Evie's Job

72: Natalie

Natalie wanted to reassure Evie without being unnecessarily cruel about Meredith. She didn’t quite know what to say. They were lost in a tangle of Evie’s feelings, and Natalie’s hopes and fears, and all sorts of other things, things that mattered to each of them about who they were, none of which were very obvious or easy to understand. It was a strange, delicate situation, and Natalie didn’t know what to say to help.

And to make it worse, to make it utterly silly, suddenly she wanted to laugh.

She wanted to laugh because Evie was sitting there, completely naked, and completely comfortable with being naked, apparently entirely oblivious to the fact she was, while staring at photos of Meredith and worrying about how Meredith had looked fifteen years ago. And Evie was doing that without knowing how harshly Meredith had always judged her own appearance, and how uncomfortable she was with her own body, and that Meredith hadn’t wanted Natalie to see her undressed in years.

Natalie’s life with Meredith had been getting changed quickly, and never sharing bathrooms, and usually having sex with the lights off. With Meredith, naked had always been awkward, and with a nasty undercurrent of envy too, and Natalie had always felt that some of Meredith’s embarrassment had rubbed off on her, without her completely realizing. Natalie had become self-conscious, and she had stayed self-conscious until she met Evie. Only then had her discomfort started to lessen, mostly because of Evie. Mostly because Evie was so carelessly self-assured. Sometimes Natalie watched Evie, sitting on the kitchen bench, smoking under the fan, and was almost certain that Evie wasn’t aware of the way her legs were crossed at all. Or how far her shoulders were forward, or how her tummy looked, or anything else other than simply sitting. Strangely, being around that was helping Natalie. She was starting to feel comfortable when she was naked too. She wasn’t entirely sure why, when it seemed somehow as if the opposite ought to happen, but it didn’t, and so Natalie was. It was wonderful how much Evie helped without knowing she did, and Natalie was glad. She was glad, except that now Evie was self-conscious too, self-conscious about something different, something that equally ought not worry her, and Natalie wanted to be reassuring but didn’t know what to say, because Evie had never really been like this before.

Natalie didn’t laugh. She made herself not. She thought, wondering what to say. “It was a long time ago,” she said, cautiously, in the end.

“I know,” Evie said. “That’s the problem.”

“How is it a problem?” Natalie said.

Evie shrugged.

“I want to say something to help,” Natalie said. “But really I don’t know what.”

“I don’t either.”

“What’s up?” Natalie said. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing really,” Evie said, but she still seemed a little sad.

“Because I was with her so long?”

“I suppose so.”

“These?” Natalie said, and touched the album.

“Yeah, I guess. I’ve never seen wedding photos of someone I’m sleeping with before. It’s never come up, I suppose.”

“I imagine it’s odd.”

Evie smiled wanly. “Oh it is. Have you? Seen photos?”

“Well, no.”

“So there you go.” Evie sat for a moment. She seemed to still be thinking. “What’s she like. I mean, what does she do? What’s her job?”

“She’s ambitious,” Natalie said. “She’s selfish, too.”

“Obviously,” Evie said. “The affair.”