Let’s Get Married, Chapter 9

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One step forward, two steps back.

Rated A.

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Chapter 9: For the bad times

When Ashley woke up, she reached across the bed to find Spencer; she found only sheets. She yawned and stretched, which made her realise that she’d been using quite a few muscles which hadn’t seen action in a very long time. She also had a warm feeling across her shoulder blades, probably a mild carpet burn from the rug on the floor.

Turning over, she saw a note on the nightstand next her side of the bed.

Couldn’t bring myself to wake you. Two shifts today, early and late. Will try to come home in between. Spence x

She grinned. There was something about Spencer using the word ‘home’ that gave her a case of the warm-and-fuzzies.

Once she had showered and dressed, she went out to the living room, where Mia was asleep on the couch, wrapped up in a child’s blanket, cartoons flickering on the television. She could hear the sound of the shower running in the guest bathroom. She looked into fridge and pulled out a carton of milk, pouring glasses for herself and Mia.

She pulled out her phone from her back pocket and texted Spencer.

Missed you this morning. How about we meet for lunch?

Almost immediately, the phone vibrated with the reply, Karpov’s?

As long as we can have the cherry blintzes.

I’ll text you when I’m getting off the subway x

See you then x

She picked up the glasses of milk and went to wake up her wife’s dozing niece.

* * *

“I swear, these get better every time I try them,” Spencer said, chasing a melting ball of ice-cream around her plate.

“I know,” Ashley agreed, as she inhaled the smell of hot pastry and thick cherry syrup.

“What did you all get up to today?”

“Watched some cartoons with Mia, did a little work on the Lowell & McCoy commission. Glen left about lunchtime to take Mia back to Chelsea. Ate some cereal. That’s about it.”

“Cereal for lunch?”

“I already had a date for lunch. That was brunch.”

A waitress came by and refilled their glasses of water, asked them if there was anything else they needed. They both said no.

“How was work today?” Ashley asked.

“The usual.” Spencer told her an amusing story about an on-air flub from one of the newer presenters, a cocky young guy who thought that shilling cheap jewellery on basic cable made him some kind of big shot. He was universally disliked by the crew and other presenters.

It was obvious that they were both avoiding talking about the previous evening. Ashley couldn’t speak for Spencer, but it was all she could think about. When she looked at Spencer’s hands, she thought about where those hands had been and how they had made her feel. She could picture the way Spencer’s head had arched back as she had eased her fingers inside her. She could remember, sometime later, biting her own lip so hard that she feared she might draw blood, holding the back of her wife’s head, the muscles in her neck straining with the effort of holding all sound back.

Spencer chuckled. “You’re not listening, are you?”

“Sorry.”

“What’re you thinking about?”

“Oh, I’m sure you can guess,” Ashley said, her tone implying exactly what she’d been thinking about. Spencer blushed and ducked her head. “About that.”

“Yes?”

“Are we? I mean, what are we?” Were they lovers, partners, friends with benefits? She had no idea. She knew what she wanted them to be—she wanted to be Spencer’s wife, and all that implied—but she wasn’t sure that was what Spencer wanted.

Spencer shrugged. “Us?”

“Just us?”

“I don’t know. I think ‘us’ is pretty good.”

“I think ‘us’ is better than pretty good,” Ashley agreed. She was hedging. As ever, she wanted Spencer to be the one who moved first, admitted how she felt first.

Spencer pushed her blintzes around her plate. “You don’t think the timing’s bad? What with Glen and everything.”

“Everything like what?”

“The whole situation with the INS.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“You don’t worry that maybe we’re where we are because we’ve been forced together for a long time?”

Ashley smiled. “Are you saying we have some kind of mutual psychosis induced by living together? What’s that thing where kidnap victims fall for their captors? The Patty Hearst thing?”

“Stockholm Syndrome.” Spencer laughed. “That’s not really what I mean, but kinda. How do we know that all of this is real?”

“It’s real for me,” Ashley said quietly.

Spencer reached across and covered Ashley’s hand with her own. “I’m not getting at you at all. And I’m not saying that I regret anything that’s happened between us, because I don’t. At all. I’m just saying that—” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”

“No, I get what you mean.” Ashley was willing to cut her wife a break. She was raising points that Ashley had considered herself. Often. “It’s not like we started out as great friends and we would probably have never even hung out together if we weren’t married. But, you know, I feel like we kinda fit.”

“Yeah, I do, too.”

Ashley turned her hand over so that she was holding Spencer’s. “This fits.” She rubbed her thumb over Spencer’s wedding ring. One day, she really had to buy her wife a proper ring. “But I also understand that maybe—despite the fact that you’re my wife—that we should, you know, date or something first before jumping into anything. And I also get that there’s something a little icky about having sex with your brother and the baby niece in the next room.”

“It was kinda funny as well.”

“It was very funny. And at least I learned that you’re useless at keeping quiet. You’d make a terrible spy.”

“Me?” Spencer said. “What about you? It wasn’t me who made those squealing noises.”

“I do not make squealing noises.”

“No, no, of course you don’t. I must have imagined that.”

They grinned at each other. They really did fit well together, Ashley mused. But she also accepted that their situation was not normal.

“So?” Spencer prompted, lifting her gaze to Ashley’s.

“So, when your brother’s gone, maybe you’d like to go out with me sometime? We could catch a movie or something. Maybe Shakespeare in the Park, now it’s summer.”

“I’d like that.”

“I’d like that, too.”

“So, it’s a date, then?” Spencer asked.

“You could say that.”

“Yes, I could. And I will.”

“And between now and then?” Ashley pushed.

“What about it?”

“Should I keep my hands to myself at all times?”

Spencer looked evenly at her. “I don’t remember saying that.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“And I didn’t hear you say that either.”

“No, that’s true. But I’m not good at self-control.”

“No? Really?” Spencer mocked. “You surprise me.”

“And you think you can share a bed with me every night and not get tempted?” Ashley challenged.

“Try me.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Be careful what you wish for. I have an iron will and nerves of steel when it comes to sex.”

“That makes you sound like a virginal superhero,” Ashley joked.

Spencer raised her arm with a clenched fist. “I believe in truth, justice and the word ‘no’.”

“Holy chastity, Batman,” Ashley shot back.

* * *

“For the love of God, when is he leaving?” Ashley asked, referring to her brother-in-law, Glen, who was crashing about in what used to be Spencer’s room.

“Friday,” Spencer said. Her voice was low, almost crooning. She often used that tone in quiet, intimate moments, and it made Ashley feel protected somehow.

“Why does he always come home at the wrong time?” Ashley asked. She had been about to put the moves on her wife, try to get a little make-out session going. And she had the feeling that Spencer was going to agree, too. Despite their pact not to get all hot-and-heavy while Glen was around, they had fooled around a few times. Far too few times for Ashley’s liking.

“It’s not like he does it on purpose. I don’t think he’s got the place bugged or anything.”

Glen had been staying with them for almost four weeks. On the one hand, his appearance had been a catalyst: without his being there, Ashley doubted that she and Spencer would have ever moved beyond the platonic stage at all. On the other hand, they were now in a form of limbo, waiting for him to move on before they could move on.

“He said he’d cook lunch,” said Spencer.

“Oh God, no. Seriously, don’t let him. He burns salad.”

Spencer stepped back and looked at her reproachfully. “It’s not that bad.”

“You’re not here all day with him,” Ashley said. “He made me a sandwich yesterday and it was about three pounds of pastrami on an open slice of bread. A single slice of bread, folded over the meat mountain. He made the coffee by microwaving what had been left in the pot overnight.” She ran her fingers through her hair and sighed.

“He’s used to living in a tent and in disaster zones.”

Ashley rolled her eyes. “According to you, he spent most of his childhood in private schools in Paris and the Upper East Side. It’s not like he was raised by wolves.”

Spencer picked up her hand and gave her a quick kiss on the knuckles. “He’ll be gone soon. We took some of his stuff over to his apartment building today. They have storage they’re letting him use until his lease starts.”

Ashley shook her head. “Don’t get me wrong—I really like the guy. It’s just frustrating never being alone.”

Spencer nodded and sat down on the couch. “I know you need peace and quiet to work.”

“No, that wasn’t—”

“Spencer! Ashley!” Glen shouted from the living room.

Ashley gave Spencer a pained expression. Glen could hardly have more perfectly illustrated what she she was trying to say. She hadn’t meant that she wanted time by herself. She wanted time with Spencer.

Spencer would be leaving for work at two o’clock and, had it been just the two of them, they might have had a lazy morning together. Instead, Spencer’s morning had been spent with Glen, while Ashley had been working. When he went out to buy some supplies for his new apartment, Spencer had come through to sit with her. It was the first time in a couple of weeks that it felt like the start of their marriage again. Well, perhaps not the start of their marriage, but the good parts of their marriage, when they would just be together and talk and laugh. Between Glen’s presence and Spencer’s work schedule, there had not been enough moments like that.

“I’d better go before he comes looking for us in person,” Spencer said.

She watched Spencer leave and gave a silent scream of frustration towards the ceiling. She waited a few moments, breathing in and out slowly, then went to join her wife and brother-in-law. Thankfully, she found Spencer in the kitchen chopping vegetables while Glen sat on a stool, observing. At least she wouldn’t have to eat what passed for food in Glen’s mind.

“Oh,” Glen said as she approached, “I completely forgot. Anthony gave me the mail when I was coming up. It’s over there.” He nodded over his shoulder toward the small table behind the main door.

“Thanks,” Ashley said, making a face at him behind his back. Would it have been so hard for him to actually hand it to her?

She picked up the small bundle and rifled through the bills and direct mailing shots. She found nothing interesting until she got to the last one, which made her drop all the other letters in her hand. She stared at it, in particular the return address and logo in the top left corner.

“Babe? What is it?” Spencer asked.

Ashley turned to see Spencer drying her hands with a towel, a look of concern on her face. She tried to say something, but couldn’t. Mutely, she walked over and gave the letter to Spencer. It was, after all, addressed to her.

Spencer looked from the letter in her hand to Ashley. She didn’t say anything either.

Glen—who else?—finally broke the silence. “What is it?”

“It’s from the INS,” Spencer replied distractedly.

“Well, open it!” he said.

Again, Spencer did nothing but stare back at Ashley.

“Glen,” Ashley said, “can I ask you a big favour?”

“Sure.”

“Can you go out somewhere for a bit? Say, a few hours?” She couldn’t take her eyes from Spencer, whose look of deep concern matched the growing fear building in the pit of Ashley’s stomach. She felt like she might throw up at any second.

“What’s wrong?” Glen asked. He was looking between Ashley and his sister in confusion.

Ashley shook her head. “Nothing. It’s just that we’d like some privacy, in case it’s bad news. I’ll give you some money, if you’re short,” she offered.

“But I only just got back in!” Something about the way they were behaving must have hit home, however, because he slipped off the stool. He thought for a moment. “Maybe I could go see if I can pick Mia up from daycare. Yeah, I think I’ll do that.”

She heard him move around behind her, probably getting his jacket and his wallet. Spencer was still staring at her and she didn’t know what to do other than stand there and wait.

Glen opened the front door. “I’ll give you guys a call before I head back, okay?” he said. Ashley nodded. Spencer didn’t even register that she’d heard him.

Glen closed the door quietly, leaving them alone again.

Neither moved.

Ashley said, “We should…” But she didn’t know how to end the sentence. Read it? Hide it? Sit down? Have a shot of whisky?

Spencer finally looked down at the envelope and slipped her pinky finger under the flap. She eased it open slowly, peeling it back as if disturbing the envelope itself might affect the contents in some way. She removed the papers and unfolded them. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she scanned the contents of each sheet, turning them over to check both sides.

“I’m a US citizen,” Spencer said finally. It was in such a flat tone. “Based on my original application.”

Ashley moved towards her, taking the pages from Spencer’s hands. She read that citizenship had been granted on the basis of permanent residency of greater than five years. Spencer’s marital status was recorded as single. While she knew that the Federal Government did not recognise their marriage, it was still a shock to see it.

“I’m going to call Phil.” Spencer held out her hand and Ashley handed the papers back to her.

Ashley busied herself in the kitchen, pretending to hand-wash the dishes while Spencer called her lawyer. What she actually did was allow hot water from the tap to run over a plate while she eavesdropped. She heard Spencer talking to either a secretary or an associate; she could tell from the stilted formality of the conversation that it was not Phil himself. Spencer gave all the details she was asked for from the papers she held and arranged to go to the office the following morning.

Spencer stayed on the couch after finishing her call, reading and re-reading the papers. Ashley joined her and sat down on the armchair facing her.

“So, what happens now?”

Spencer shook her head. “I don’t know. I need to speak to Phil in person. Tomorrow at nine was the first appointment I could get.” She let the papers fall by her side and slouched back, covering her face in her hands. “I never actually believed this would happen. I thought it would take years.”

“What about your job at the station?” It wasn’t the question Ashley wanted to ask. She wanted to say ‘What about us?’

“What about it?”

“Well, you don’t have to work there any longer. You can do what you like with your life now,” she said. That was what she was afraid of: what Spencer would want to do with the rest of her life, and with whom.

“God, I need to think about this, don’t I?” It didn’t seem like the prospect made Spencer happy, so Ashley decided not to reply. “I probably need to speak to Petra. If nothing else, I need some personal time tomorrow morning to see Phil.”

Ashley tried not to let her unhappiness at the mention of Petra’s name show on her face. She knew that, as a line producer, Petra was not quite Spencer’s boss, but certainly somewhat in charge. It occurred to her that Spencer and Petra probably still saw each other every day at work, a fact she hadn’t really considered. Ashley had put Petra from her mind until Eaves had brought her up at the interview and she hadn’t thought of her since. While she believed Spencer’s assertion that the relationship had ended some time ago, Ashley couldn’t prevent herself from bristling with jealousy.

She stood up and walked over the window. Folding her arms, she stared down at the street. She was reminded of her wedding day, when she had stood by the window of their Plaza suite and looked out on 59th Street.

The entire Eastern seaboard was basking in a heatwave and the temperature was probably over a hundred. The people below seemed to be walking a little more slowly than usual, Some were wiping their brows with the backs of their hands, others carrying their jackets over their arms, sleeves rolled up, collars unbuttoned. The coffee guy on the corner was selling ice-creams and frozen pops; he was turning over a roaring trade.

If she waited long enough, surely Spencer would say something. She glanced over her shoulder but Spencer was still staring up at the ceiling.

She could say something, but that would be opening herself up to rejection. What if she said that she wanted to remain married and Spencer didn’t? Could they even remain friends, if that happened? Their agreement to start dating after Glen was gone had clearly been based on their situation not changing in any other way. Neither of them had imagined that their marriage would no longer be required at that point.

She turned back around, but Spencer had gone. She could hear the sounds of water running, so she was probably getting ready for work. Unhappily, she went into the kitchen and started putting the food that Spencer had been preparing away.

She’d lost her appetite anyway.

* * *

Glen came back in the early evening. Ashley heard him watching television, but she didn’t come out of her bedroom. She knew that it was rude of her, but she didn’t feel like speaking to anyone except Spencer. At one point, he knocked on her door and asked if she was okay. She just replied that she was tired and she’d talk to him in the morning. He hung around outside the door for a few minutes, no doubt wondering whether he should do anything else, and then went back to his TV show.

She needed to be by herself and she needed to think.

She considered their situation from every possible angle. As far as she could work out, there was no right answer to their dilemma. They both agreed that their relationship was heavily influenced by the fact that they had been forced to live together. Did that mean that it wouldn’t have flourished under different circumstances, though? If, without their marriage, they had allowed themselves to be friends, would they have ever got to where they were? Ashley doubted that.

If she was entirely honest, she couldn’t ever have seen them becoming friends in the first place. The best she could have said only a year ago was that she was indifferent to Spencer. She rarely thought of her at all and, when she did, it was only when Kyla tried to get them to be friends, something that she had resisted at almost all costs.

Since getting to know Spencer, she had come to love everything that had previously annoyed her. All those faults, she now saw as endearing traits. She even appreciated Spencer’s anal tendencies because they gave their life a structure that Ashley had previously lacked. Of the two of them, Spencer was the better person; but just being around her had made Ashley try to be worthy of Spencer, even if she wasn’t all the way there yet.

Before they had started to live together, Spencer had been following her dreams, something she had been forced to put on hold by the INS investigation. Ashley didn’t want to be the person who stood in the way of those dreams. If Spencer wanted her freedom, Ashley loved her enough to let her go. She loved her enough to want her to be happy, even if that happiness was to be found somewhere else, with someone else.

The problem was that Spencer had said nothing earlier. She had not invited Ashley to her meeting with Phil. She had not said whether she was leaving her job or their apartment.

It was after midnight when she woke from a fitful nap to the sound of the bedroom door opening.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you,” Spencer said quietly.

She rubbed her eyes with her hands. “It’s okay. I wasn’t really sleeping.” She watched Spencer moving around the room, emptying the contents of her pockets onto the dresser and picking up a pair of shorts and a t-shirt from the pile of clean laundry that was lying on the floor. Ashley had meant to put it away, but hadn’t quite got around to it. Spencer disappeared into the en suite without saying anything else.

Ashley, who was still fully dressed herself, got up and slipped out of her clothes. She pulled on a pair of pyjama bottoms and a tank top, and lay back down on top of the bed.

Spencer took what felt like an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom. When she finally reappeared, she turned the lights off and got into bed. She lay on her back with one arm behind her head. She placed her other hand on Ashley’s knee.

“I’m sorry I ran out earlier. It was all a bit of a shock.”

“No, it’s okay. I understand.” She didn’t really, but she wanted to.

“Once I’ve spoken to Phil tomorrow, I’ll know more.”

“I know.” Ashley stared up at the ceiling, feeling awkward and uncertain.

Spencer sighed and stroked Ashley’s leg absently. “In a weird way, I’m gonna miss Eaves and Sorensen.” She chuckled. “Okay, only Sorensen.”

“Yeah.” Ashley was concentrating on holding back the tears she could feel forming. It felt like things had already changed, and she hated it. “I guess he’ll have to find someone else to take pity on him and buy him pie,” she said.

“I guess.”

They lay there in silence. Ashley’s head filled with any number of things she wanted to say but couldn’t put into words. Instead, she rolled over on her side and curled into a ball.

“You okay?” Spencer asked.

“Yeah,” she lied. “Just really tired.” She was going to lose Spencer; of that, she was now certain.

“Oh. Well, goodnight, then.” Spencer leaned over and pressed a kiss to Ashley’s bare shoulder.

“Night.”

She felt Spencer spooning in behind her, the weight of Spencer’s arm around her waist outside the bedcovers. Somehow, that just made everything worse.

She waited and waited until Spencer’s breathing evened out and then eased herself out of bed carefully. She went through to the music room and slumped onto her couch. She thought she would cry, but the tears didn’t come. Sleep didn’t either.

She made sure that she was dressed and in the living room before Spencer woke up. She put on her brightest, fakest smile, had breakfast with her wife and wished her luck with Phil.

The two hours she waited until Spencer called her seemed interminable.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hi.” The line wasn’t great and she could tell from the background noise that Spencer was walking down the street.

“So, what’s the word?”

“He said that the citizenship is definitely final. I’m free to stay here. The investigation is completely over. A report will be issued in due course, but he’s been sent a draft copy already and it concludes that there’s no evidence of fraud.”

“That sounds good.”

“We’ll both get copies of the final report, but he didn’t know when that might be. It’s over, Ash. We’re free!”

Ashley squeezed her eyes shut. The way that Spencer said it, as if it were a good thing, confirmed to her that their future wasn’t going to be together. At least, not in the way that Ashley wanted.

“That’s great,” she said, as brightly as she could manage.

“Do you want to meet for a drink later and celebrate?”

Did she want to celebrate the end of her marriage? Hardly. “What? Sorry, you’re breaking up, Spence. I’m gonna hang up.” She ended the call hastily. She would have thrown her phone across the room, but she knew that Spencer would call right back. Sure enough, the phone started ringing again within a minute.

“Is this better?” Spencer asked. She must have ducked inside somewhere, as the street noise was gone.

“Yeah.” Define better, she thought.

“I said, do you want to go out tonight and celebrate?”

“I, uh, can’t.” She said the first thing that came into her head. “I’ve got a thing with Kyla.”

“Oh, you never mentioned it.”

“I’d forgotten all about it until this morning.”

“Well, maybe tomorrow?”

“Sure.” She would never have to make good on it, as the following day was Friday and Spencer would be helping Glen move into his new apartment.

“Right, then, we’ll talk later,” Spencer said.

“I’ll text you.”

“Okay.”

“Bye.” Ashley hung up without waiting for Spencer to reply.

* * * * *

Next up: Chapter 10 [A]