Chapter 24: The Terms
Between Us Girls, by Natalie Drenovac
If you’re new here, read: Chapter 1
Tuesday, December 10
Miranda is still home when I emerge from the shower, gently scrunching moisture out of my hair with a linen towel. I turn the corner into the kitchen and almost topple over her. My mind and body are on cruise control and Miranda in the kitchen is not usual. She’s normally out the door by seven forty-five, already on a call in the elevator. But she’s at the kitchen island in her coat, bag on her shoulder. She’s made coffee. She offers me one and then wraps both her arms around my waist, nestling her chin in the nook between my neck and shoulder.
“The mortgage papers came last night.” She says into my ear, gently nudging our tangle of bodies forward to pick up her own cup. She breathes in deeply. “You smell delicious.” She whispers.
“I left them on the credenza. I’ve tabbed where you need to sign. Can you leave the envelope with the doorman? I’ll have a courier pick it up today.”
She gives my waist a gentle squeeze and then separates our limbs. In her bag, her phone starts buzzing but she silences the incoming, and flicks her eyes up to me.
She smiles. “I’m so excited. This is going to be incredible for us”
She looks around, this is all ours now. “It’s happening,” I say.
Ours. The word rolls around the track of my mind. Like an invisible border wrapped around our new home, which is our old home, but about to be transformed by signatures on a page. Like marriage. Like a partnership visa. Us. Me. We were the same through these changes but some invisible lines were dotted down and others were dissolved as signatures marked a change in status.
Neither of us had been deeply tied to the idea of getting married, though we weren’t against it either. If anything, I had simply never spent much of my life considering the idea. When Miranda proposed, it had started as a discussion about visas but as we worked through the idea, it became something different. We started plotting out plans and it all felt so exciting. A true partnership. Suddenly, the certainty I loved and wanted to be with this woman had dropped behind my heart like a stone into water.
I was surprised by how solemn signing the marriage certificate felt on the day. It’s just a piece of paper, I had laughed. But I didn’t feel that way. Not really.
“Why don’t we go through them now before you go? We could toast before we send them off.”
“Can’t baby, I need to get going but I wanted to share the moment with you first.”
She pecks me on the lips before throwing back the final ¼ of her coffee. She is almost out the door when she stops, turns back, crosses the kitchen and kisses me properly. Deeply. The real thing.
“We can celebrate later.” She says.
“Don’t forget!’ She calls a final time before the door slams shut.
I stand in the kitchen. The kiss still lingering on the corner of my mouth. I pick up my phone to text Emily.
Somewhere deep inside, I am craving more of it. The real thing.
Emily’s already there when I arrive. Corner table, coat still on. She looks up when I come in but doesn’t get up, doesn’t even gesture to it. Her hands are folded tightly around her coffee cup.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi.”
“It’s so good to see you.”
I order a coffee and swallow the dry lump at the bottom of my throat. I ask if Emily wants another. Chewing on the time between what comes next.
“No, I’m fine. I don’t know why I suggested coffee. My stomach is already screaming with anxiety. I don’t think I need to add caffeine to that mix.”
She laughs half heartedly and I join in.
“You said you wanted to talk?” she says, I can feel her tight breath behind the words. “Can you please just say whatever it is.”
That morning I had been struck with an instinctual urge to tidy my life before signing the mortgage papers. That I couldn’t have something between us or over us while entering into this new commitment. Things had been messy but who ever said marriage was meant to always be simple and clear? What mattered was deciding to commit and recommit when the tides came.
“I can’t keep doing this.” I say. I don’t know how else to say it.
She nods. It’s hard to tell if she was expecting this or not.
“Can I tell you something?”
“Please.”
“I went into this knowing what it was. Well, that’s not exactly true. I had an idea of what it was or what I wanted it to be.”
“Really?” I say. I hadn’t had any idea what I was doing as it was unfolding. I just…kept doing it.
“You grow up hearing these stories of women who just wither inside their marriages and you think oh god, how sad, isn’t life unfair? But you never think it could be you. Not really. No, you’re different. Your love is different. He would never. And somewhere, deep down, you believe you’re special. Not like other women.”
I don’t say anything.
“But then you’re not. Your husband stops having actual conversations with you somewhere around the first birthday party. You start talking at each other through the kids. Have you called the school, did you sort the weekend, don’t forget his inhaler. You tally up who got more sleep. You keep score. Who owes who this week? Your husband tells you he loves you but he’s just not attracted to you anymore. Says that’s honest. He’s trying to be honest. Can’t quite pinpoint if it’s because your body changed or because he saw it change. You became a mother to him. Someone who keeps schedules and tells him he needs to be more, do more. Tell him when he lets them down. And now you can’t be anything else. And you realise, you weren’t the exception to the rule. You are, in fact, just as average as you always feared. So once that cliche is true, you might as well go all in and follow the next cliche, falling for someone who makes you feel special again. Or just someone who cares if you come. For your own pleasure, not their ego.”
She pauses. I take in her words. Was that all it had been for her? Sex. Someone who paid attention? I’m not sure that’s all it was for me. The gust of fresh air I had always felt walking through the door felt like more than that.
She continues.
“But I always knew you were going home. Every time. So you don’t need to feel guilty.”
“You deserved more than that.”
“I do.” She says it. “So do you. So does Miranda. So does David - probably. We all deserve better and we could probably treat each other better too. But we make our choices. I’ve been thinking these last few days about what I would tell Chloe, when she’s older, if she got into this kind of situation.”
“And?”
“I think I’d tell her sainthood is a story. And we can get very distracted from living our lives when we’re chasing stories.”
“Would you tell her about us? This - what happened?”
“I’m not sure. I guess it depends what she wants to know”
She raises her eyebrows. “I’m not sure she wants to know that her mother was driven by a lust for having sex that felt like it was actually about me. I’d forgotten what that felt like. David stopped being curious about me in bed around the same time he stopped being curious about me everywhere else.”
I almost laugh.
“Being in two places at once,” she says. “That’s what we’ve been doing this whole time. But you can’t be two things at once. You can’t be the exception and the rule. The special woman and every woman since the dawn of time. You can’t be married and single. A partnership and independent. One always eventually wins out.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Was this really just about sex for you? I don’t think that’s what it was for me.”
She looks at me. “Are you going back to her because you want to?”
“I never left her.” I say. Because it’s the truth.
Emily sits in front of me, comfortable in the silence after my words. She doesn’t seem anxious now. Maybe it was all the words sitting under her skin.
“I made a commitment when I married Miranda and that means something to me.” I say eventually.
A kid at the counter is telling the barista, at length, exactly why oat milk is superior to every other option.
“Well.” She finishes her coffee. “That’s that then. There’s nothing else to discuss.”
She stands and pulls her coat on properly and I stand too. She hugs me and I hold it a beat longer than I should. She lets me and then pulls back, swiftly.
“If you change your mind,” she says, not quite smiling, “don’t come back here. I’ll be devastated.”
“That’s the most flattering threat I’ve ever received.”
She laughs. Then she pulls her bag up and walks out the door.
I look at my phone.
Miranda: Have you signed? Let me know so I can organise the courier ❤️
The envelope is on the credenza. I open the Barolo we’ve been saving for a special occasion, pour a glass, and take the stack to the kitchen island.
Fifty-three pages. Three yellow tabs. I flick through them, Carmen’s voice ringing in the back of my mind. Never sign something you don’t read.
I start from page one. The first twenty or so pages are standard. Rate, term, the address. I flip further through the stack.
Around page twenty-eight it shifts to ownership structure. I slow down.
Page twenty-nine. A table.
Miranda. 80%.
Alex. 20%.
I read it again.
I look at the three Post-it tabs. They are on the signature pages. Not this one.
I set the page down. I pick up my wine.
It’s a clerical error. It has to be. The office sent the wrong version, or the figures got transposed, or someone fat-fingered a number. Things like this happen. We are buying this apartment together.
I put the unsigned pages back in the envelope.
I wait for Miranda to come home.
Miranda’s key in the lock at eight-twenty.
“Baby, did you forget? I wanted to courier them today but I can organise it first thing tomorrow.” Still in her coat, already checking her phone.
“No, I didn’t forget,” I keep my voice easy. “I found an error in the documents but I didn’t know who our main point of contact in David’s office was so I thought we could just discuss it now.”
She looks up.
“The ownership structure.” I pass her page twenty-nine. “It shows eighty-twenty.”
She looks at the page.
She doesn’t say anything.
I wait.
“It’s a typo, right?”
She sets the page down on the island. She takes off her coat and hangs it on the back of the chair. She doesn’t look at me at first but when she does meet my eyes, she’s smiling.
“It’s not a typo, darling.”
“I’m sorry?”
“It reflects the deposit. I put in the majority of the capital. The structure mirrors actual equity contributions so it’s fair.”
I look at her.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t realise I needed to. Did you think it should be 50/50 when I’m putting in the majority of the capital?”
“I would expect this to be 50/50 because it’s our marriage.”
“It’s been structured like this the whole time, Alex, you probably just weren’t paying attention.” Her tone has shifted, just a key, a tinge of indignation.
“So I’m just supposed to believe you tabbed three pages for my signature. Conveniently not this one. We’re never discussed this before but it’s all been out in the open and I just haven’t paid attention?”
She moves to the other side of the island. Opens the fridge. Takes out a bottle of water she doesn’t open. Sets it on the counter.
“What are you saying, Alex? I didn’t hide the pages from the document? I’m not trying to trick you. You’re sounding a little accusatory and, to be honest, a little paranoid.”
“Paranoid? Like I’m some hysterical woman.”
“I can protect myself financially and still love you. Given everything this year, I think that’s understandable.”
“Protecting yourself from who?”
“From the situation.” She looks at me now.
“A decision about our home.”
“A decision about a financial asset, yes. One I primarily funded. You know, if I was a man, no one would bat an eyelid.”
“I don’t give a fuck what other people think. I care about what happens inside our marriage. We always said we were buying it together. And I can’t believe you’re trying to turn screwing me over into a moment for a feminist soapbox.”
“We are buying it together. You’ll own twenty percent of an apartment in Tribeca of all places. That’s not nothing.”
“That’s not nothing.” I repeat it back to her.
“I think we should talk about this when you’ve calmed down. You’re obviously disregulated. I get it. Money brings up all kinds of feelings for people but you’re safe, Alex, this isn’t a threat. It’s just what’s fair. You will be looked after. I will always take care of you.”
“You were going to let me sign this without ever speaking to me about it. That’s messed up no matter how you spin it. What would you say if you hear one of our friends tell this story? You’d say dump their ass. I know, because I’ve heard you say it before. Respect is everything.“
“Alex, it’s not my job to babysit you. If you want to play the victim now, go ahead, but you are perfectly capable of reading emails and this has been outlined from day one. You could have been more involved in the whole process, if you hadn’t been distracted. “
“What is that supposed to mean?
“You know.”
“I think I need to have a lawyer look this over.”
Something in Miranda chills. She steps back. I can feel her energy ice over. Her face is a flat line.
“I want you to think carefully about what you just said. I believe this is all blown out of proportion and that is an unnecessary escalation. But if you want to act like you need to be protected from me, I’ll do the same. I can happily get lawyers involved.”
She puts both hands on the counter. The water bottle is still unopened between us. “I’ve been carrying the finances of this marriage since the beginning. The deposit came from my savings. Money I built before you and I were together. Your income has grown, recently, and I’m proud of that but for the majority of this marriage your contribution has been…” She stops.
“Say it.”
“Aspirational. Every time. If you want to go there, then go there but Alex, on paper, I win. I’ll win every time.”
I look at her across the kitchen of the apartment we are buying, the one she called ours this morning. I think about the kiss and how warmly she’d told me to sign the papers. Everything feels murky. Sharp objects submerged in the waters.
“I have always done what you wanted. Been there for you. Supported you. You introduced me to Emily. You brought her into our marriage.” I watch her face. “I want us both to be clear about what is happening here. You opened our marriage, didn’t consider the consequences, and now you’re punishing me for it.”
“I am making sure I’m protected from the situation.”
“I am the situation.”
“You are so determined to be the wronged party in this.” Her voice is very controlled now. “Do you know what I’ve turned down to prioritise our marriage? Partners who wanted me in different cities. Experiences and people and connections. But I have been tending to this marriage while running a career that actually funds the life we live. And you want to stand here and tell me I’ve been unfair. I never realised you were so selfish and entitled.”
“I have listened to you talk about women and financial empowerment and respect since I met you. But it was all bullshit, wasn’t it? You don’t actually care about women, you just care about you and you happen to be a woman.”
“Wow, fuck you, Alex. This conversation could have gone very differently. If you genuinely asked me, I would have been happy to explain. I didn’t realise you thought I was signing over years of my savings to you just like that - “ She snaps her fingers.
“You would have explained, once it was signed, once it was done. Once I couldn’t negotiate.” I look at her. “When I came to you with it tonight, I didn’t ask a question because my first thought was: it’s a mistake. Because that’s how I think about you. I assumed it was a mistake.”
Miranda doesn’t say anything.
She looks at me. Composed, certain, entirely in possession of the facts as she understands them. She still looks like the woman who kissed me this morning and said ours. She still looks like the woman I looped names with in navy ink, under a canopy of jasmine.
“I can love you and still protect myself,” she says. “Those aren’t contradictory. I thought you realised that.”
“No,” I say. “I assumed it was a mistake.”
Silence.
“You’re being dramatic,” she says.
“I’m going,” I say.
I go to the bedroom, grab the weekend bag from the top of the closet, not a suitcase. I move through the room quickly, grabbing clothes, charger, passport out of habit. On the nightstand is the book Miranda bought me last month after I mentioned it once in passing. I leave it.
Miranda is in the doorway when I turn around.
“This is an overreaction.”
“Sure, honey.” The sarcasm drips from my voice.
“Where are you going?”
I zip the bag. I look at her in the doorway. Still in work clothes, one hand on the frame. Behind her on the wall above the credenza is the painting from our honeymoon. The hill town we walked to in the wrong shoes. I realise I am wearing the shirt that makes me look delicious.
You can have whatever you want.
I walk past her. I pick up my keys. I leave the door open behind me.
I take a cab to Giselle’s.
The doorman isn’t at the desk. I go straight to the elevator, press the buzzer.
A pause. Then her voice warm through the intercom.
“You can leave deliveries in the foyer.” She says.
“It’s me.”
A beat.
The lock clicks open.
Keep Reading: Chapter 25
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Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. The characters, events, companies, places, names, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance, whether direct or indirect, to actual persons (living or dead), places, events, or businesses is entirely coincidental and unintended. Where reference is made to real locations or historical events, such references are included solely for the purpose of creating a sense of authenticity. They should not be interpreted as depicting real people, their actions, or their conduct. The author expressly disclaims any and all responsibility for any such interpretations or assumptions.