Jennifer’s gaze was caught in a weird space between glaring and smouldering, and Audrey was caught in an even weirder spacebetween irritated and into it. “I hope,” Jennifer went on, “you’re not mistaking me for the sort of uncreative, management-book-reading, self-help-believingarseholewho respects people that stand up to me. Because if so, you are in for a rude awakening. All of this”—she waved a hand in a way that indicated Audrey’s entire person and demeanour—“is just pissing me off.”
It was, Audrey reflected, wrong to be enjoying this quite as much as she was. Especially because part of it had another person’s health on the line. But the thing about being a local journalist asking a reality TV producer if she could run a heartwarming story about the-war-and-maybe-some-lesbians-unless-Audrey-was-projecting was that it hadwaylower stakes than she’d been used to in her old job. And that made it much easier to roll the dice on things. “Is it though?” she asked. “Because the door is right there, and you could have walked out of it at any time.”
“You’d follow me.”
“This is my house. The following has already occurred. I am the followee in this relationship.”
“You fucking are not.” Strangely, Jennifer Hallet showed very little sign of moving from Audrey’s armchair. “You sent your boss to pitch me a story like you were sending your better-looking friend to ask a girl to dance at a disco.”
“Excuse me,” said Audrey, stung. “I have always done my own…girl-disco-dancing-asking, thank you very much. Also, who goes to discos anymore?”
“Long answer: Gen Zers on roller skates with AirPods in their ears. It’s this whole big trend. Short answer: fuck off.”
This was getting further and further from the point and taking Audrey further and further away from her story. And since this was basically a question with a one-word answer, that meant Jenniferwas spinning it out deliberately, either for the joy of fucking with Audrey specifically or because a little light conflict was Jennifer’s general idea of a fun Tuesday evening.
“I went to my boss”—Audrey eased off her shoes and tucked her feet under a cushion—“because it was the professional thing to do. Just like the professional thing for you to do is give me a straight answer. Can I keep working on this?”
Something thwarted flickered in Jennifer’s eyes like a cat whose mouse had stopped running and given it a very disappointed look. “Fine. But you put every fucking word past me. And if I don’t like what I read, I’ll club this whole thing to death like a baby seal.”
Audrey elected not to rise to dead-baby-seal bait. “Thanks.”
Silence seemed unlikely in a room with Jennifer Hallet. But there it was. And there also was Jennifer Hallet herself, still enarmchaired despite definitely now having no reason to be there.
“Are we done?” asked Audrey. “Do you want a cup of tea?”
Jennifer gave a look of disgust. “Of course I don’t want a fucking cup of tea.”
“Then, um, why aren’t you leaving?”
“I’m establishing dominance.”
“Okay, I know you’re a highly successful woman. But if you’ll take a tiny bit of advice, it’s hard to establish dominance when you’re holding a cuddly tortoise.”
There was a brief moment where Audrey feared a dominance-challenged and outraged Jennifer Hallet was going to fling Lion the tortoise across the room. But she seemed to have run up against the limits of her own capacity to grandstand. Instead, she stood, crossed to the sofa, and settled Lion the tortoise very gently next to Audrey. “Fuck you both,” she said.
“He felt that,” Audrey replied. “He really felt that.”
“Good. He should. The chelonian prick.”
“Anything else in my home you want to insult?” Audrey asked. “I can get my teapot or my sponge. Or here you are.” Bundling up the quilt that was lying next to her, she basketballed it at Jennifer. “Have a go at this.”
Jennifer managed to catch the quilt before it flopped into her face. “Excuse me, you don’t get to choose which bits of this living Pinterest board I mock you for.”
She shook the quilt out and looked at it. It wasn’t one of Audrey’s best. But then, none of them were. You needed more time than Audrey could spare and more skill than Audrey could manage to be a decent quilter. In this case, she’d taken on a pattern she wasn’t ready for, so the stars had come out crooked and the borders were all wonky.
“What the fuck’s there to have a go at with this, anyway?” Jennifer demanded.
“I mean, everything? It’s just sort of…not a very good quilt? Because I’m not very good at quilting? And…and…”And yet, said Natalie,you wasted hours trying to learn a skill that the patriarchy forced on our grandmothers.
Jennifer shrugged. “It’s a fucking quilt. It’s for keeping your tits warm. Who the fuck cares?”
“Is this you telling me you like the quilt?”
Jennifer shrugged, even more aggressively somehow. “I work in a trailer. I get very fucking cold.”
Six minutes ago Audrey had been convinced this conversation couldn’t get weirder. She had been very wrong. “You can have it if you want,” she said. “You know, for your tits. Or, um, any other part of your body.”
For what felt like a very long time, Jennifer Hallet just stared at her. “I should never have let you on the show.”
