three times simone saved ana's life
Ana goes running full-tilt across the steaming hot blacktop of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center wearing a hospital gown and a pair of pink panties. Her shoes are inside, sealed up in a bag with her t-shirt and her leggings, and only now that the heat is searing up into her skin does she wish she'd agreed to take the socks with little stripes across the bottom when they were offered to her. In this short instance she suddenly remembers when her family had a gigantic asphalt driveway, and she'd run across it barefoot to test her strength and will. Back then she had been a little more stupid, but a lot more powerful, and these days the sharp pangs of the hot cement against her feet is enough to make her hiss, hard, under her breath.
She spots, across the crowded parking lot, what she imagines Christians see when they think of Christ himself: a black rental car, purring with life, waiting and ready to save her. She tugs hard against the door and slides herself into the immaculate car, resting her tired and wounded feet against the cream dashboard and the smooth leather seats. After spending days in a sea of whites, off-whites, and sort-of-whites, she praises God for the blacks and the tans.
"Nice dress," Simone jokes from the drivers seat. She hands Ana a pack of cigarettes, knowing by heart what Ana's next step would be, and Ana hungrily digs one free. While Ana's searching for the lighter, Simone says through red lipstick and pearly white teeth, "You could have just signed the AMA, you know."
Simone doesn't mean that, and Ana knows Simone doesn't mean that. What Simone is really saying is, 'Normal people would have signed the AMA, or at least found a sensible pair of shoes for the venture.' But Ana and Simone have never been normal people and Ana, the transcriber of a lost and complex language, says nothing as she lights the cigarette and takes a drag. She flexes her toes back and forth, stares at chipped red nail polish and pudgy toes. She suddenly feels the need to gnaw viciously at the hospital band around one wrist, breaking her arm free from the list of names, dates, and weight numbers.
An intern with a palpable look of horror appears through the automatic doors and Ana, who has kept her eyes fixated there like the paranoid, anxiety-ridden human she is, turns to Simone and silently tells her to get them the fuck out.
If Simone were the patron saint of anything, she'd be the patron saint of quick getaways, and she swiftly throws the rental car into reverse and presses hard against the gas pedal. For a moment Ana feels nothing but sweet relief, the cool air blasting from the air conditioning directly onto her red-cheeked, sharp face- until she jolts, the smash of the back of the car colliding with something in the parking lot- a hospital sign listing the floors and parking spaces, crooked and hinging, ready to give up on life itself.
Simone turns to Ana, wordlessly asking her what to do now. Ana is the moral compass- she knows when to say sorry, when to pay for the damages, when to write a nice letter, when to send a hefty donation to the local charities. But today, Ana is bedraggled and her feet are still pounding and her moral compass is crippled, forever pointing south and she says, with the air of a judge giving a death sentence, "Fuck it. Let's just go."
Immediately, Simone throws the rental car in drive and books it through the parking lot. When they pass the intern, still standing near the automatic doors and holding a cell phone up to one ear, Ana thinks momentarily of how he will never recover from this moment. Losing an Oscar-nominated actress with no shoes and a serious eating disorder because she simply moved faster than you did, well, that's bound to hurt your credibility. And while most days she would feel a little sorry, today he is the enemy, and she rolls down her window and flashes him two middle fingers. Simone cackles in her spot, a resounding, full throttle laugh that reverberates through the car and outside into the cool air, a Thelma and Louise ending if you've ever seen one.
She spots, across the crowded parking lot, what she imagines Christians see when they think of Christ himself: a black rental car, purring with life, waiting and ready to save her. She tugs hard against the door and slides herself into the immaculate car, resting her tired and wounded feet against the cream dashboard and the smooth leather seats. After spending days in a sea of whites, off-whites, and sort-of-whites, she praises God for the blacks and the tans.
"Nice dress," Simone jokes from the drivers seat. She hands Ana a pack of cigarettes, knowing by heart what Ana's next step would be, and Ana hungrily digs one free. While Ana's searching for the lighter, Simone says through red lipstick and pearly white teeth, "You could have just signed the AMA, you know."
Simone doesn't mean that, and Ana knows Simone doesn't mean that. What Simone is really saying is, 'Normal people would have signed the AMA, or at least found a sensible pair of shoes for the venture.' But Ana and Simone have never been normal people and Ana, the transcriber of a lost and complex language, says nothing as she lights the cigarette and takes a drag. She flexes her toes back and forth, stares at chipped red nail polish and pudgy toes. She suddenly feels the need to gnaw viciously at the hospital band around one wrist, breaking her arm free from the list of names, dates, and weight numbers.
An intern with a palpable look of horror appears through the automatic doors and Ana, who has kept her eyes fixated there like the paranoid, anxiety-ridden human she is, turns to Simone and silently tells her to get them the fuck out.
If Simone were the patron saint of anything, she'd be the patron saint of quick getaways, and she swiftly throws the rental car into reverse and presses hard against the gas pedal. For a moment Ana feels nothing but sweet relief, the cool air blasting from the air conditioning directly onto her red-cheeked, sharp face- until she jolts, the smash of the back of the car colliding with something in the parking lot- a hospital sign listing the floors and parking spaces, crooked and hinging, ready to give up on life itself.
Simone turns to Ana, wordlessly asking her what to do now. Ana is the moral compass- she knows when to say sorry, when to pay for the damages, when to write a nice letter, when to send a hefty donation to the local charities. But today, Ana is bedraggled and her feet are still pounding and her moral compass is crippled, forever pointing south and she says, with the air of a judge giving a death sentence, "Fuck it. Let's just go."
Immediately, Simone throws the rental car in drive and books it through the parking lot. When they pass the intern, still standing near the automatic doors and holding a cell phone up to one ear, Ana thinks momentarily of how he will never recover from this moment. Losing an Oscar-nominated actress with no shoes and a serious eating disorder because she simply moved faster than you did, well, that's bound to hurt your credibility. And while most days she would feel a little sorry, today he is the enemy, and she rolls down her window and flashes him two middle fingers. Simone cackles in her spot, a resounding, full throttle laugh that reverberates through the car and outside into the cool air, a Thelma and Louise ending if you've ever seen one.
The pattern on the bathroom wall is some kind of floral print, slapped hastily over a dirty egg cream color, painted loosely over faux wooden tiles. There's some metaphor here, like there's nothing certain in life but death, taxes, and tacky wallpapering, but the cogs in Ana's brain have been cranking sluggishly, barely keeping up with the functions of breathing and sleeping, let alone making pithy remarkers under her breath.
Sitting thump on the ground, she stares up at the flickering fluorescent lights, watching them so long she sees them shake almost infinitesimally. She's trying hard to clear out the dull thrum of church music that's buzzing from the hall and straight into her brain, where it pounds relentlessly against the side of her head. Someone shakes hard on the bathroom doorknob, realizes its locked, and disappears.
Simone is standing up in front of the sink, checking her eyeliner for smudges. "Do you think this was a remodeled bedroom or was the paint always this tacky?"
The bathroom is a large square, a toilet smack against one wall, a sink and a mirror on another. There's a paper towel roll sitting on the sink, little specks of water already splashed on its unrolled piece. The floor is bathroom tile in your grandma's house, cracked and peeling on some of the edges.
"This whole place is a house they put some fuckin' pews and caskets in." Ana tells her. She waves one hand as if to gesture toward the entire building, but it only makes it halfway, falls limply back to her side.
"You ever wonder if, before they put a toilet seat in here, the undertaker boned his wife in what clearly used to be their master bedroom?" Simone asks her, spinning on her heel and making a good 180. They pause, and in their silence they hear the drone of a piano and the dulcet tones of a baptist choir.
"Was your Gramps even religious?" Simone asks, and she knows the answer, but this was the way she showed her distaste for the service, and Ana accepted it silently. She pulls quietly at the bottom of her skirt, an all-black designer something by someone. When she'd put it on Simone had offered, almost complacently, for the pair to burn it when the service was over, as Ana never wanted to see it again.
Piles and piles of bouquets of flowers wait outside, mountains of fresh flowers with little notes attached that said "Our condolences," and "You're in our thoughts and prayers" and "So sorry for your loss." Ana's already made the funeral director promise to donate every last fucking petal to a nursing home, or a hospital, or anywhere where other people aren't loved enough.
Really she's just a big fucking depress-a-thon.
Simone reaches down, grabs her by both hands and pulls her upright with ease- this is a position they often find themselves in, one pulling the other up off the floor. In the past eight years, they've learned to pull this routine flawlessly.
"Cheer up, buttercup." Simone purrs. She digs into the front of her dress and pulls out a perfectly rolled joint, flashes it in front of Ana's eyes like the holy grail.
"Ohhhhh, you're like the Wonder Woman I always masturbated to as a kid." This is the first quasi-joke Ana's made in a week, and its a little rough around the edges, but Simone's welcoming it all the same, a crack in the foundation of the girl living in Ana's skin who does nothing but cry and vomit and sleep.
Simone produces a lighter and Ana, lacking any sense of class or decency, bellyflops hard onto the tile floor and blows her smoke directly into the air vent waiting on the floor, to hide the smell or to give the rest of the reception a buzz, she is unsure.
Sitting thump on the ground, she stares up at the flickering fluorescent lights, watching them so long she sees them shake almost infinitesimally. She's trying hard to clear out the dull thrum of church music that's buzzing from the hall and straight into her brain, where it pounds relentlessly against the side of her head. Someone shakes hard on the bathroom doorknob, realizes its locked, and disappears.
Simone is standing up in front of the sink, checking her eyeliner for smudges. "Do you think this was a remodeled bedroom or was the paint always this tacky?"
The bathroom is a large square, a toilet smack against one wall, a sink and a mirror on another. There's a paper towel roll sitting on the sink, little specks of water already splashed on its unrolled piece. The floor is bathroom tile in your grandma's house, cracked and peeling on some of the edges.
"This whole place is a house they put some fuckin' pews and caskets in." Ana tells her. She waves one hand as if to gesture toward the entire building, but it only makes it halfway, falls limply back to her side.
"You ever wonder if, before they put a toilet seat in here, the undertaker boned his wife in what clearly used to be their master bedroom?" Simone asks her, spinning on her heel and making a good 180. They pause, and in their silence they hear the drone of a piano and the dulcet tones of a baptist choir.
"Was your Gramps even religious?" Simone asks, and she knows the answer, but this was the way she showed her distaste for the service, and Ana accepted it silently. She pulls quietly at the bottom of her skirt, an all-black designer something by someone. When she'd put it on Simone had offered, almost complacently, for the pair to burn it when the service was over, as Ana never wanted to see it again.
Piles and piles of bouquets of flowers wait outside, mountains of fresh flowers with little notes attached that said "Our condolences," and "You're in our thoughts and prayers" and "So sorry for your loss." Ana's already made the funeral director promise to donate every last fucking petal to a nursing home, or a hospital, or anywhere where other people aren't loved enough.
Really she's just a big fucking depress-a-thon.
Simone reaches down, grabs her by both hands and pulls her upright with ease- this is a position they often find themselves in, one pulling the other up off the floor. In the past eight years, they've learned to pull this routine flawlessly.
"Cheer up, buttercup." Simone purrs. She digs into the front of her dress and pulls out a perfectly rolled joint, flashes it in front of Ana's eyes like the holy grail.
"Ohhhhh, you're like the Wonder Woman I always masturbated to as a kid." This is the first quasi-joke Ana's made in a week, and its a little rough around the edges, but Simone's welcoming it all the same, a crack in the foundation of the girl living in Ana's skin who does nothing but cry and vomit and sleep.
Simone produces a lighter and Ana, lacking any sense of class or decency, bellyflops hard onto the tile floor and blows her smoke directly into the air vent waiting on the floor, to hide the smell or to give the rest of the reception a buzz, she is unsure.
Simone's in red high heels and she's smoking one of Ana's camel crush menthols. She actually fucking hates menthols, but she's out of cigarettes and doesn't want to drive to the liquor store before her meeting with her agent, so she's smoking one of Ana's camel crush menthols. And she's tapping her click-clack red high heels against the bathroom tile. She's actually not sure if these are hers or Ana's, because they both have the same size shoe and they buy everything like they live in a hippie commune where what's yours is ours, so Simone isn't actually sure if these are her heels or not. So she's standing in Ana's bathroom (they have two,) smoking Ana's cigarettes, maybe wearing Ana's shoes.
But she's not just standing there clacking her heels (every Mississippi, in fact) against the floor in maybe-Ana's shoes. What she's really doing is she's counting to 60 Mississippis. She's counting from the first Mississippi to the sixtieth, and on every 10th-multiple she takes a drag, and anyone who says that she has a mild case of OCD is a fucking asshole, by the way.
Simone's staring into the long, deep bathtub Ana demanded when they remodeled the place a few years ago, to make it look more classic. Well, Ana wanted classic in the bathroom, at least. Simone was just like, whatever. "Bathrooms and kitchens," Ana had said, "they're supposed to be classic. Like Coco Chanel, or whatever, lives in them. Like Chanel no. 5 lives in them."
Simone is specifically staring at the spot where Ana's head usually rests. She knows this spot because they've long-since lost the boundaries that most people have around people, even if they love them, and she's spent enough time talking to Ana while Ana takes a bath that she knows exactly where Ana's head should be. She hits 50 Mississippi and takes another drag of Ana's cigarette, in maybe-Ana's heels.
Simone is staring at the spot where Ana's head rests because on each side of it, white knuckling the sides of the tub, are Ana's hands. She'd know Ana's hands anywhere, so even if they weren't holding hard to Ana's bathtub, she'd know they were Ana's hands. Simone is staring at the spot where Ana's head rests, and she's counting to 60 Mississippis, because the minute she walks in to borrow one of Ana's perfumes she sees that Ana's head is under the water, and her hands are white-knuckling each side of the basin.
Simone finally makes it to sixty. She takes another drag. She almost feels bad, so she spells Mississippi front and back, three times. M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i. I-p-p-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-M. When she's done with that ritual, she sighs, suddenly moves almost frantically, slams her hands into the cool water, wraps them around Ana's neck and pulls her up.
Water sloshes violently against the edges of the tub, splashing the tile and Ana-Simone's shoes. Simone's still holding the cigarette in her hand, but the light has been extinguished and it lies limp between two fingers. Ana splutters and coughs. She gasps, breathes deep, rattling breaths. Her curls cling to her neck and shoulders. Simone's hands don't move from Ana's neck.
"Not today." Simone tells her. She shakes her a little, like she's removing the water that might have lodged itself into Ana's lungs and into Ana's brain.
"Not fucking today." she says again, and they both know what she means, and Simone takes their heels off and throws the old, wet cigarette in the trash. She hands Ana a towel and she says, not unkindly, "Today is not that day."
Ana's soul, which had momentarily left her body and floated off into outer-space somewhere, seems to suck back into her with a particularly vicious cough. Neither of them say anything as Simone digs through Ana's medicine cabinet to find the perfume she wants- its a Tom Ford in some bright blue bottle- sprays herself on the neck and wrists, and checks the water damage on the shoes.
This isn't the first time and it probably isn't the last, and Simone and Ana don't talk about it because they both know what the other is thinking, and what they're thinking is to really love someone, you have to love someone so much you don't flinch to snatch them from their skeletons, and while you're there you don't judge the destruction of their closets.
"Wanna get something French for dinner?" Simone asks casually, while she touches up her lipstick in Ana's mirror.
But she's not just standing there clacking her heels (every Mississippi, in fact) against the floor in maybe-Ana's shoes. What she's really doing is she's counting to 60 Mississippis. She's counting from the first Mississippi to the sixtieth, and on every 10th-multiple she takes a drag, and anyone who says that she has a mild case of OCD is a fucking asshole, by the way.
Simone's staring into the long, deep bathtub Ana demanded when they remodeled the place a few years ago, to make it look more classic. Well, Ana wanted classic in the bathroom, at least. Simone was just like, whatever. "Bathrooms and kitchens," Ana had said, "they're supposed to be classic. Like Coco Chanel, or whatever, lives in them. Like Chanel no. 5 lives in them."
Simone is specifically staring at the spot where Ana's head usually rests. She knows this spot because they've long-since lost the boundaries that most people have around people, even if they love them, and she's spent enough time talking to Ana while Ana takes a bath that she knows exactly where Ana's head should be. She hits 50 Mississippi and takes another drag of Ana's cigarette, in maybe-Ana's heels.
Simone is staring at the spot where Ana's head rests because on each side of it, white knuckling the sides of the tub, are Ana's hands. She'd know Ana's hands anywhere, so even if they weren't holding hard to Ana's bathtub, she'd know they were Ana's hands. Simone is staring at the spot where Ana's head rests, and she's counting to 60 Mississippis, because the minute she walks in to borrow one of Ana's perfumes she sees that Ana's head is under the water, and her hands are white-knuckling each side of the basin.
Simone finally makes it to sixty. She takes another drag. She almost feels bad, so she spells Mississippi front and back, three times. M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i. I-p-p-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-M. When she's done with that ritual, she sighs, suddenly moves almost frantically, slams her hands into the cool water, wraps them around Ana's neck and pulls her up.
Water sloshes violently against the edges of the tub, splashing the tile and Ana-Simone's shoes. Simone's still holding the cigarette in her hand, but the light has been extinguished and it lies limp between two fingers. Ana splutters and coughs. She gasps, breathes deep, rattling breaths. Her curls cling to her neck and shoulders. Simone's hands don't move from Ana's neck.
"Not today." Simone tells her. She shakes her a little, like she's removing the water that might have lodged itself into Ana's lungs and into Ana's brain.
"Not fucking today." she says again, and they both know what she means, and Simone takes their heels off and throws the old, wet cigarette in the trash. She hands Ana a towel and she says, not unkindly, "Today is not that day."
Ana's soul, which had momentarily left her body and floated off into outer-space somewhere, seems to suck back into her with a particularly vicious cough. Neither of them say anything as Simone digs through Ana's medicine cabinet to find the perfume she wants- its a Tom Ford in some bright blue bottle- sprays herself on the neck and wrists, and checks the water damage on the shoes.
This isn't the first time and it probably isn't the last, and Simone and Ana don't talk about it because they both know what the other is thinking, and what they're thinking is to really love someone, you have to love someone so much you don't flinch to snatch them from their skeletons, and while you're there you don't judge the destruction of their closets.
"Wanna get something French for dinner?" Simone asks casually, while she touches up her lipstick in Ana's mirror.