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1. the one where the daughter finds out
DJ groans in annoyance when she leaves the cab. She’s not due for another eight weeks but traveling around as pregnant as she is just isn’t fun right now. Aidan does what he can to help, always carrying her things and asking her if she needs something, but it’s the physical act of getting from point A to point B—or from the LAX airport to her mother’s LA mansion. She shoulders her bag and marches towards the door, while Aidan is busy getting the luggage out with the help of the driver. She presses the doorbell and hears the scuttling of dog paws across expensive tiles before Josefina opens the door with her warm smile. “Hello, DJ, come in, come in!”
DJ hugs her back and looks around. There is no one else here, her mother nowhere in sight. Or Ava, who also must be here. She’s seen that small Chrysler parked like a drunk person had ditched it there mid-parking right next to her mother’s neatly parked Rolls-Royce.
Somewhere upstairs her mother is cussing someone out. That means, Ava is definitely here as well.
DJ gives Josefina a look. “What is going on?”
Josefina just indicates with a head movement to repeat her question, as if the fighting that must be coming from upstairs is not audible throughout the entire fucking building. At least Anita Baker’s “Sweet Love” is no longer blaring from the speakers. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you—oh, Aidan, do you need help?” Josefina opens the door wider for her husband who thanks her and greets her warmly with a short hug, suitcases and backpack briefly placed at his feet.
DJ ventures inside and follows the voices upstairs, not certain why.
Well, that’s a lie. She feels like maybe she can distract her mom from ripping Ava’s head off for god knows what reason. Sometimes she wonders if Ava has a masochistic streak or has somehow gotten herself into a position where she has no other option but to keep working for Deborah Vance—she’s gotten away once, what’s stopping her this time?
When she reaches the last step, DJ is kind of out of breath already and she can feel her son’s tiny diabolical feet pressing right against her bladder. The amount of time she spends speed walking to the toilet these days. She is lost in thought when she walks down the vaguely familiar hallway and moves towards one of the bathrooms she hopes is here, and it’s only out of the corner of her eyes that she sees it, through the narrow gap of the door leaning slightly open, offering a glimpse into her mother’s master bedroom.
It has her slowly back up because—yup. That’s Ava leaning her forehead against her mother’s, one of her hands cradling her cheek while she quietly says something that has her mother laugh like it’s the first good joke she’s heard in her life. After kissing her, at least once.
DJ shuffles away from the scene, hurrying to find that damn bathroom.
*
DJ finds Ava lounging outside after dinner, in a hammock of all things. Seeing this, and knowing what she’s witnessed earlier, combined with the fact that Ava doesn’t seem in a hurry to go anywhere, DJ begins to suspect that Ava actually lives here, in this house, with her mother. As if working for her was not spending enough time with her, no, she had to also spend her free time with her. What’s wrong with this girl?
“Hey,” she greets her, drawing Ava’s eyes towards her.
Ava takes a drag from her vape and blows out the smoke towards the night sky, one arm folded behind her head. “Hi, DJ. How’s the little one?”
“Asleep,” DJ says with a smile she can’t hold back. Aside from the weird onset of nausea at certain foods (the smell of olives is currently her biggest enemy), the constant back pain and tension in her neck, she is happy to be a mother soon. She takes a seat on the bench that is conveniently close to the hammock and she can tell that this must be a set-up her mother and Ava have come up with. She can see them sitting here, sun shining through the leaves above them, while they write their jokes or work out the order of their bits.
“How do you know?”
“Hm?” DJ is still a little distracted by the revelation from earlier, a revelation that Ava doesn’t even know she’s had.
Ava quirks a brow. “That he’s asleep?”
“Oh, the little shit isn’t kicking me anywhere,” DJ says with a grin and softly cradles her stomach. “Can’t wait for that part to be over, to be honest.” She looks towards the house and sighs. “Since when are you and my mom a thing?”
Ava almost chokes on the inhaled vape fumes. She coughs and coughs, sitting up in the hammock and almost falling out. With watery eyes, she stares at DJ with an impressive amount of disbelief and indignation. “What?” she gets out between smaller, shorter coughs, not helping her case. “Um, whyever would you suggest such an outrageous idea—”
“I saw you kiss my mom, earlier.”
“Oh.” Ava clears her throat, her fingers nervously fiddling with her vape. “Well, then.” Her shoulders drop and she gives DJ a short look. “Since around the time she got Late Night? Please, you have to keep this to yourself, she’s almost ripped my head off earlier because Marty knows now and—”
DJ does a double take. “Marty? Why did you tell him?”
The unspoken “why him and not me” has not escaped Ava’s notice. “It wasn’t like that! Why do you assume I’m the one that—listen, I didn’t tell him shit, he simply guessed it and I couldn’t think of a lie fast enough!” Ava rolls her eyes and nervously keeps taking another drag from her vape.
DJ eyes her, a disbelieving laugh creeping up on her. “Marty Ghilain? We’re talking about Palmetto Casino owner, Marty—”
“Jesus fucking Christ, stop saying his name,” Ava hisses, throwing a look over her shoulder towards the house as if Deborah could hear them from so far away. “Yes. He called earlier to ask why Deb hasn’t RSVP’d to his wedding invitation yet, and I picked up her phone because I thought it might be something important and Deborah was outside fighting with her dumb neighbors—not important,” Ava interrupts herself when she meets DJ squinted eyes, because she can’t understand how this girl keeps getting lost in tiny details. “He made a joke about her plus one that I didn’t see coming and it was a trap and—anyway, long story short, I fucked up, he knows so you have to keep it all to yourself, do you hear me?”
It’s comforting to see that even someone as talented as Ava still has room to casually fuck up things by accident. This is why she’s immediately taken a shine to her—well that, and her willingness to annoy Deborah on her behalf back when she first started working for her mom. DJ shrugs and nods. “Sure thing.”
“I gotta say, you are weirdly chill with it,” Ava notes after a moment, eying DJ as if she is waiting for her to snap and hold a whole speech about, well, something. The age gap, probably. Or maybe the ethics of a good, non-toxic work relationship. Or both.
DJ shrugs. “Honestly, good for her. Not good for you, you could do better. I mean, you are young, not bad looking, you could date anyone. But my mom clearly likes you a lot so I guess it’s not that surprising? Well, her being with a woman at her age is surprising, but whatever. It could be worse.”
“Yeah, she could be a Republican,” Ava laments seriously, before breaking down, her laughter rings through the darkness.
It makes DJ chuckle along, even if she feels like she’s missed a joke here.
“No, but seriously,” Ava says with a sigh, “you aren’t bothered? At all? You would tell me, right?”
DJ rolls her eyes. “Ava, remember my birthday party? The one where you drove us to the drive-thru chapel?”
Ava looks like she’d rather remember anything else. “Oh, DJ, let’s not—”
“You literally started talking some insane shit about your fucked up sense for intimacy or whatever you called it and that you are not attracted to my mom, who was your boss at the time and which, by the way, is an absolutely crazy thing to say to the daughter of said boss, d’you know that? But I’ve let it slide,” DJ points out, noticing the growing grimace of embarrassment on Ava’s face. She nibbles on the tip of her vape and gives DJ a look like she’d rather not hear the rest. “My point is,” DJ continues, “I guess I am not totally surprised. And also, you are part of this family already so who cares. I don’t. Now you’re going to be a real uncle for little AJ!”
“Aidan Junior?”
“Yeah, we thought it would be funny. Is it funny?”
“I don’t know, my name is three letters long and a palindrome, so.”
“I haven’t told my mom the news yet. About the name, I mean.”
“I obviously will try my hardest not to tell her.”
DJ snorts. “Yeah, right. I’ll give you a day. Two tops. Maybe I should just go in and tell her myself now.”
“That would be good, yeah.” Ava lies back down, letting out a deep breath.
DJ gets up, groaning a little in pain. Her lower back is really killing her. And then, she remembers something. “Oh, just one more thing.”
Ava looks up at her, visibly more relaxed than before. “Anything.”
“If you ever, even just once, talk to me about your sex life, even if it’s just some off-hand comment? It’s a wrap. I will murder you on the spot.”
Ava mimics zipping her lips shut, locking it with an invisible key and throwing it away, smiling. Then, her face falls a little. “Hey, do you think I should tell her that you also found out about us today?” she asks with a tilted head before looking back at the house again. The lights are on in the kitchen.
“Do you want to sleep on the couch that badly?”
Ava purses her lips and nods. “Point taken.”
2. the one where the house manager already knows
Josefina is humming to herself while sorting the groceries into the fridge. Some things she is familiar with, others she has to actively go and look up and double-check if they are correct. One half of the fridge now resembles the vegan selection at Whole Foods, a progression that has once upon a time just started with one narrow shelf. It has since expanded quite rapidly.
A part of her wants to just tell them that she knows and that they need to stop sneakily adding Ava’s dietary preferences last-minute, as if quickly scribbling these things at the bottom will somehow hide that Ava is living here full-time—as if she didn’t live inside Deborah’s mansion full-time before. Unlike then, her matcha station has made it into the kitchen now, beneath the window, in the prominent spot right next to Deborah’s soda dispenser she had installed the moment she permanently moved here for the Late Night Show . They are both being idiots but she likes them too much to actually be mad at their insistence on secrecy, no matter how poorly performed.
She closes the fridge and finds Deborah walking towards her, casually dressed in some soft pants and her favorite blouse with a small floral pattern on it. “Good morning, Josefina.”
“Good morning. Coffee?”
“Yes, sure. And, uh, for Ava…”
“She’ll make her usual concoction, yes. I’m not touching it.”
Deborah chuckles. “It’s absolutely disgusting.”
“You tried it?”
“She made me. I don’t know how she drinks that,” she mumbles, throwing her hands up with an eye roll. It seems to escape her that she’s just admitted to trying this drink for Ava.
Josefina could tell her now. She can feel the words on the tip of her tongue, but she doesn’t. She is not eager to invoke Deborah’s wrath for something like this.
Half an hour later, Ava stumbles into the kitchen to the smell of freshly made waffles, while Josefina is busy plating the cut-up piece of fruit. “Morning,” she mumbles, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. She’s dressed in her sleep-wear and looks like she just woke up. Which she probably has. “Smells good,” she says and hides a yawn with the back of her hand. “Oof, sorry. I just woke up.”
“I couldn’t tell,” Josefina tells her but she smiles at her, to lessen the sting.
It’s tame compared to what Ava is willing to listen to from Deborah all day, anyway. She only feels a little bit bad for a second.
Ava snorts. “Yeah.” She is busy with preparing her morning drink of choice, and Josefina finishes up the breakfast preparation. Then, she starts to put everything on a tray and carry it outside to the terrace where Deborah is already seated, sipping her coffee and reading the morning papers she has sent here each day.
Ava shuffles outside just moments later, sitting down and casually stealing something off of Deborah’s plate that earns her a dirty look but nothing more. Ava only grins back.
Josefina flees the scene.
But she can’t really help keeping an eye on them while she feeds the dogs and then cleans the kitchen. And if the door to the terrace is open and the wind carries their words inside, then it’s not her fault.
“I feel like this joke doesn’t really work as a transition—or as anything, to be honest. ‘Looking like the back of a Ford F150 on its way to the Republican bumper sticker convention’ as a comment for MTG’s State of the Union outfit is just…”
“Tacky?”
Deb laughs. “Stop. Think of something else, something shorter, fast-paced. Like the handjob she gave to her boyfriend.”
“That was Lauren Boebert, actually.”
“If Ronald Reagan were here to see this…”
“..he’d go right back into hell?”
Deborah starts laughing. “Oh, this is good. Wait, I’ll write it down.”
Josefina has to bite down on her lower lip to not betray her eavesdropping by laughing at that joke, but thankfully, Ava’s own laugh rings clear through the morning air, so it wouldn’t even matter. Then, after a brief pause where she calms down, Ava scoots her chair closer to the table. “Anything else?”
“Yes, your mother called. Something about her cleaning out the basement and asking what to do with your things. I told her to have it all shipped here.”
“My mother called you ?”
“Well, don’t sound so shocked. You didn’t pick up her call, so she tried my number. Which, by the way, thank you so much for giving it to her.” Josefina doesn’t have to look through the window to see Deborah’s trademark deadpan stare that she probably has directed at Ava right at this moment.
Ava groans in an overly-dramatic fashion. “It was meant for emergencies only, and I had her repeat that sentence to me like a thousand times.”
“Guess it didn’t stick.”
“Pah, whatever. Also, wait, what? She wants to send my stuff here? Why?”
“It’s what she said. It’s probably just a box or two, right?”
“No, you don’t understand, she may have said basement but what she really meant is all my stuff, you know? The shipping cost alone will bankrupt her, she lost that class action lawsuit a while ago and—”
“Obviously, I will pay for the shipping. She was delighted.”
“Of course.” Josefina can hear Ava scoff at that and energetically start cutting up her waffles, making her fork clink against the porcelain plate like it personally offended her. “She gets to get rid of my things, of course she’s happy about that .”
“I mean she was going to throw it all out, so…”
“Wait, so she didn’t even ask what to do with my things? She was just going to get rid of my shit?” Now, Ava’s fork is unceremoniously dropped on the plate with a loud clank! It makes Josefina wince.
There is a moment of silence, and Josefina makes a point of noisily opening the dishwasher. Not that either of them is paying attention to her. It’s exhausting to be around people that get so absorbed by each other, they don’t really notice the world around them.
“Look,” Deborah starts, voice soft, “I’m sure your mother didn’t mean anything by it. Don’t get angry about things you can’t change.”
“Do you know what she told me during your Christmas dinner last year? That Priya, her super cool roommate, is like the daughter she’s never had.”
“What?”
Josefina silently agrees with Deborah’s quiet, seething tone. What a horrible thing to say to your only child.
Ava huffs. “Yeah. And then she made it sound like it’s a normal thing to say. Like I’m being idiotic for pointing out how rude that is.”
“Why didn’t I hear this? When did she say that?”
“Oh, Kathy was just telling you how she volunteers for the fucking Salvation Army, you know the homophobic fucks that pretend to be the good guys.” Ava is eating again, hastily impaling pieces of her by now only lukewarm waffle pieces with her previously dropped fork, only to stuff it all at once into her mouth by the sounds of it.
And Deborah only has a quiet, agreeing hum to offer for her, before informing Ava with fond exasperation that no one was going to steal her food and to slow down.
Josefina takes that as the cue to leave the kitchen for now.
*
Later, once she is done arranging the new flower bouquets for the hallway, the dining room, the living room, and just finishes up the one for the master bedroom, she watches Ava storm in, clearly looking for something. “Hey, Josefina.” She halts the moment she sees her there, looking a little alarmed to be caught. “Uh. Have you by any chance seen my headphones? White, with a cord, used looking?” She does this nervous thing where she moves her hands a lot.
Josefina adjusts the vase. “Oh, sorry. Deborah told me to throw them away earlier this morning.”
“What!”
“Sorry. I didn’t think to ask, they looked broken to me.”
“Well, the left ear bud was still functional and I’ve gotten really good at appreciating mono sound music, so. . .”
“If it helps, I saw a small package from the Apple store down in the hallway,” Josefina tells her, watching the transformation of mild anger into hopeless fondness. “Maybe she ordered new ones.” Maybe, hah. She has used same day express delivery, of course she’s ordered new ones.
Ava grins at her. “Ooh!” she coos and claps her hands. She skips out of the door and Josefina rolls her eyes.
*
“Did Ava like her new headphones?”
Deborah stops typing on her iPad. “Has she already managed to leave them lying around somewhere?”
“No, she asked me if I had seen her old ones.”
“Oh. Well.”
“I told her the truth.”
“Josefina!”
“I don’t like lying. She seemed fine with you buying her new ones, though.”
“Hm.” Deborah looks down again, an odd look on her face. Pleased, a little bit, but also something else. Josefina collects the last of the mail that needs to be sent out from Deborah’s desk and throws another look in her direction.
Deborah’s hand still hovers over the iPad but it doesn’t move. Then, she sighs and takes off her glasses. “Look, I know you probably already know, but I think it’s best if I just say it anyway. Ava and I—”
“Oh, I know.”
“But—”
“Please, no need to explain. Just let her move her things already into your walk-in closet, I am tired of walking into the guest room to leave her clean clothes there. It’s ridiculous and a waste of my time. No offense.” It’s bold to say it so directly, but it’s getting silly at this point.
Deborah unfolds her glasses again and puts them on with a smile she tries to bite back. “Absolutely not. I’m sorry, but no. That girl is a slob, she’ll ruin the order of my closet. Not to mention, her shoe collection is already eating away so much of my shoe closet space downstairs! No.”
*
Three days later, Ava’s clothes are permanently moved into the walk-in closet.
3. the one where the black jack dealer was right
Because of their move to LA, Kiki is a rarely seen guest at the Vance mansion. But from time to time, she’s flown in and picked up from the airport to stay the weekend. She loves all of it. She misses Luna like crazy, of course, but getting out of the usual trot of her everyday life is a nice exchange. And she gets to see Deborah—and Ava, of course.
Ava, who is the one to pick her up—with Deborah’s car. “Hey, I missed you!” she calls over to her, letting go of the handle of her suitcase to hug Ava. “Look at you, glowing with LA happiness!” She winks at her.
“Thanks. You look great as always. How’s Luna?”
“Oh, you know, not much has changed since we last facetimed. I think she is forming a gang in her kindergarten class, but it’s not confirmed yet. I feel like she’s just finding out how to best express her personality, you know?”
“Totally,” Ava says, sagely nodding along. “Well, you gotta start somewhere in this world, right?”
“Yeah. . .” They get into the car once her luggage is safely put away into the trunk. “But enough about me! How are things? Any cute date stories you can tell me? Or did you fix things with your girlfriend?” It hasn’t escaped her notice that Ava has always hedged answering these questions over facetime, so she enjoys it immensely to watch her squirm in her seat right now.
“Oh, that. . .” Ava pretends to be very occupied with finding the blinker of a car she probably drives around on the regular by now. “Yeah, no, that’s not gonna happen in this lifetime, I’m afraid. But it’s, uh, fine. I’m doing fine. So, you know. What about you, anyone on the horizon?” She looks at Kiki then, wiggling her eyebrows. “Or maybe we go out today and find someone for you here, so that you’d have to move here to LA. Huh? How about that?”
“You got yourself a deal, sister,” Kiki tells her with a wide smile and squeezes her arm on the middle console before leaning back in the rich leather seat. She doesn’t mention that Ava has evaded mentioning to find someone for herself.
Kiki already knows what’s up by that point and smiles to herself while she enjoys the ride.
*
When they arrive at the mansion, Deborah isn’t there. “Yeah, she’s got a meeting at the studio. I was meant to go there too, but Deb told them that there’s a family emergency I have to take care of,” Ava says and lowers her voice a little towards the end, as if it’s a big conspiracy and not just a simple lie.
“Aw, you consider me family,” Kiki notes with her hands folded over her chest, right above her heart.
“Of course, girl! Well, and also, I hate these meetings. They talk a bunch about advertisers, potential guests, must do’s and don’t’s for political topics and jokes which always end up in a heated discussion that Deborah wins each time—they should really just stop trying,” Ava concludes with an eye roll. But there is this tiny little smile that she doesn’t seem to notice being there.
Kiki nods knowingly at her. “Ah, I see,” she says, drawing out the last word.
It immediately catches Ava’s attention. “What? No, no you don’t. Nothing to see here,” she hurries to say, dropping the keys right before finding the right one to unlock the mansion. “Fuck,” she huffs out, getting the key in the second time around.
Kiki wraps her arm around Ava’s shoulder before they walk through the unlocked door. “I told you to go for it. Glad you finally listened to me.”
Ava pouts. “How did you even guess that? I mean, I was talking very casually about her.”
“Honey, there is nothing casual about the way you talk about her. You get this look, you know? I think it’s cute. Wish I could find someone that would make me drop my keys right when I’m about to unlock the door.”
“Now you’re just making fun of me.”
“Nuh-uh, I really mean it! I was rooting for you guys. For. So. Fucking. Long. Honestly, I should get an award for my patience is all I’m saying,” she tells her but she can’t help that little squeal when she talks about how long she’s waited for this. It felt like watching a slow burn stretched out over 15 seasons or some shit.
Ava briefly looks towards the sky and sighs heavily. “Okay, whatever, just don’t tell Deborah any of what you just said to me. Her ego is inflated enough.” Ava throws the keys into the with the precision of a basketball star player, evidently very proud of herself for it. “Besides, it’s been ages since we talked about that and… uh…” She is flustered again.
“The sex dream?”
“Let’s not talk about it, it’s bad enough DJ reminded me of that night recently.”
“Wait, what?”
“It really doesn’t matter.”
“You… you talked with DJ about your sex dream on her birthday?” Kiki blinks at that. Damn. “Ava, isn’t that kind of, I don’t know, fucked up?”
“I obviously didn’t mention the sex dream, duh! Anyway, let’s get your stuff into your guest room or Deborah will roll out her ever-growing list of things I’m not good at and add ‘being a bad host’ to that collection to create an even longer list of jokes about it.”
“I thought you were into that?”
“Kiki!”
*
As fun as it is to rib Ava for her (long-existing) infatuation with Deborah, Kiki quickly learns that it isn’t just her. During their usual routine of a few rounds of Blackjack, Deborah is so relaxed and in such a good mood despite coming home rather late and clearly weary from her day, it’s apparent how much of it is because of Ava and it warms Kiki’s heart.
Ava, who is talking nonstop about some mishap from earlier in the day, before she has picked up Kiki from the airport, draws out a smile that she doesn’t see because she is busy taking out her phone to find the perfect meme for her story.
Kiki shares a look with Deborah and that’s that.
It’s nice.
4. the one where the manager will lose a bet
“Make. That. Picture. Go Away!” Deborah tosses his phone back at him, which makes Jimmy flinch and he barely catches it in time. He’s just got the screen replaced after Kayla dropped it a few days ago.
“It’s a tweet that hasn’t gained any attention so far. If I get a cease-and-desist letter out there, demanding that tweet and picture to be removed, then it will snowball into what is commonly known as the ‘Streisand Effect’. You don’t want that, trust me.” Jimmy taps on his phone to light up the display again. The photo is still there, a grainy, shaky picture of what is clearly Ava in a tux and Deborah in a dress, sharing a long hug. He knows it’s them, but it’s too pixelated to really be certain for an outsider looking at it, and it helps that some of the window glass is reflecting the low hanging sun.
Problem is, this was taken at Marty’s wedding reception and there are high-res pictures of them that show them in those exact same outfits. It’s not helping that Ava is a redhead and easily recognizable. This could become a thing that gains attention if it breaches containment. They’re lucky it’s some small Twitter account with 11 followers, two of which seem to be bots.
Deborah turns her chin down to glare at him. “This isn’t about what I want, this is about protecting my privacy! Or, our privacy, I should say.”
Jimmy presses his lips together, brows lifted before he lets out the long-held-in breath. “To be fair, maybe don’t hug your super-secret girlfriend for so long in a public space.”
“It was a closed event and at a wedding on top of that! Do these people not know what a closed event even means anymore?”
“Well, you don’t seem to understand the concept of windows, so. . .”
“Thin ice, Jimmy. Thin ice.” But her anger is no longer as potent and she falls into the armchair in front of his desk. One hand is at her temple, rubbing the skin there and she briefly closes her eyes. “What would you do?” she finally asks him, a lot calmer.
Jimmy, still standing in front of the desk, leans back on his hands, crossing his legs. “Look, it’s not great, and I get the frustration. But the tweet is just asking if it’s really the two of you, and the picture is so grainy, it is barely worth talking about.”
“But it could become a thing, right?”
Jimmy sighs. “Again, I would leave it be.” Then, he tilts his head. “That said—you might want to consider preparing a plan for when this. . . thing becomes public knowledge.”
Deborah stops rubbing her temple and lifts her head. “It won’t become a thing.”
“Uh, yes. At some point it will. You either get caught or you decide not to hide any longer. Which reminds me, thanks for not trusting me and keeping this to yourself. I fully understand not telling Kayla, she couldn’t keep a secret like this even if her life depended on it, but I am a trustworthy and discreet guy!”
“Now you sound like a male escort.”
Jimmy takes a deep breath. “A heads-up would’ve been nice. I wouldn’t have gotten myself talked into Kayla’s stupid bet about the two of you if I had known.”
“A bet?”
“Yeah.”
Deborah makes a “are you serious”-face—his least favorite one, it never fails him to feel like a child that is being chastised for something. “How much money will you lose?”
“Five grand.”
“Oh, Christ!”
“I thought there was no way this would ever be a thing, okay? I thought you barely liked Ava, just tolerated her for her talent. I mean, you did sue her, right? That isn’t something I dreamed up?”
“No, it happened.”
“So, what the hell, Deborah?”
Deborah just shrugs. “I don’t know, she writes really good jokes,” is all she offers him in lieu of an actual explanation and then she points at his phone again, as if to quickly shift the attention away from her and that vulnerable look on her face. “Are you sure we can’t sue this person?”
Jimmy lets his head hang down.
*
Hours later, after catching a break, he gives Ava a call. “Hey, Ava. How are you doing? How’s the girlfriend?”
“You can drop the act, I know that Deborah stopped by at your office to talk to you about that photo some bitch sniped of us at Marty’s wedding, so cool it with the casual passive aggressiveness, dude.”
“Don’t call me ‘dude’. Apparently, I’m just your manager and not your friend, so I’m revoking your hard-fought over ‘dude’-privileges.”
Ava gasps in shock. He can hear her open a door before she is somewhere outside, judging by the chirping of the last few awake birds. “Don’t be like that! I mean, how would I even have started that conversation, huh? ‘Oh, by the way, Jimmy, I am dating Deborah. Bye!’ No way!”
“It would have saved me five thousand dollars, but whatever.”
“What?”
Ah, so Deborah has kept that part to herself it seems. “Kayla has a bet going that she wouldn’t shut up about and I figured it’s easy money to make so I bet against you two getting together, because I was under the impression that—actually, I don’t want to get into it now. My point is, I will now have to constantly have that money set aside for the day your secret becomes public. It’s not what I would call an ideal financial situation, to be honest.”
“You made a bet with Kayla? Are you for real?” Ava’s words are colored with naked disbelief—and judgment.
“Oh, shut up, Ava.”
5. the one where the ex-girlfriend realizes something
Ruby is sitting in the hotel lobby, winding down from a long meeting with her agent and the representatives of the network she works for to talk about the renewal of her contract. She can feel the beginnings of a headache when she spots Ava leaving the elevator. She’s dressed in fancier clothes than usual, suit pants and a blouse that look both like they have been ironed. Huh. She’s talking to someone familiar—Jimmy LuSaque, her manager. They hug each other goodbye, before Jimmy walks back to the elevator, apparently having forgotten something.
Before she knows it, she’s up and cutting into Ava’s path, who hasn’t noticed her yet due to typing someone on her phone. It has her heart sink, some residue trepidation about who that someone might be. She strongly suspects it’s Ava’s horrible boss that keeps her ex-girlfriend trapped in a less-than-ideal work environment, but Ava hadn’t been receptive to listen to her (or their therapist for that matter) about how toxic her work relationship with Deborah Vance truly was and most likely continues to be.
“Hey, Ava,” she finds herself saying, an uncertain smile on her face. No matter how much it hurt to break-up, now, months later, she feels like she can at least hold some friendly small talk before they each go their own way.
“Oh, Ruby,” Ava stops walking and locks her phone, looking a little startled. “Hi! What are you doing here?”
Ruby shrugs, the buzz of the reception area becoming a background noise the longer she looks at Ava. “Had a business dinner with my agent and some people from the network here. What about you?”
“Kinda similar reason, actually. I signed my renewed contract as head writer for Late Night, so that’s why I look like this,” she says and awkwardly points down at her outfit. “Apparently, being a good writer isn’t enough, I actually have to dress the part whenever something important is going down—it’s bullshit. But you look good, great even,” she compliments her, in that clumsy-charming way of hers that makes her feel like maybe the break-up was a mistake, before she remembers what has broken them up in the first place.
“Congratulations,” Ruby says and it’s sincere. “Deborah Vance is killing it as the host,” she has to admit. “Or, you two are,” she adds, watching Ava look down. Still unable to accept a compliment.
“Yeah, well,” Ava starts and takes a deep breath. “I know you are not really a fan of hers, but thanks for saying that. It means a lot to me, you know. And I’m sorry for how—”
“Oh, we don’t have to—I mean, not like this. We should catch up somewhere quieter than a busy hotel lobby,” Ruby says, uncertain of her choice to give them a chance to talk about their messy break-up. But some closure will be nice, right?
Ava looks surprised and a little hesitant which in turn surprises Ruby, but then Ava’s phone dings. Once. Twice. A moment later, it starts to ring when Ava is not fast enough to unlock it to read the received messages.
Ruby doesn’t try to read who it is, but the name ‘Aidan’ with a boxing glove emoji right after his name literally jumps out at her. “Hey, Aidan, what’s up?” Ava takes the call and bites her lower lip in thought while she listens to this Aiden—her boyfriend?—explain something to her. And then, whatever this Aidan tells her on the other side of the call, has her shift on her feet and there’s suddenly this jittery, nervous energy to her. “Oh shit, for real? Like right now? Oh god, what hospital is she in? Okay, okay, just take a deep breath, you got this, homie… Text me the info and I’ll call—oh okay. Good… Of course, you called her first, yeah… Alright, hang in there, we’ll be there ASAP.” Ava hangs up, shaking her head briefly. “Oh shit.”
“What’s going on?”
“Oh, DJ—Deborah’s daughter—has gone into labor, so. . .” She is already typing again. “Give me just one second. . . Okay.” She looks up at Ruby and gives her an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I gotta run. But we should catch up, over coffee or something. If you want.”
“Sure,” Ruby easily agrees, watching Ava frantically type something again before she curses. She should just leave, walk away from Ava and leave her to her little emergency—but she doesn’t move. “Everything okay?” she asks with hesitation.
“Everyone and their mother needs an Uber right now and I gave Deborah’s driver the night off. Fuck!” She rakes her fingers through her hair and makes a face, scrolling on her phone as frantically as before.
Ruby only lifts her brows at the comment about Deborah’s driver and wonders how Ava comes to that power to just simply give him the night off.
But before she can ask, or even want to ask, Ava calms down, enough to get out of her anger-filled stupor. “Sorry, don’t let me keep you, I’ll just—”
“I can drive you,” Ruby offers a little haltingly, immediately feeling regret zip through her. No matter how much she wants to remind herself of the anger she’d felt when Ava left LA to work temporarily for Deborah Vance again—and what a temporary gig that had been, Ava is still there—she can’t just ignore Ava’s growing distress.
Ava seems to see that in her face. “You don’t have to. I’ll figure something out. Maybe Jimmy has an idea, although I don’t know when he will be back,” she mumbles to herself, looking towards the elevators as if she could will him into appearing right this second.
“Come on, traffic will be a nightmare and getting to the airport will take some time, it will take longer if you wait around.”
“Because of that Taylor Swift concert, yeah,” Ava grumbles, putting her phone away. She gives Ruby one last look of hesitation before she gives in with a sigh. “Okay then. Thanks.”
“It’s fine.” It really isn’t, she feels like she’s walked herself into a trap. But she tries to do this thing where she is a grown-up that is willing to let the past be the past. It’s just one evening.
*
It’s the longest drive of her life.
Ava is quiet in her passenger seat, no longer trying to hold small talk. They’ve exhausted all safe topics, like the burning heat throughout the day, the numerous warnings of forest fires being spotted around the city when the radio weather cast mentions them, and the latest blunder in US policy to work against the effects of climate change, a topic that usually has Ava going for at least ten minutes but now it’s just a short comment on how “they’re all fucked”.
Weird.
“Where does Deborah’s daughter live?” Ruby politely asks, trying not to curse when someone cuts her off. She fucking hates driving on the I-10 West, but the I-110 South is closed due to some car crash. Hence, why they are just slowly creeping towards LAX. Which is why she tries to think of ways to fill the silence with things that are not related to their imploded relationship—talking about this while trapped in a car, stuck in a stop-and-go kind of situation sounds like a disaster in the making.
“Las Vegas,” Ava says, staring out of the window.
Ruby furrows her brows. “And you’re flying there. . .?” she prods, looking at the dark phone screen in Ava’s lap. She’s barely touched it since she’s gotten into her car, it doesn’t seem like she’s in a hurry to book a flight.
“Deborah’s jet will be ready when we get there,” she answers her with a smile that implies she knows what judgmental thoughts were going through Ruby’s head just seconds ago. “It’s not ideal but I’d rather be there than miss it.”
“Didn’t know you were this close. DJ and you, I mean,” she clarifies.
“Well, I am going to be an uncle,” Ava says, not explaining anything but smiling that goofy smile of her when she finds something funny.
Ruby can’t help herself. “What?”
“Oh, it’s just—see, I kind of kicked off this running joke of me being the kid’s uncle, because that’s the first thing that came into my mind to blurt out when DJ told me she was pregnant and we kind of just ran with it. It’s gonna be so confusing for little AJ when he grows up,” Ava says, frowning a little and obviously just now realizing in real time how weird this entire thing is.
Ruby sets the blinker and preemptively changes the lane so she won’t miss the exit. “Sounds like something you would say,” she settles on commenting, not sure how else to reply to that. It’s not helping that there is this glaring absence in their conversation, the lack of any mention of Deborah on Ava’s part, like she used to do after their few promising therapy sessions.
And then Ava’s phone rings.
Ruby immediately lowers the volume of the radio while Ava takes the call, too quick for Ruby to catch the caller ID this time. But it’s not hard to find out who it is. “Hey, Deb. I’m stuck in man-made-hell, this thing called a traffic jam... No, I’m not driving… Uh-huh… Oh, wait, did you leave the house already? I need you to grab my shirt… It’s not stupid, DJ will find it funny…! It’s blue and has “World’s Best Uncle” written on it in Comic Sans… There was a discount on this font, besides I thought it would be funnier this way—I know I can use your credit card, that’s not the point!” Ava closes her eyes and rubs her forehead in annoyance.
Ruby stares straight ahead at a white Tesla S-model right in front of her and lets the words sink in. Ava lives with her boss, and apparently can use her credit card. She grips the steering wheel tighter.
“You found it? Great… Well, you could’ve told me what your plans were, you know? I am not a mind reader. It may seem that way sometimes, but it’s just an illusion… Yeah, whatever… See ya.” She hangs up and sighs. “Sorry, what were we talking about?”
“We were talking about how you are friends with Deborah’s daughter, when we probably should be talking about how you have failed to set any boundaries and seem to be living with her? Did I get that right?” Ruby doesn’t mean to sound accusatory; it just rubs her the wrong way is all. It shouldn’t, this is Ava’s lack of professionalism, it’s her life and career, and she is free to do what she wants with it. Although, it seems highly unlikely that Deborah Vance would even allow any of that to happen, it just sounds absurdly invasive on Ava’s part.
Unless.
Ruby glances at Ava’s side-profile and sees this frozen, deer-in-headlights-look on her face that doesn’t vanish quickly enough. Which leads to her finally breaking through the fog surrounding Ava’s obsession with that woman. Fuck no.
“What?” Ava blinks at her, that small crease of worry between her brows deepening, the frozen look of being caught momentarily gone.
So apparently, she has said that out loud. “Are you sleeping with her?” Ruby asks, disbelief plain in her voice. She barely manages to break in time and stops almost bumper to bumper with the Tesla. “Ava, please tell me that is not what you are doing.”
“What do you care,” Ava mumbles, crossing her arms. A really defensive position to take after such a question. Oh God . “Also, no , I don’t do that, it would be crazy.” Some things don’t change. Like Ava being a terrible liar.
Ruby snorts and she can feel the familiar sensation of that simmering anger starting deep in her gut climbing up into her chest, making her shake her head at herself. What was she thinking, driving this moron to the airport? “I can’t believe this.”
“I just told you—”
“Shut the fuck up, Ava!” It surprises them both how harsh that comes out.
Ava stares at her. “Okay, not ideal that we talk about this while we are literally trapped inside a small metal coffin, so how about we just don’t?”
“This is why you couldn’t shut up about her, isn’t it?” Ruby just can’t stop. Suddenly, she is going over every little fight in her mind that they had in the past over this, Ava’s reluctance to let go of it, how long it took for her to stop taping the QVC show or moping about that, how yearning she’d sounded during the one and only time they had watched Deborah’s special where Ava was practically giving a live-commentary for every joke, every anecdote. She feels like the biggest idiot in the world for ever assuming that Ava simply missed her job that she’s been really good at; instead, it’s been the person she’s worked for all along.
Ava sighs. “Ruby, please. I honestly don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh, so suddenly you don’t want to talk about her.”
“Yes, because you are driving and it’s upsetting you—of course I don’t want to fucking talk about it.”
“You are unbelievable. And to think you really thought even for a second, we were getting married, like—”
“I didn’t actually know at the time that I was into her that way, okay? I assumed it was just my mother-issues rearing their ugly head or whatever. Look, let’s just not—”
Ruby frowns and looks at Ava again, who does appear flustered about this whole thing. “Into her that way,” she slowly repeats, noticing immediately how these words make Ava flinch, just barely, but it’s there. “Oh my fucking god. It’s not just an affair? What the hell is wrong with you?” She isn’t even angry anymore. Now, she’s just at a loss what to say.
“Ruby, please, stop talking about this.”
“How can you—do you know how old she is?”
Ava lets out one single laugh and her eyes harden. “Okay. Alright. So when the Robert De Niros or Al Pacinos of this world date their much, much younger girlfriends and have kids at like fucking 90 or whatever, then that’s fine, but if I’m dating someone older it’s the end of the world.”
“Ava, it’s not just the age gap of—”
“ So fucking what ,” Ava snipes back, glaring at her. “Don’t give me shit for that when really you are mad that I left to work for her, not realizing what it was really about at the time. I’m sorry I was a shitty girlfriend to you, I really am, but that doesn’t give you the right to go off on me about idiotic details. Okay? Okay.” Ava takes a deep breath and seems to count to ten under her breath, clearly using a meditation technique.
Ruby is torn between feeling betrayed by her correct intuition about Ava’s inability to shut up about her ex-boss, or whatever the fuck they had been at that point, and feeling conflicted about her own outburst to the news.
“I’m sorry,” Ruby brings herself to say. Someone behind her honks and it makes her curse in Spanish.
Weirdly enough, this is what makes Ava laugh next to her and suddenly the tense atmosphere is broken and replaced with something much more tolerable that won’t have them arrive at LAX in a screaming match. Hell, Ruby can’t help but laugh with her.
She hopes she never has to drive Ava anywhere else in her life.
1
Ava is scrolling through Twitter, minding her own business, snickering at some memes when her DMs start to blow up out of nowhere. Her mind immediately snaps back to that time where she got canceled over her tweeted joke. But she’s been good for a long time now, very grown-up and social media savvy, a pro at not jeopardizing her career with stupid shit.
When Deborah’s phone starts to get a lot of messages as well, she knows what must’ve happened. And a short look at her timeline confirms that fear.
“Uh-oh. Oh no.”
Deborah, leaning against the headboard to Ava’s left with her glasses on, reading what appears to be a magazine about gardening of all things, gives her a tired look. “Did you accidentally like one of Elon Musk’s tweets again thinking it’s the parody account?”
“No, no, I think—Oh god. She did.” Ava keeps reading the tweets in growing horror. “Kayla just found the picture from Marty’s wedding and—” Ava is hastily scrolling through her feed and oh boy. This is bad. “Houston, we’ve got a big fucking problem.”
Deborah cranes her neck to look at her phone and quietly skimm reads the tweets that react to this news. “Eh.”
Ava stops scrolling and almost drops her phone on the bedcovers. “Eh? That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” She looks back down at her iPhone, already scrolling again when she finds out that someone has already created a tik tok with all their shared public moments. This is a nightmare that is unfolding fast .
“Whatever, one less thing to worry about.” Deborah seems fairly unaffected by it but she must be putting up a front. She even turns a page of her magazine to show how little she cares.
“You—” Ava is at a loss.
“It was bound to happen anyway. At least it happened just a few days after going on summer hiatus so, perfect timing if you ask me. By the time we’re back on, no one will talk about it.” Deborah thinks for a moment. “Or you know, less.” She waves her hand around and when Ava keeps staring at her in worry that hand finds her cheek and she smiles. “Stop frowning, it’ll give you the worst wrinkles.”
“This doesn’t bother you? At all? What happened to ‘I will nuke this picture off of Twitter’ from just a few months ago?”
Deborah takes her hand back with a sigh. “Jimmy convinced me to leave it be.”
“Yeah! And look how well that worked!”
“Is it really that terrible to have that out there now?”
“Of course not. But look at this!” Ava has hunted down Kayla’s tweet and, well. It does use the picture that has surfaced months ago, but she went and tweeted it at Jimmy, telling him to cough up five thousand dollars for the lost bet, adding another tweet that is just a gif of Rihanna saying “bitch better have my money” before finishing off the chain with another tweet that simply says: “avorah = <3”.
Deborah looks unhappy, and finally, it’s more to the reaction she has expected. This is the least elegant way to go about it, and completely out of their control. Just because it worked once to get Late Night, doesn’t mean it will go over well this time.
And judging by Deborah’s growing frustration she seems to have come to the same conclusion.
“Avorah? Why is your part of the name before mine?”
Ava flops back onto her pillow and covers her face with her hands. “Oh my god.”
She should’ve gotten that college degree.