you're too young & eager to love

Obscure moments of Emere's life pop into my mind all the time. I decided to write one down. Naturally, Maine is present and involved.

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“Don’t you want to, I don’t know…” and Emere sounds sad, so sad, unlike her cold eyes and smiling mouth. A mouth of plums. Beguiling, so that Maine does not immediately recognize her tone of voice. “… Do something?”

“We are doing something.”

Emere shakes her head, stretches her arms and laughs. A ripple runs through Maine’s sternum at the sound. “No. Something lasting.”

“You need more pot.” With her paint splattered fingers (long and beautifully tapered), Maine tries to hand the half-smoked joint over to her left, but the other woman untangles herself and drinks longingly from a battle of Chopin vodka. Watching her and her movements, the fluid grace of her arms, the unintentional smooth turn of her hips, the way her dusky hands shake, Maine is struck with a feeling terrifyingly close to being serious. It’s unsettling.

“C’mon, lemon drop. Let’s make you right as rain.”

“You sound like Juniper.”

Maine takes that as a compliment.


-


New York is cruelly cold. The air is so frigid that Emere wears two coats, her dark hair tangled by the wind, the bottom half of her face mostly blanketed by a scarf. Maine is shivering but otherwise oddly unaffected. The taxi waiting by the curb honks impatiently and someone from the corner across the street yells obscenities.

“Look up.”

“I’ve seen Time Square, thanks.” Her hands are shaking so badly that she can barely light a cigarette. The wind makes her unstable in her heels. Emere has the beady-eyed look of a stubborn mare refusing to be broken, but Maine is patient. She chides under her breath and pulls on the brunette’s collar, buttons her coat more firmly against the chilled air, then tips her chin up with her fingertips.

Maine smells like paint thinner and negatives, heady marijuana smoke and cinnamon. Her fingers are dry and warm so Emere obliges, lifts her gaze to the top of the sky and the billboard that spans the tallest building. “You made that.” She tells her, soft and close to the shell of her ear.

“Your point? It’s a fucking advertisement.”

“In Time Square!” She digs her elbow into Emere’s side. “Stop ruining the moment, bitch.”

Emere laughs and, for a moment, leans her weight into the blonde.