Of course, Genie did end-up granting a few small wishes as part of the compromise, but they were tiny changes that served as more of a convenience; things like transporting Catherine back to her flat after she missed the last bus, or finessing her expenditure of money such that the elusive pop-tart instead turned into a can of pâté dogfood and a few slices of pizza from the local chain.
“I wonder if I shouldn’t be offering you the wishes instead,” Genie whinged as she gently stroked the back of the happily-wagging Xena, her snoot busying itself devouring her unexpected treat. “You seem a lot more agreeable than your housemate.”
“You’re seeing the nice side of her and not the cold, professional one since you’re a girl and all,” Catherine explained as she wolfed down her own meal. “She prefers women.”
“As do you,” the dark-haired djinn chuckled lightly, politely ignoring the self-conscious blush her words elicited. “I haven’t taken any offense to your more prurient thoughts, so you can stop guilting yourself over having them ⸻ though by all means you’re more than welcome to phrase any of them as wishes.”
“I will … not be doing that,” she mumbled abashedly, tearing her eyes away from the incredibly-attractive woman now that she’d been caught staring. “Neither of us would find it very enjoyable.”
“Yet another hurdle for a nice wish to solve,” Genie tried again, pushing against the other girl’s stubbornness. “It wouldn’t even take a big wish; I’ve gotten quite used to shaping forms, you see, so I’d be happy to package up the new body and its ensuing test-drive as one medium request.”
“I’ll take a raincheck,” Catherine returned drily.
“I’m going to hold you to that,” Genie rejoined.
Still, there was no use trying to force the horse to drink no matter how thirsty she clearly was. Taking a chance to capitalize on her time outside the bottle and check-up on those dear to her, the djinn teleported herself off to some other location while Catherine made herself ready for bed, with the expectation that she would return in the morning once her temporary mistress began her southerly expedition. As far as the beleaguered woman was concerned, it was for the best; if Genie wasn’t around to share her bed, then she didn’t need to worry about being ambushed with offers in a half-asleep state.
Instead, she spent the night cuddled-up with Xena, her fuzzy companion stealing the lion’s share of both the mattress and the blanket in the same way that her ex used to ⸻ though of course it was much harder to feel annoyed about it when she had a nice pair of fluffy triangle ears to pet.
And, true to her word, Genie arrived promptly the next morning, bearing leftovers for both dog and lady as a sort of peace offering.
“This is really good,” Catherine mused as she worked her way through her half of the scran, a sort of bacon-cheese loaf.
“Isn’t it?” Genie smiled, watching the other girl devour the offering like it was her first taste of real food. “The mother of my children makes it, though she learned the recipe from one of my former mistresses.”
“I’m sensing there’s something to unpack there,” Catherine returned, pointedly not checking for a related ‘package’ even after the other woman shifted her posture in a manner so as to invite the question, “but I’m going to take the high road and say that she’s a wonderful chef. This is fantastic, honestly; you’ll have to tell her I said so.”
“Almost makes you wish you could meet her and tell her yourself, right?” she grinned.
“Good try,” Catherine smiled, washing down her breakfast with a large mug of disappointingly-cheap coffee.
Naturally, the aside was only the first and most-obvious of Genie’s attempts to coax the stubborn girl into voicing anything that could even remotely resemble a wish. Striking while Catherine was busy making Xena ready for car travel, she slipped in an aside about ‘wishing’ someone reliable could house-sit instead of dragging the beautiful dog along with her.
Of course she would’ve loved to have someone watch her fluffy princess rather than drive her down to California and back, but there wasn’t anyone she particularly trusted to take on that burden ⸻ especially because she’d have to have her sitter buy dogfood, too, and that was slightly beyond the pale for a bunch of grad students just as poor as herself. Besides, as taken as Genie seemed to be with the regal creature, she assumed that she could count on another minor wish or two to ensure that Xena stayed safe and well-fed during the trip, a fact that the djinn herself confirmed once she’d taken a peep into the other woman’s thoughts ⸻ though she made sure to inform her driver that the cost would eventually show up in an ‘unexpected surprise’ to settle the balance.
As far as she cared, that was a problem for future Catherine, though problems still abounded for present Catherine as well.
After the abysmal response to the world-wide pandemic a few years back, she made sure to pack the fresh box of face masks she’d ordered recently, as well as the elastomeric respirator she’d found increasing need of over the last handful of years; a helpful tool for a civically-minded queer woman to possess (as the handful of campus protests and downtown violence had proved), it was depressingly-likely that would come in handy the further into California they went. If Genie had opinions on the matter, she neglected to voice them. Naturally Catherine offered to share her stock of N95s, causing the other woman to commend both her foresight and willingness to help others, the latter of which Catherine vehemently denied.
Either way, the trip was briefly stymied by a need to pawn some of her possessions for gas money, and then the crew loaded into the surprisingly-competent ‘91 Japanese import that Catherine had owned since she was sixteen. Painted a boring grey colour, it nevertheless sported enviable fuel-efficiency when put up against modern domestic vehicles, though it lacked for any creature comforts save an aging air conditioning system and an AM/FM radio. She kept the latter locked to news broadcasts which Genie seemed to appreciate, leaving amicable conversation as the only outlet for entertainment.
“I don’t suppose djinn have drivers licenses,” Catherine began as she eyed her travel buddies through the rear-view mirror.
“It’s hard to sit the exam from inside the bottle, much less the practical test,” Genie joked from her place in the back seat, idly stroking Xena’s ears as the furry creature dozed contentedly in her lap. “It’s quite the drive down the coast though, isn’t it? I bet you wish I could help you with a turn at the wheel.”
“Is this going to be the running theme, then?” she accused, rolling her eyes.
“I’ll stop if you make a proper wish,” the dark-haired woman smiled back. “There’s eight hours or so between here and the California border, which leaves us plenty of time to come to an agreement.”
“Eleven hours,” Catherine corrected her. “We’re not going down the coast.”
“No?” Genie inquired, intrigued by the change of itinerary.
She shook her head. “I don’t like going through Portland if I can help it. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”
Some of her concerns were unwarranted of course ⸻ or perhaps blown out of proportion ⸻ but the escalating presence of ‘patriot’ chapters made her disinclined to want to stop to use facilities anywhere near the city. Beyond that was the simple problem of urban gridlock; I-5 South became a mangled mess once it made contact with Portland proper, and any vehicle collisions or road construction (or, god forbid, both) could grind everything to a halt for several hours.
“Besides,” she rejoined, replacing her bitter thoughts with a conspiratorial grin, “I think you’ll like the scenic route.”
The drive Catherine had chosen ran along I-90 East instead of heading immediately south, cutting right through the middle of the Cascade mountain range. A beautiful boreal forest, they were surrounded on all sides by incredible greenery as they climbed higher and higher, passing several surprisingly-vertical (though somewhat small) waterfalls that splashed down the side of the vegetation-covered rock face. As they went through the mountain pass and came out the other side an hour and a half later their journey dipped into a pristine valley, its gorgeous meadows ringed on all sides by the sharp inclines of the surrounding ridges. Another hour past that and they’d driven over and through the smaller range and into yet another biome, a striking scrubland steppe whose broad hills eventually morphed into a desert, then back again into rolling waves of farmland.
“I can see why you thought I might enjoy this,” Genie commented idly during one of the many rest-stop breaks they’d taken.
“It’s a beautiful drive, right?” Catherine smiled as she walked Xena along a patch of grass, taking the chance to stretch their legs. “Despite everything else, the Pacific Northwest has some of the most amazing country in the world, and you can see a lot of it in only, what ⸻ six hours, maybe?”
“Perhaps a little faster if we didn’t take so many breaks,” she pointed out, squatting down to ruffle the irresistible pair of fuzzy triangle ears. “I thought Americans were supposed to be inured to lengthy car rides?”
“Xena doesn’t really count as a typical American,” she countered, “and I can’t help the call of nature. Spiro is a diuretic, after all.”
“I suppose you wish you didn’t need to stop so often, then?” Genie tried, keeping her affect neutral.
“You’re pretty good at this, aren’t you?” Catherine laughed, warding off what must’ve been the tenth subtle variation the djinn had attempted in the last hour alone.
“And you are a frustrating opponent,” the dark-haired woman smiled back.
Waving away the compliment, Catherine took the chance to send a couple of texts to her bestie now that they’d reached an area where her mediocre cell service had improved.
April had been one of her closest friends for almost eight or nine years, give or take, and she felt comfortable sharing her secrets with the other woman. She’d been there for Catherine during some extremely dark times, and the two shared a number of interests that they’d similarly bonded over. A witty, entertaining, and endlessly-charming girl, April was everything she could ask for in a companion ⸻ which was, of course, one of her biggest problems.
Catherine had been harbouring a crush on April from almost the moment they’d first connected on social media. While there was an amount of affection directed back her way, it wasn’t something she’d ever seriously consider acting on; April was already married, for one, and Catherine’s oblique attempts at trying to suss out her feelings had always ended in heartbreaking ‘what-ifs’ rather than an express acknowledgement of mutual interest. On some level she felt like April might like her back, but she wasn’t going to try to homewreck, especially given that she and her husband had been trying for kids ⸻ though she had a few comments she kept to herself about the man’s steadily-worsening political views.
It was an infatuation that was easily-ignorable on account of distance; April lived in the middle of California, which might as well have been another planet entirely due to the prohibitive cost in both time and money for her to try taking a trip out to see her bestie. Adding to that was the fact that April was a somewhat-shy and incredibly-private person, which when taken together meant that a physical meeting between the two was a pipe dream at best.
Still, she could dream, at least.
Kitty: hey gorgeous
AMay: Cat! I was just thinking of you.
Kitty: some salacious fantasy, I hope?
AMay: Not even close.
Kitty: you can’t blame a girl for trying
AMay: lol!
AMay: I wanted to check and see how you and Xena were doing, on account of everything going on.
AMay: In the news and all that, I mean.
Kitty: … ah
Kitty: yeah, no, we’re fine
Kitty: or as fine as we can be, anyway. I’m not super thrilled at being in the crosshairs, but that’s the same for every other gal like me, too, y’know?
Kitty: so yeah.
Kitty: it is what it is
AMay: 🫂💔
AMay: I’m sorry, sweet.
Kitty: it’s fine. we’ll all live, probably
Kitty: …
Kitty: let’s talk about something else.
Kitty: what’re you up to?
AMay: Same as usual. Trying to close out all of my receipts as early as I can.
AMay: And you?
Kitty: kinda funny story, actually
Kitty: I got canned
Kitty: and Xena and I are in a car headed out to your neck of the woods
AMay: ???
AMay: What happened?
Kitty: same thing that happened to everyone else
Kitty: they pulled the plug on my department’s funding and now I’m SOL
Kitty: probably going to have to go in later and ask for whatever of my tuition back that I can, then drop all my classes
AMay: Are you alright? I mean, beyond what you’ve already said.
Kitty: more or less
Kitty: I’m sure I’ll land on my feet again sometime
Kitty: for now, though, I’m doing a favour for a friend
Kitty: giving her a lift down to Sacramento or something. LA maybe.
AMay: That’s very charitable of you, especially in light of your circumstance, which I assume must be dreadfully awful.
Kitty: nah, it’s not that bad, probably
Kitty: just a little tight on cash
Kitty: I’m gonna drop her off tonight and then turn around and go back
AMay: That quickly?
Kitty: sure. why not?
AMay: That’s more than a full day of travel from and to Seattle, isn’t it?
AMay: Unless you’ve taught Xena how to pilot a motor, I don’t see how that’s possible to do with just one driver. It’s certainly not safe, either.
Kitty: well I can’t really afford to stay somewhere
Kitty: and I’m not gonna impose on my friend
Kitty: plus even finding a room that would let me have Xena in it would be a nightmare in and of itself
Kitty: last time I tried to sneak her into a hotel the maid ratted on me and I had to pay a fine
AMay: Oh, I see.
AMay: Well, you could maybe stay here, if you’d like?
Kitty: lmao nah, that’s okay
Kitty: I appreciate the offer tho
AMay: I insist. I’d hate to think of you getting into an accident from driving on so little sleep. It’ll keep me awake all night just worrying about you and your adorable princess.
Kitty: I couldn’t possibly
Kitty: I’m not gonna crash your home with two bodies and a dog
Kitty: you don’t need that kind of aggravation
AMay: It’s a far better alternative to you crashing into a retaining wall.
Kitty: I guess
Kitty: …
Kitty: and is Mark gonna be chill with that, too?
AMay: Well, let’s just say that his opinion won’t count for much anymore.
Kitty: oh shit, for real?
AMay: I can tell you about it when you get in.
AMay: Drive safely, sweet.
“Well, fuck,” she murmured to Xena as she helped her fuzzy companion back into the car, an enormous grin spreading across her face as she contemplated her sudden and surprising luck. “I don’t suppose I can count on you to play wingman?”
The fluffy princess deigned to give her a pitying look, before resuming her new favourite pastime of snoozing in Genie’s lap.
“Traitor,” Catherine sighed as she shut the door. Even still, her mood had buoyed considerably now that she had something to look forward to ⸻ as long as she didn’t fuck it up, anyway; she could always trust herself to ruin a stroke of good fortune.
It was near midnight by the time they pulled up to the charming little two-story abode, and all three of the car’s occupants were grateful to finally be off the road. Unfolding themselves from the interior of the metal box, they shook the life back into their limbs as Catherine shot a text to April, letting her know that they had arrived; annoyingly, Genie took the short break as one last chance to take a shot at her stubborn mistress.
“Are you sure I can’t convince you to make a wish?” the dark-haired woman began, her voice suffused with a note of genuine concern. “I can tell how nervous you are about your appearance, and I would be delighted to smooth that out for you ⸻ and it wouldn’t even take that long, assuming you want to stay more or less the same mass and just shift things around a bit. It’s easiest to work with what’s already there rather than trying to add or subtract, but I’m sure I could sculpt you into the kind of bombshell you’d like.”
“You mean that April would like,” Catherine corrected.
“It’s not her wish, is it?” Genie chided. “And besides, I’d rather you be comfortable in a form that you yourself can be proud of, and I’m sure your friend would agree with me.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” she said, sticking to the answer that had become something of a mantra after so much repetition. “If I’m going to charm her, I’d rather do it without stooping to using some fae glamour trick.”
“My magic is slightly different than that, though not entirely unrelated,” she shot back, her feathers apparently ruffled by the insinuation, “but it’s not some cheap fake or stage makeup. There’s no washing off what I could do for you if you’d just allow me to grant even one of your dozens of wishes.”
“Maybe next time,” Catherine answered dismissively, hurriedly assuming a pose of affected nonchalance as she noticed April heading down the short walk from the front door.
She hadn’t known what to expect, as her bestie had never once shown her a single photo save for the occasional snap of adorable local canines; Mark had never let her have a dog in the house, of course, and it was one of the few peeks into her life that April had ever afforded her. Naturally Catherine herself had taken the occasional sexy selfie in a bid to provoke some kind of more-than-friends reaction, but she hadn’t had any success on that front; April had never commented on her photos in more than a seemingly-perfunctory way, and Catherine would soon grow disgusted with the image of her flawed body and delete it from her phone, mortified that she had dared show something so hideous to the woman she was trying so desperately to impress.
Well, a neutral observation of her form might not have been as harsh as her own opinion, but it was hard for Catherine to see her body as anything other than frustratingly masculine even after spending half her life on HRT. Estrogen had shaved down her sharp edges, true, but her shoulders were far too broad and her hips too narrow, and her family genes had left a little more fat around her middle than she would’ve preferred. The only way to rid her body of the latter flaw had been to nearly starve herself, which was thankfully incidental to her precarious living situation and not a result of an eating disorder ⸻ or at least, not one that she couldn’t correct with a stronger bank account.
Still, she felt positively wretched when placed next to the amazonian grace of Genie, and briefly she worried that April would take the statuesque woman for Catherine and then become disappointed once she’d realised the mistake.
Instead the five-foot-six-or-so blonde barely seemed to notice Genie at all as she made a beeline for her friend. Catherine had always heard rather disparaging comments from April about her own figure, decrying her ‘total lack’ of a bust and ‘mediocre’ face, but the taller girl found that the definite article was much more attractive than her bestie believed. Unsure of how to process that physical addition to her crush while in the middle of her attempt at a greeting, she was entirely unprepared for the hug that April had chosen as her way of saying hello.
Holding Xena’s leash in hand, Catherine stammered her way through the beginning of various phrases as the shorter girl collided with her in an unexpected show of familiarity. Suddenly ignorant of what she was supposed to even do with her hands, she awkwardly attempted to return the embrace when her canine companion decided that she, too, needed to be part of the proceedings; like a scene from a romantic comedy, Xena tangled her leash around her handler’s legs as Catherine fought to maintain her sense of decorum, losing her dignity in the process as the enthusiastic attention-seeking of her little princess caused her to stumble once April let her go.
Crashing to the lawn as she tripped over her fuzzy assailant, everything Catherine had been holding onto scattered in front of her: the car keys, her phone, the other end of the leash, and even the metal cylinder that she seemed to be incapable of ridding herself of.
“Oh!” April squeaked as the taller girl went sprawling. Perhaps hoping to be helpful, she crouched down next to the fallen woman, retrieving the stainless-steel bottle as Xena bumped against her in her quest for headpats. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even see her in the dark,” she muttered apologetically, rubbing her sleeve along the odd-looking object as she tried to polish the dirt off it.
“It’s fine,” Catherine assured her as she came up into a kneeling position, wishing that the earth would swallow her up at that very moment and so save her from the most idiotic blunder of her life. Trying her best to recover, she moved along to introductions, diverting the focus away from herself. “That’s Xena, as you’ve probably already guessed, and my friend is … ⸻ uh, my friend is ….”
Looking around, she trailed off as a feeling not unlike deja vu swept over her. Perhaps it was due to the exhaustingly-long drive, but her memories of the last twenty-four hours had all blurred together into an indistinct blob, making the events leading up to her current position rather hazy.
Why am I here, again? she thought to herself, struggling to get her bearings. I lost my position at the university, and then somehow I was at home feeding Xena, and now I’m in California …?
Cringing inwardly, she could hardly believe that she’d behaved so desperately. Emboldened by no longer having anything to lose, she’d set off to visit April out of a misguided attempt to swing her life back around in a better direction, just like when she’d tried to attend art school after failing out of university the first time; presumably, this would go about as well as that particular nightmare had.
“I’m sorry for dropping in on you like this,” she muttered as she rose to her feet, wiping at the fresh grass stains on her knees.
“It’s no trouble,” April assured her, a strange tension in her voice as she clutched her steel water-bottle in nervous hands. “You, um, did me quite the favour.”
“Did I?” Catherine asked, cocking her head to the side in the manner of a confused puppy trying to understand a perplexing puzzle; barging onto her doorstep in a mistaken attempt at a confession hardly seemed like a favour at all.
“Indeed you did,” came the smooth reply of a feminine voice, its owner seeming to melt out of the shadows next to April. “I appreciate your assistance in transportation. I would still be stuck in Seattle if it weren’t for your timely intervention.”
“Oh … right,” Catherine nodded slowly, parts of her memory slowly unfogging themselves. “Yeah, no, it’s chill. A friend of April’s is a friend of mine.”
As she understood it, the drop-dead gorgeous amazon was April’s childhood friend from back across the pond, which of course explained why the two shared vaguely-similar accents. ‘Jeannie,’ as Catherine was fairly certain the dark-haired woman was called, had flown in to Seattle to take care of some business before intending to head down south to see April afterwards, but a mess-up in the scheduling cancelled her flight; the good samaritan that she was, Catherine had offered to take her in her car instead, seizing her chance to actually meet her elusive bestie in person.
Though now that she had a moment to think about it, that did beg the question as to why Jeannie would go so far out of her way to see April. Obviously the stunningly-beautiful woman was incredibly hot, and while April had married a man out of a (in Catherine’s estimation) misguided plan to have children, she already knew about her bestie’s bisexuality after an awkward conversation regarding her attraction to Catherine as a trans woman. Putting two and two together, she could imagine a reason as to why Jeannie would suffer such a long road trip with someone who was otherwise a total stranger.
Well, fuck, she sighed inwardly, wiping the dirt off her phone before jamming it back into her pocket. I’ve shot myself in the foot yet again.
Certainly her idea to play drake had given her an excuse to meet April in-person, but she’d hamstrung any attempts at flirting by escorting the foreign bombshell. Doubtlessly her bestie’s eyes would be glued to Jeannie’s perfect body and clearly the amazon harboured intentions to seduce April in turn ⸻ or perhaps they’d already been flirting long-distance, and now that Mark was (presumedly) out of the picture the two eagerly awaited their chance to consummate their budding relationship. In the face of all that romantic and/or sexual tension Catherine would just be an awkward third wheel.
I guess I can survive one night, she grumbled to herself. I’ll leave as soon as I can in the morning, after Xena’s had a chance to eat, and then I won’t have to watch them be all over each other any longer than necessary.
Drawing herself out of her thoughts, she caught Jeannie staring at her with a worried crease to her perfect, blood-red lips. Deliberating over something, the amazon looked like she was going to say one thing, but switched tack at the last moment.
“Let’s head inside, shall we?” she said in a way that sounded more like a directive than a suggestion, one that April was surprisingly eager to obey. “We shouldn’t hang around on the lawn so late at night or the neighbours might get the wrong idea.”
“Right, of course,” April nodded along, her apprehensive gaze flitting back and forth between Catherine and Jeannie. “Do you need help with your things?”
“We didn’t bring a whole lot,” Catherine shrugged, annoyed at how April and Jeannie kept glancing meaningfully at each other like they were trying to communicate around the taller girl. “Just our phones and Xena.”
She was about to say more, but whatever she’d intended was swallowed-up by the sudden grumbling of her stomach; now that they were at rest, her body impatiently reminded her that she’d only eaten once in the last forty-something hours.
Relaxing slightly, April seemed almost glad to be presented with a problem to fix. “I’ll go put the kettle on and warm something up. You must be hungry after such a long trip.”
Mumbling indistinct words of gratitude, Catherine followed the soon-to-be couple up the walk and into the house.
Thirty minutes later she was munching on some reheated leftovers, washing it down with sips of a decaffeinated tea. Xena of course had already eaten her normal dinner during one of their rest-stop breaks, and Jeannie seemed more interested in April than having any of her food. Being the only one eating made her feel ridiculous, like she was already showing off the most-disgusting attributes of herself despite having been in her bestie’s presence for less than an hour.
Between that and the fool she’d made of herself in the yard, she couldn’t wait to leave.
Xena, for her part, had warmed-up to April almost immediately, abandoning her owner to carefully position herself between both of the other women. Seated on the larger couch across from the loveseat the two were sharing, Catherine couldn’t help but feel a growing sense of isolation. Sure, April and Jeannie were keeping their hands to themselves (or to the fluffy princess) for now, but she was getting the vibe that if she weren’t there then the atmosphere would’ve quickly become a lot hotter and heavier.
Not that she could blame either of them, of course; if Catherine could have her way she would gladly pursue one or both of them, but it was hard to see herself as a serious contestant when she was easily the ugliest ‘woman’ in the room.
While her harsh standards didn’t extend to other trans women, the lens she applied to herself was particularly scathing in its scrutiny; when faced with April’s sexuality, she couldn’t help but feel that a cis woman would be a better partner overall and a cis man would have a far easier time getting her pregnant, leaving zero room for the rough approximation of a girl that she viewed herself as. Rather than being the best of two sexes, she saw herself instead as the worst of either.
Deciding to hedge her bets anyway, she sought to ruin the mood by bringing up a difficult topic first.
“So what happened to Mark?” she asked as casually as she could manage, pushing away the last remains of her meal.
“You know we had our disagreements,” April began hesitantly, “and I suppose we must have had one disagreement too many.”
“I don’t get it,” Catherine frowned, prying into her bestie’s personal life, “I thought he was like, ‘committed to having a family’ or whatever. I was under the impression that the two of you were trying to have kids.”
“We were,” she nodded, a melancholy cast to her voice as she took the occasional worried glance at Jeannie. “After enough time trying, however, it became obvious that something was wrong. Mark blamed it on me, and unfortunately he was right; a ‘hostile womb,’ the nurse called it.”
“Oh,” she mumbled stupidly. “I’m sorry. That sounds pretty bad.”
“It wasn’t the most pleasant diagnosis to hear, no,” April agreed. “After that, I tried every fertility treatment I could, but nothing ever did the trick. It went on like that for another year and then Mark decided he’d had enough and that he wanted to move on to a wife who could ‘do her duty’.”
“Sounds like a total prick,” Catherine growled, vastly understating both her negative opinion and growing outrage, her hands clenching into tight fists.
“He wasn’t always like that,” she sighed, her shoulders slumping as she recalled the better days of their marriage. “When my sister first introduced me to him he was so much sweeter, and incredibly kind. She told me he was ‘one of the good ones,’ and I believed her.”
“Why’d he jump the tracks?”
“The world, I suppose,” she answered with a vague twirl of her hand. “His job was in a bad spot after the quarantine lockdown let up, and he must have let his pride get the better of him. After his coworkers turned him on to one of those extremist podcasts he became convinced that our problems stemmed from the ‘liberal tyranny’ of the government, and once my fertility issues became apparent he came completely undone.”
It was a crooked sort of line to follow, and Catherine guessed the swiss-cheese explanation was hiding more than a handful of bitter memories in its obvious holes. Not wanting to dig any deeper into what might still be open wounds, she tried to shift the conversation away to something else.
“Is your sister still doing okay?” she questioned, hoping it wasn’t as touchy of a topic.
“More or less,” April shrugged noncommittally. “Her own husband was headed down the same path, I think, but the plague took him before he could do anything truly daft.”
“Thank goodness for small miracles, right?” Catherine added with what she hoped was a conspiratorial grin and not an insensitive smirk.
She merely lifted her shoulders in an ambiguous shrug, staying guarded in her own feelings on the matter. Catherine sensed that she’d hit some sort of nerve accidentally, but she didn’t know April well-enough to guess at the deeper issue; she knew things with her sister were sort of precarious emotionally, and so she decided to leave it alone.
I’m even fucking up the small talk, she whinged to herself, regretting her choice of conversational topics. I should just leave, right? She’d clearly rather ‘catch up’ with Jeannie than have to deal with my ignorant meddling.
Still, the thought of getting back into her car wasn’t exactly a tempting proposition, and she felt bad about making Xena sit through another long drive so soon. Attempting the most gracious exit she could manage, she covered a mock yawn with her hand, pretending to a tiredness that she didn’t feel.
“Well, it’s basically morning at this point, right?” she smiled awkwardly in a weak try at humour. “I don’t want to keep you up with my jabbering, so if I could just steal a throw or something from you I’d be happy to crash where I’m sitting.”
“We have a spare room,” April began, looking to play the part of a gracious host.
“Nah, it’s fine,” she insisted, waving her off. “Jeannie’s gonna be here for a while, right? You might as well give it to her.”
It was a loaded question of course, designed to see if there really was anything romantic going on between the two women. To be perfectly honest her tone had easily ruined any attempt to be subtle in her snooping, which did as much to make her own feelings clear than anything else; thankfully, if April noticed then she chose not to point it out.
“I’ll get you a blanket, then,” she said in a voice that Catherine almost mistook for disappointment. “The bathroom’s down the hall and on the right for when you need it.”
The friendly mood completely ruined, a chorus of perfunctory ‘goodnights’ followed after she obtained a pillow and a barely-used comforter. April and Jeannie both seemed like they wanted to say more to her, but Catherine stubbornly evaded any further conversation; it was murder on her emotions as she watched the two retreat upstairs together, and it took everything she had not to focus on the idea that they might not be headed to separate rooms.
Resolving to only stay as long as absolutely necessary, Catherine made herself as comfortable as she could before trying to drift off to sleep.