wanted more and more and more because - at the end of the day - she was spoiling for a fight. And she was more than capable of provoking it too.
Which was why Tara was, after a couple of hours, faintly disapproving.
Now, for Tara, ‘faintly disapproving’ was the equivalent of a bitchslap, but of course no one else here knew that.
Not that Lacey cared anyway. She and Tara had been invited here by the girl’s parents and Willow was pretty sure Lacey didn’t know that they were supposed to be here to be some sort of positive influence. It’d sounded like a good idea, it’d sounded like being some sort of guidance counsellor. It’d sounded like an easy way to get her boss to like her. But… face to face with Lacey? Not so much.
Because here was the thing, Lacey didn’t actually need guidance. She didn’t necessarily need a positive influence. Arthur and Shannon’s daughter was just fine in her own skin, thanks very much. Parenting, sure. Some help fixing her manners and controlling her teenage way, definitely. But she didn’t need guidance from outsiders.
Which kind of made it hard to know what to do. There was expectancy in the air, to the extent that when the girl said something vaguely controversial looks were exchanged that said ‘well, what are you going to do about that?’ and frankly, she had no idea. She didn’t know Lacey, she didn’t know the family, she didn’t even know Arthur all that well. So… what were they supposed to do?
“Are we done?” Lacey asked.
“That’s not how you leave the table, young lady,” her mother said.
“Well then, may I be excused?” The sarcasm just dripped from the words, challenging all of them - Tara and she included - to call her on it.
“No, you may not,” Arthur said.
“Well, I need a smoke,” Lacey told them, already half way to the patio door.
“Get back here, young lady,” Arthur called. It just made Willow cringe, more especially because his daughter completely ignored him. And that was nothing to do with her sexuality or her clothes. It was just because she was wilful and full of herself. From Willow’s point of view, whatever it was that the two parents were blaming this behaviour on, it totally wasn’t that. It was just about Lacey had decided to act bitchy. Maybe with some provocation - everyone had trouble with their parents at that age - but the extent of it was something she just… didn’t get.
Okay, so her own parents hadn’t been… perfect and there’d been complications along the way. But she’d never stormed off to have a smoke. Of course she’d never actually smoked, so that would be one reason for that.
“Maybe we could do with a breath of air,” Tara said, looking at her significantly. Willow who happened to glance at Shannon next could see that Lacey’s Mom, at least, very much wanted the answer to be ‘yes.’ But there were some things that a girl just had to do alone. “You stay here, baby,” she said, rising from the table. “I’ll go.”
“Are you sure?” Tara asked, catching her hand loosely when she trailed it over her girlfriend’s shoulder on the way out.
“No,” she admitted, looking at the flare of flame where Lacey had triggered her lighter outside in the darkness.
“I can go,” Tara said.
Looking around the table, she could see that Lacey’s parents were probably also expecting it to be Tara. Tara who wanted to be a teacher. Tara who had charmed them and not babbled at them. Tara who liked the broccoli.
Tara who didn’t work for Arthur. “This is… mine,” she said.
Besides, Tara could always go later. If things didn’t go great. Tara had a way of making things that weren’t going so great into something that…was. Better to keep that in reserve, she couldn’t help thinking. Keep that powder dry. Besides, she didn’t want her baby smelling like smoke when she got home tonight.
“Okay then,” Tara replied.
On reflection, Tara didn’t sound so unhappy about the offer either. Trust was one thing, it was good to trust. It was good to be trusted. Doubt was bad. And yet… she couldn’t help thinking that had been a little too easily done. But since she’d made a big deal out of it, it wasn’t like she had much choice now, did she?
Glancing back at Tara as she headed for the patio doors that Lacey had closed behind herself, she received a supportive smile and then Tara was talking to Shannon again.
All too easy…
Unlike what she was about to do, which was likely to be a challenge. She really didn’t do well with interpersonal conflict. Give me a vampire to stake, set fire to or generally dust and I’m fine. Get in the middle of an argument, someone else’s argument, and I come out in a cold sweat. Great… This was a teenager. And one who - in school - would’ve probably looked down on her. Not that ‘weird girl’ was up there with the cheerleaders on the totem pole, but - at least when she’d been in school - it’d definitely been above ‘geek dressed by her Mom at Sears.’
This would’ve been easier in those skanky vampire clothes… at least then they might have had a fashion point of reference.
“Umm, hi,” she said.
Lacey turned and regarded her, taking a long drag as she did so.
“I’m Willow,” she said, probably unnecessarily since they’d already been introduced.
The girl blew a smoke ring, tipping her head back.
“Oh, that’s pretty cool.” And actually, it was. Made her wonder about the physics of it all. Just what you did… surely it had something to do with the tongue as well as the lips?
Lacey looked again at her and blew the rest of the smoke right in her face, making her cough. “What, they send you out here?”
“I thought,” she spluttered. “I thought maybe a neutral party would be kind of… well, neutral.”
Way to go…
“Neutral? You’re like Switzerland, huh?”
“I like chocolate and clocks,” Willow joked, but saw it was falling more than flat. Flat would’ve been an improvement. Right now she was digging holes. China syndrome style. “But, enough about me. What’s happening with you?”
“You know, same old, same old,” Lacey said. “I had a bad day in school and then I come home and get ambushed by a couple of old queers.”
“Hey, who’s old?”
“You two.”
“Older. Than you. That’s it. Definitely not old but yeah, we’re queer. What about it?” Willow said, trying to get with the programme. It was why she was here after all and this sass was only getting her back up. People who her knew her well, knew that when they got sassy-mouthed with her then she was only going to get more and more determined. And this girl was making her… hella determined.
Hella.
Determination was ninety percent of the battle. Or was that perspiration? She had perspiration. It was a warm night and this girl was… intimidating. What was the other ten percent? She couldn’t remember what the other ten perspiration - percent, percent - she couldn’t remember what the other bit was. Determination. Perspiration…
Inspiration! That was it.
“What?” Lacey demanded.
“Inspiration,” Willow said. “Inspiration.”
“What about it?”
“That’s what I’m here for. I guess. Your father - ”
“Asshole.”
“Your father wants me to be an inspiration to you - or us, actually. Me and Tara,” Willow said.
“And how do you think that’s going to work out?” Lacey asked.
“Pretty much it’ll crash and burn, because you don’t want to be inspired.”
“Ya think?”
“I’ve known plenty of people like you,” Willow said. “From a distance at least. I didn’t get too close. Probably because I don’t like having smoke blown in my face.” Confronting the girl, without getting aggravated about it, was her inspiration. Mom and Dad, understandably because they had a teenage daughter, probably didn’t manage to do that all that often. And Lacey was hardly likely to be helping them.
“Dykes?”
“Bitches,” Willow said, strangely pleased when Lacey’s cigarette dropped from her mouth and the girl had to catch the falling butt on the third attempt.
“What did you call me? How dare you?”
“I’m not trying to get on your case, Lacey,” Willow said. “I’m here as a favour to your Dad, because he asked. But now that I am, there’s no point in me being anything but honest with him or you.”
“I wouldn’t be honest with him,” Lacey said, puffing on the cigarette again, but this time facing away from her.
“Why?”
“He doesn’t want to hear it, he still thinks I’m his little girl.”
Willow considered that, everything that’d happened between her and Ira, her Dad. “Dad’s will do that,” she said. The voice of experience having just the one of them. “That’ll never go away and the more you push against it, the more hurt he’s going to be and… Lacey, aside from the fact he’s your Dad, lets add some practicality into the mix. This is the man who’ll probably be buying you your first car - if he hasn’t already.”
Lacey turned, looked at her. “That is an excellent point. Mercenary but… excellent.”
Yay me. Perhaps now I can get her to sell herself or something… This wasn’t going as intended. What had started life percolating through her mind as a light-hearted quip had been converted into an actual factor to consider? Would anyone thank her for that? “But that’s not why you should be nicer to him,” she followed up, trying to soften the impression. Arthur wouldn’t thank her for adding ‘money grabbing’ to his daughters list of traits.
“Go on then, I’m listening.”
She earned herself a hearing then. Perhaps that was truly yay then, maybe… except now she had very little idea what to say and look at how that had turned out a few minutes ago. “Okay, well… What’s the objective of everyone, when they’re dealing with parents?”
“I don’t know, it’s not the car?”
“To bring home who you like, have them accepted,” Willow said. This was where she’d lucked out. Her Dad was about as close to Tara as anyone could be. Talk about welcoming someone into the family. Second daughter much? More like first daughter, sometimes. They even fished together… Ira had never fished with her, his natural daughter. Back to the topic though. “Right? And you’ve never been able to do that have you?”
“No…” Lacey said, puffing immediately. It was obviously a ‘tell’, one of those things that gave her away. She hated smoking, but when the kid finished this cigarette, she probably needed her to light up another one. It was just too damned useful. This wasn’t a sign she was lying, Lacey really hadn’t brought anyone home, but it was a definite sign of the importance, where the stress lay. Except…
“You’ve never had anyone to bring home,” Willow deduced and she knew as soon as she said the words that was the real truth. Lacey was a rebel without a cause. A yin without a yang. An Oreo without any cream… okay, that last one she was never, ever saying to anyone. But this girl was a lesbian without a girlfriend. Ever. She was… just theoretical. And that was something Willow could understand.
“No, I mean - if I wanted.”
“No.”
Lacey lit up again, took a long drag and that seemed to calm her down. “You’re just too good for me. I’d have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for those pesky visiting lesbians.”
Willow laughed, pleased they’d found something to connect over. “You know, the Mystery Machine’s parked outside.”
That made Lacey chuckle, in spite of the stress. “I guess that makes you Velma, with the red hair and all. The freckles.”
“I don’t wear glasses,” Willow pointed out.
“Velma’s pretty hot… I always liked her.”
It wasn’t a come on, just an offhand complement. Lacey hadn’t looked at her that way all night - nor avoided looking at her - even in her lack of a girlfriend state. “And Tara must be…”
“Daphne’s even hotter,” Lacey admitted, actually laughing properly. “Always knew there was something going on between those two and that Fred wasn’t getting any play.”
“Fred and Shaggy,” Willow said. “I mean, have you seen that neckerchief?”
“The sixties were a different time,” Lacey said. “So I hear… Being around this city back then…” She sounded wistful.
“I wouldn’t know any better than you,” Willow reminded her. “I’m only a few years older. But… look, it doesn’t need to be the sixties for you to get a girlfriend, you know? If can do it then, believe me, anyone can.”
“Time travel might be the only way,” Lacey said and Willow was pleased to see she didn’t feel the need to take another long drag. The Scooby Gang references had definitely helped bring the stress levels down.
“What, never?” That surprised her. Nothing then? Not a kiss? Not a feel? But that was the sense she was getting.
“And you’re a player, I suppose?”
“No…” Willow said. Never a player. Never been played. Happily in love, thank you very much.
“Tell me she’s not your only girlfriend.” Lacey jerked a thumb back towards Tara.
“She’s my only girlfriend. Never wanted anyone else. Never… had anyone else.”
“So how did you two hook up?” Lacey asked.
“That’s a… long, complicated story and one for another time.” Certainly not a time when Arthur and Shannon were around and talk of ghosts, ghouls and things that really did go bump in the night were so intimately involved in how they’d gotten together. She and her baby… Willow glanced back at Tara, laughing and smiling with the two grown ups. She felt like that, she felt like she had a grown up girlfriend while she was out here with the kids.
Kid. And that was fine because much as she considered herself mature and grown up, there was no doubt that Tara was more mature and grown-up than she was. And needed to be. That was just how she was.
“The point is though,” Willow continued, before Lacey could give up on the flicker of interest that she’d actually shown, “you don’t need to be alone.”
“Ah… and now we get to your real example.”
“Huh?”
“What you’re here for. Come on, surely you know?”
“We’re here to show - I think - that you can go to college, come out the other end and have a job, a partner - ”
“No,” Lacey corrected her. “That’s not it. You’re both here to show I can have a nice girlfriend.”
Willow considered that for a moment. “Would that be so bad?”
“Fuck no,” the girl said after a few moments thought. “That wouldn’t be so bad. But they’re terrified I’ll hook up with, well, someone like me. Me… I’d just like to hook up.”
“So… why not do something about it?” Willow asked.
“Because… I can’t meet girls,” Lacey said. “There it is. I am the single most pathetic dyke in the country, it’s official. I can’t meet girls. I mean… I can see girls, I can think they’re hot… but they’re all straight or involved or… not into me.”
“Well,” Willow said, rapidly feeling out of her depth. This was one thing she really couldn’t speak to. Tara had pretty much fallen into her lap. Like it was fate or something. “Have you tried?”
“Tried what?”
“Meeting girls. Like… making friends. Maybe letting on that you’re…” She hesitated, looking Lacey over. “Okay, they’re probably guessing that you’re into women.”
“Ya think?”
“It might be apparent,” Willow said and Lacey laughed. “This how you really identify?”
“What do you mean?”
“The leather, the asymmetrical piercings… the hair… I mean which of these things gets to your parents the most?”
Lacey barely had to think about it, the answer was right there on the tip of her tongue. Which either meant she’d been well aware of it when she did these things or she’d been thinking about it since and ignoring what she’d been told. Willow could get down with that, she’d been a rebel. Still was. After all, it wasn’t like she was studying to be a doctor now was it? In your face parental expectations.
“My Mom the piercings, she’s… she keeps wanting to know who did them because it’s not legal yet.”
“And your Dad?”
“The hair. He really liked my hair when it was long and soft and…” Lacey ran her hand through the spiked, coloured mess. And there was no getting past the fact it was a mess. No matter how you identified or what you thought fashion was, that was pretty much just a mess.
“It’s brown, really I mean? Like your Mom?”
“Yeah.”
“Better than being grey and balding like your Dad, right?” Willow quipped, hoping that the patio was double-glazed and basically her voice wasn’t going to carry inside. Doing good deeds by joking about your boss rarely went unpunished. Probably. Lacey laughed, agreeing with her.
“I can see you like that, see what he misses.” Lacey had been building up to something like ‘he hates me’ and she was trying to show that probably wasn’t it at all. If Arthur hated his daughter, would she be here with Tara? And no matter what was happening in this family, no matter what arguments the two parents had with the girl, it didn’t seem to her to be based around her sexuality. “Look in there,” she said.
Lacey turned, defiantly smoking as she expected to find her parents glaring at her. But they weren’t, they were laughing and joking with Tara. “What?” she asked more softly than her attitude had suggested when she turned.
“That’s your folks, making friends with a big old lesbian.”
“She’s not that big,” Lacey teased.
“She’s not old either,” Willow added, just in case word got back. “But whatever you think about them, they’d be nice to any girl you brought home, don’t you think?”
“Would they? It’s different when it’s your kid - I mean, I suppose.”
She could see that, she could. Very different, but despite the conservative outlook of the company he ran, Arthur was pretty open minded. He’d invited them here after all. “Okay, maybe. But look what he did by bringing us here. He’s trying to show you that there are - ”
“Nice girls.”
“Okay,” Willow said. “You don’t have to make it sound like such a bad thing. I’ve not always been… nice.”
“Yeah, you seem like a bad girl,” Lacey said. And there was that sarcasm again.
“Hey, I’ve known bad girls. They always come to sticky ends… or turn into pussy cats.”
“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Lacey joked. Willow, feeling obliged, smiled.
“Look,” Willow said. “There’s not much I can say to you that’ll mean anything if you don’t want to hear it and you’re right I don’t know you - I don’t know what it’s like to be you, but I do know what it’s like to be the odd one out. The one who never thinks she’ll get all the things you know you want. Someone to hold. Someone to kiss. Someone to do other things with,” she added the last part when she saw the F bomb forming on Lacey’s lips. “You shouldn’t say that unless you’re doing it.”
“And there’s my problem.”
“No,” Willow said. “It’s not.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes, really. At least, I think really. If you just wanted that you could’ve gotten it. You’re obviously attractive, no matter how much you try to distract from it.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“I’ve seen the picture of you in there, you’re pretty.”
“I don’t want to be pretty.” “Which is fine,” Willow said, “but if that was all it was then you’d be getting just as much as you wanted.” Okay, so it felt slightly weird talking with someone else about things that she’d never even done, but if you looked at Faith as an example. There was a girl who’d gotten precisely as much as she wanted, when she wanted. And it hadn’t been because she was attractive - even if she hadn’t been that would still have been there. It was because she’d had the pure confidence - balls, if you like - to be the slut bomb that she was. Whatever else her problems had been - and there’d been many in Willow’s opinion - that’d been the truth of it. “Someone out there, some girl in your school or… well, wherever kids hang out these days…”
“Way to date yourself, Granny.”
Willow stuck her tongue out and Lacey replied in kind. “Ouch, didn’t that hurt?” The stud in the tongue was something she’d never understood. There were other places that she didn’t understand when it came to piercing, but that one was the easiest to mention.
“I’m told it’s great for…” Lacey didn’t complete the thought.
“I wouldn’t know,” Willow told her firmly. “From either end. But it seems like something you’d do after you figured that out and tried it the other way. Au naturel, as it were.”
Lacey sighed and Willow had the definite impression that she wasn’t exactly wedded to this identity she’d constructed for herself. At least not the parts that weren’t internal to her. “Look, what I was trying to say was… you have to be out there. There are girls out there. Girls who’d like you. Girls who’d like you like this I mean, this is the city to go out that way and get yourself some company but seems like you’re pushing people away as part of who you are, which says to me you aren’t even sure this is you, or what you want.”
“I’m not… I’m not the girl with the big hair and the makeup and the flowery clothes from Sears,” Lacey said.
Even though Willow didn’t have big hair, much makeup and hadn’t been dressed by Sears since she’d taken control of her own wardrobe when she went to college, that one still cut deep.
“But something tells me you’re not all this either,” she said. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
Lacey’s silence was answer enough.
“Okay,” Willow said. “I’m not going to offer your fashion advice because… well, I’m not that girl.”
“Plus you’re old.”
“Plus that,” Willow agreed. “Older, not old. Just older. But look, you dress precisely how you want to dress. You stick pieces of metal through whatever you want to stick metal through. Hair and makeup… cool, whatever, but do it for you, Lacey. Not because you want to shock your parents or try to be what you think other people expect. Be yourself, that’s about all I can say. And if that Lacey is someone who wants to be with someone else… go places you’ll find her. And let her in.”
“In?” Lacey asked, all dirty grins.
“Your heart. To get to know you. Then, yeah… the other. If you want. But it doesn’t matter what your parents say, it doesn’t matter how you dress or whatever. Not if you don’t let them close to you, to get to know you. What do you think, someone’s going to just kiss you just because…?” Okay, there were bars like that, she and Tara had wandered into one just the other week - and exited rather faster - but she wasn’t sending a seventeen year old there. No, what Lacey needed was… someone like Tara. But Tara was taken.
“It’s not like I don’t know this stuff,” Lacey said, but more wistful than angry about it.
“So… do something about it. And, you know, if your parents - who are gonna put you through college and probably buy you that car to go with - are pissed at you just a little bit less then… is that so bad?”
Lacey took another long drag and then stubbed out the cigarette. “I hate these things,” she said.
“Could’ve fooled me,” Willow told her.
“Is it…”
“What?”
“Good?”
Lacey was looking in at Tara who waved when they were both paying attention, clearing the dishes from the table. “Yeah. It’s good.”
————————————
“I’m seriously impressed,” Tara told her.
“Why?” Willow asked. “We’ve done that before. A bit of lube and - Ohhh, you meant the other thing.”
“Yeah,” Tara said. “I meant the other thing. Earlier. Before we got home and you were so full of yourself.”
“Before I was full of you,” Willow grinned. Zinger!
“I’m shocked Arthur even let you near his daughter,” Tara told her, pushing her chin up with her finger. “You, missy, have a filthy mind.”
“You don’t mind if I take her out?” Willow asked.
“I’ll probably be insanely jealous,” Tara joked, “but being as you’ll be coming home to me I don’t have to worry about anything. Besides, you’re the one who knows all the best places to go.”
“Now you’re just being sarcastic,” Willow accused, snuggling up to Tara and pulling the covers more tightly around them both.
“What?”
“I am not trying to get Lacey laid,” she said. “That would be wrong.”
“I never said a word.”
“It’s what you meant though.”
Tara’s fingers were in her hair, pushing it back into some semblance of order after there’d been those fingers wrapped in it while she was… well, down there.
“You’re always the one who gets hit on in those places,” Tara reminded her.
“Not by choice!” Willow felt that she had to be very clear on this, not that they hadn’t commented on it before. It was true, of the two of them she was the one who tended to attract the attention of singles in certain establishments here in the city. And… well, people who weren’t single but were still looking for alternative company. And it wasn’t even like she was a certain kind of person’s type. All kind of women had been dropping hints, trying to buy her drinks and… well, sometimes they flat out propositioned her.
It’d taken her a while to figure it out too since - in her humble opinion - Tara was the much hotter prospect. After all, who wouldn’t want to take Tara home? But eventually, yes, they’d figured it out.
“You just look so… available.”
“I’m not though,” Willow said. “And I don’t do it deliberately. You know that I’d never knowingly be available. And you know very well, missy, that no matter who comes looking for a piece of Willow pie, there’s only one gal who gets to eat it.”
Tara broke down then, the sassiness had done the trick - as usual. Because this was her girl, her Tara and no matter how ‘interesting’ or cute the people who hit on her, that was the absolute truth. Her pie was only for one mouth.
“Pie?” Tara gasped, fighting for breath through her laughter. So hard that those sassy boobs were shaking. “Really? Willow pie?”
“It’s metaphorical,” Willow explained, really not thinking it was that funny. “You know, because of the eating - ”
“I know what it is… Willow Pie,” Tara cracked up again.
“Alright,” Willow said, propping herself up to look into Tara’s eyes after what seemed like a decent interval. “Come on, it’s not that funny.”
“Oh, it’s funny,” Tara insisted, kissing the end of her nose.
Hmm, this was the sort of thing that might get back to their friends… And some of them would take it, run with it and she’d never hear the end of it. It’d be Willow Pie for breakfast. Willow Pie for dinner. Willow Pie for thanksgiving. Not even thinking about Halloween when anything vaguely pumpkin coloured would… Okay, now she had thought about it and… no. There was a line. There had to be a line. And that, right there, was the big red line. Or more of a an orange one.
“Can we discuss the fact that you think I’m ‘available’?” she asked, trying to get them back on an even keel. Tara’s tried valiantly to get her laughter under control, failed and then tried again.
“Okay,” Tara said. “I’m back. I am. You just look… when we go to those kind of bars, you… I don’t know what it is. Everyone who’s even remotely attracted to cute, red-haired girls makes a beeline for you.”
“Maybe you should join in, dye your hair.”
Tara shook her head. “Baby, you’ve heard of the urge to merge…”
Okay, there was that. Practicalities of living together meant that she had borrowed some of Tara’s clothes and they had started to shop in some of the same places and they had… “You’re right, you going red would definitely take that a step too far.”
“Oh, I went red a long time ago,” Tara told her. “And once you do, you never look back. It’s a thing, you know?”
“Thank you, baby,” Willow said, kissing her. “Now about my availability…”
“You’re not letting this go, are you?”
Willow shook her head.
“Well, it’s funny,” Tara said
“And couples should always be able to laugh with each other - or at each other,” Willow said pointedly.
“Keeps things fresh.”
“Well you - you - when you’re in a bar - you… you drink looking over your glass the whole time!”
Tara said nothing.
“Okay…” Willow admitted. “That was poor, even for me. But you do. You look at people over your glass but they never think you’re into them. And it can’t be because they’re not attracted to you, after all I’m not often wrong and definitely not about the hotness that is you. So… What’s your secret?”
Tara considered for a moment. “I don’t know.”
“Come on, there’s something. You are - hands down - the hottest girl I know, the hottest girl I ever saw and - even though you’re mine - I have no idea how you are not getting hit on when we’re out. You go to the bar or the bathroom and they’re around me like flies, you… You they keep their distance.”
“Maybe it’s magic,” Tara said. “And flies? Really?”
“Just one of them metaphors, I guess. Not so funny this time.” Specially considering what that made her if the other women were flies… “I… I’m actually kind of offended that they’re not all after you. I mean, there was that one girl and she didn’t look like she cared whether you were taken or not, or even if I was right there, but… most girls stay away. Come on, how do you do it?”
“I just… I just,” Tara thought again. “I think I just ‘be yours’ and make you mine.”
“Yeah, because that makes sense.”
Tara laughed. “You do know that I’m only marginally more socialised than you, right?”
“I’d never know it. What happened to the girl I fell in love with?”
“She’s right here, she’s enjoyed her slice of Willow Pie but she’s figured out that you make your own reality. We had to, back in Sunnydale. The things we were involved with… It’s… attitude. That’s the best way I can think to put it.”
“I get it,” Willow said. “You don’t mean like, copping a tude. You mean… showing what you feel.”
“And I feel… taken.”
“So do I right now,” Willow teased. “I mean… that was pretty intense. What with the f-”
“Stop it!” Tara chided her.
“Okay, okay,” Willow said. “I’ll try harder to show more that I’m very definitely taken too. And then some.”
“If you looked like you do right now,” Tara said. “You’d be just fine. You’re just… I think you try to be too nice. And nice is good, but when they’re hitting on my girl I get…”
“Possessive.”
“I have a lot to protect,” Tara said.
“Mmm, so you do. Notice how I think it’s hot?” Willow asked.
“Yeah, I had noticed that - somehow - when we got back from you always wanted to snuggle.”
“And then some,” Willow said. “And don’t pretend that knowing you’re the only one who can have - ”
“Willow Pie?”
“Me,” Willow completed, pointedly. “Don’t pretend that doesn’t work for you.”
“Oh, it works. It definitely works.”
“So, if I take Lacey out and absolutely don’t fight them off saying ‘but have you met my friend Lacey, she has a pierced tongue,’” Willow said, “you’ll be right here waiting for me?”
“I’ll be here. You can bring me a slice of pie.”
Willow growled, then embraced it.
“A slice? You better eat the whole damn thing, lover.”
*****************************
_________________ ------------------------- If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.
Chance in *Chance* -------------------------
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