Amy didn’t have a clue what Dorset had in store so she packed her that weekend-in-the-country wear, thrilled that at last her life was catching up with her wardrobe. This particular outfit was the result of many a Laura Ashley sale and consisted of Little Lord Fauntleroy hats and waistcoats and some sludge-colored wool socks. The other guests would all be undoubtedly trendy and Lucinda’s will would reign supreme, with every woman in hipsters, but what the hell.
The car tooted in the street and Amy ran out, her small suitcase swinging in her hand. The car was an assortment of Benjy’s friends. They were all quite sweet. One was a scriptwriter, one a cauliflower-eared accountant, and the other an Irish ex-pop star. Amy was introduced but immediately forgot their names since she was so busy trying to look pretty as she shook their hands. Not because she fancied them, just because pretty is as pretty does, whatever that meant. They whizzed along with the radio blaring, squashed into the back like a packet of sausages.
The road leading up to the cottage was so strewn with stones and potholes that they emerged rubbing their buttocks for dear life. The cottage was a rustic pink color that wouldn’t have looked out of place nestling away in the Umbrian Hills. The winter light gave it a warm glow, and tucked away behind huge terra-cotta pots of bay trees and strange cacti was a tiny front door with a huge lion’s-head door knocker. On closer inspection the paint was weathered and flaked to the touch, and Amy could just make out the etchings of a Renaissance fresco above the downstairs windows. In fact, Lily and friends had labored over this last August but hadn’t accounted for English winter besetting their Italian palazzo. Wow, Amy gasped in barely audible admiration. They piled out, myriad carrier bags and shabby paperbacks and an army of sleeping bags. At an upstairs window appeared the aforementioned Lily, Benjy’s sister. Her plaited hair hanging forward, her face covered in—
“Yogurt, I was out this morning and got windburn, yogurt does the trick,” she yelled.
The boys exchanged bewildered-by-women glances as she disappeared and ran downstairs to open the door. Everyone got a kiss, despite, or perhaps because of the yogurt, and she ushered them into her living room-cum-studio.
The various merits of strawberry versus mango yogurt were discussed at length by the assembled company, nine in all. Not so scary as Amy had expected but all a bit older and a bit cooler than her own friends. They decided that a walk was number one on the agenda and anyone not on for that could meet them in the local pub in an hour or so. Amy tugged on a tweedy peaked cap and, gratified by the “ooh, how divine” from Lily, walked off down the rubbly driveway with a little skip. She discovered from Benjy that Lily was a painter with a bit of pottery thrown in who’d absconded from the City two years ago in favor of the good life. Well, she had two chickens, one of which acted as her alarm clock and one for eggs, but she was basically besieged every weekend by friends, so she couldn’t be classed as a true country dweller.
Amy tried to take up this conversation with Lily, whom she took to instantly because Lily was not only exceptionally pretty but the epitome of the Girl Men Fall in Love With, so Amy thought she’d watch and learn. Or at least Amy perceived this to be true; not to be too convoluted, she was the Girl Women Want Men to Fall in Love With, because women liked her and believed in her. She was pretty, eccentric, and fun. But we all know that these virtues, not being anatomical, don’t necessarily count for much with men, so women go on getting it wrong. And in their own way it’s the women who fall in love with these women because they’re what men so often aren’t. Gorgeous and nice.
Lily, though, seemed more intent on waving at the stony-faced passengers on the train to London than making small talk, so Amy, spurred on by the howling wind, joined in. Such abandonment was wholly uncharacteristic for Amy, who only really let go in her imagination. But here she was, running shrieking around what she thought must be Hardy’s Egdon Heath with the grace of a deer and the lungs of Pavarotti. Lucinda watched with amusement, gratified that all was going according to plan. She’d known she had to do something about Amy, she just wasn’t sure what. What she did to fashion spreads she liked to do to life, the odd hitching of a hemline to create the perfect silhouette here, a bit of excitement for her friends there. It was what she was good at. What she did know was that a weekend in Lily’s company was never going to do anyone any harm, and certainly not Amy.
On the way back to the pub they discussed their favorite Hardy novels. Hands went up for Return of the Native, the dour Irish pop star backed Jude the Obscure, and Lily spun round and opted for Tess. “Don’t you think that Amy has lips like Tess? Come on, boys, you could pop strawberries into that mouth very happily.” Amy flushed with delight and the boys turned away, embarrassed and grunting while Lily smiled straight at her.
They commandeered a green velveteen corner of the pub for most of the afternoon, consuming Guinness in indecent quantities and staying on to beat the locals in the pub quiz that evening. Amy’s head swam with a creamy deluge of Bailey’s and whiskey. In an effort to get home they all linked arms for stability and trundled through puddles and ditches.
“It’ll be OK,” Lily soothed. “I’ve fallen asleep behind the hedgerow before now and got a lift home on the milk truck the next morning, so all is most definitely not lost …” She trailed off with a little slur. They stumbled all the way back to the cottage and numerous bruises later tumbled into the irrelevant sleeping bags.
The morning was too painful for Amy to bear to move. She lay as still as possible knowing that if she lifted so much as a fingernail, she’d be sick. And I just can’t be, she told herself, I’m not fourteen anymore, I can’t be running to the loo to throw up, it’s way too embarrassing. But the room had a vague smell of turps and the more Amy thought of it the iller she felt. Eventually she leaned over and lifted the window sash. Ice-cold air blasted in and the flimsy cotton curtains were caught up in a frantic dance with the wind. Hastily closing it and flopping back onto the bed with the exertion, Amy gazed blankly at an array of canvases stacked up against the wardrobe until Lily peeped her head around the door.
“You look as rough as I feel,” she ventured.
“Hmmm, could be right there.” Amy winced, not daring to breathe.
“I’m so sorry, you’re only a child, we shouldn’t have been so rough on you.”
“Lily, I’m not a Mormon, I have been pissed before.”
Lily threw herself down onto the end of the very soft bed. Amy’s stomach leaped and lurched. Don’t bounce, she pleaded silently. Please.
Lily sat there looking so pretty that Amy couldn’t quite bear it. Even her dark circles were poetic and a smattering of pale freckles made her look all daisylike, an advert for fresh, ice-cold milk next to Amy’s wan, hungover look. She sank into her pillow feeling that life had dealt her an unfair blow. Lily clambered in next to her, and they huddled under the duvet together groaning gratuitously, born-again teetotalers.
Lucinda walked in bearing mineral water and vitamin C tablets, but seeing the writhing, grumbling duvet, almost spun on her Birkenstocks and left.
“Stop right there, Gunga Din!” yelled Lily, her head appearing over the parapet of the duvet. Lucinda sheepishly walked toward them with her mini pharmacy.
“You weren’t worried that I’d seduced poor Amy, were you?” Lily grinned.
“No, of course not, Lil, I just thought you were sleeping.” Amy had never seen Lucinda, veteran of the social exchange, look so flummoxed before. She wondered at the cause, shot a puzzled glare at Lucinda, and gratefully quaffed her water and vitamin C. Then the fog and pain lifted a little and it began to dawn on her that the reason the men weren’t swarming round Lily was that everyone perhaps knew something she didn’t: i.e., Lily preferred women to men. Amy felt Lily’s bare legs next to hers. Amy was naked (except for Chanel No. 5? No, except for Mum deodorant and last night’s eau de pub), and Lily had a lacy vest and shorts on and indecently golden limbs. She reasoned soberly—what a joke—that (1) Lily probably didn’t fancy her anyway; (2) Lucinda was there, and if she did fancy her, she’d be more discreet than to make a pass while her brother’s girlfriend (and Amy’s boss!) was in the room; and (3) Lily was much too pretty for Amy and she should be so lucky, basically. Having established these points, Amy felt no better at all. She remembered her legs were prickly and she hadn’t cleaned her teeth. She sat brusquely upright and jabbered with an inanity which baffled even Lucinda.
Assorted bodies in various states of disarray sat around Lily’s enormous kitchen table. All pretext of glamour had been abandoned. Faces were unshaven, contact lenses were replaced by unappealing spectacles, and painterly pretensions were superseded by cheesy jogging pants. Needless to say, everyone felt much more at home and bonded over sizzling bacon and boiling kettles. Benjy had burned his fingers on some toast and, shaking his hand in annoyance, turned to Lucinda.
“You did tell Amy, didn’t you, Lucinda?”
Lucinda looked sheepishly into her coffee. “Well, no, but what’s there to tell? ‘Oh, by the way, Lily’s gay and has a penchant for young innocents?’ Don’t be ridiculous, Benjy, anyway I actually think it’ll be good for Amy to be flattered a bit, looked after. It’ll also broaden her horizons and keep her away from accountants like Luke Harding. Sorry, Craig [he of cauliflower ear and calculator], but Amy needs some real life experience.”
Benjy looked at his intended with horror. “Luce, you’re a monster. Amy’s fine without a splash of lipstick lesbianism to enhance her life, and Lily’s not gay, she just thinks it’s glamorous and sapphic to kiss women.”
“Precisely. She and Amy can fuel each other’s romantic imagination for a while and I won’t have to pick up the few little pieces of self-respect Amy has left at the end of her liaisons.”
“You’re weird, Luce,” he said, sitting on a sofa in the corner and gazing at his emerging blister.
The male guests looked baffled by the notion and hid their heads in the Sunday papers while tucking away the image of the two lithe temptresses entwined into the recesses of their minds for a little rewind later. The females sulked inwardly that they hadn’t been singled out by Lily. Though of course that wasn’t their thing, it would have been nice to have been asked.
Upstairs ears were too sleepy to burn. The girls lay somnolent and languid on the bed, dozing and dreaming in a Bailey’s-induced haze, Lily’s hand resting softly on Amy’s shoulder. Thus they lay until midday when Lily’s deeply unreliable rooster-alarm took it upon himself to rally the hungover from their slumber. The household twitched and winced with pain at the shrill intrusion; Amy opened her eyes to find Lily’s pert nose wrinkling awake. Her tummy did a little jitterbug of anxiety, and she tried hard not to shake her pins-and-needles-ridden limbs for fear of startling Lily, who let out a baby sigh and cautiously opened one eye.
“Ooooh, morning,” she cooed, smiling with her eyes screwed up against the light.
“Hi,” said Amy, a gnaw of nerves tightening inside her, trying to confront her newfound knowledge of Lily.
“How lovely to wake up next to such a pretty mouth,” Lily mused to no one in particular. Amy felt like she was watching a French art-house film with few words and an erotic edge lacing every look. The tightening in the pit of her stomach melted into warm tingles and spread down to her toes. Lily’s smile coerced Amy to follow suit. Amy didn’t manage the smile, but the darts of heat assaulting her body gave her the courage to lift her eyes and look at Lily. A nod is as good as a wink in some circles. Lily lifted a finger to Amy’s lower lip and, tracing it gently, softly pushed it into her mouth. Amy was torn between fear and an overwhelming desire to taste Lily’s plump peony-petal lips. Tilting her face toward Lily’s, their lips collided full and gently. The soft skin of the encounter surprised Amy, no coarse cheeks grazing her own; the downy symmetry of their curves caused their bodies to brush, Gemini-like, against one another. Amy’s fear evaporated. How divine, she thought.