Page 43 of Semantics

“What?” Arlowe said loudly.

“Oh, my God! Sarai, you–”

“What’s going on?” Enya asked when she entered the kitchen. “Are we getting dinner, or should I find something on my own? I’m hungry.”

“Violet slept with Stella,” Sarai said.

“Sarai! Are you kidding me right now?”

Arlowe rushed into the kitchen from the garage with her headphones around her neck and a toothpick sticking out of her mouth.

“You slept with Stella Ross?”

“Oh, my God! Will everybody just shut up? You’re all so damn annoying.”

“Vi, really?” Enya asked as she sat down next to Violet at the table. “We’re talking about that Stella, right?”

“Enya, what other Stella Ross do possibly we know?” Arlowe asked, sitting down at the table with them.

“I don’t know. I wanted to make sure we were all talking about the same thing.”

“We are,” Sarai said, sitting back down. “Now, spill, Vi.”

“What exactly do you expect me to spill, Sarai?”

“All the fucking details, Violet,” Arlowe said. “How did it happen? You ran out of drinks the other night after making us go with you when none of us wanted to, and you said we weren’t going to buy Cerebral because it’s too expensive. Oh, wait.” She pointed at Violet. “Don’t tell me you slept with her for some kind of big discount.”

“What? No! What the hell, Arlowe?”

“I don’t know,” Arlowe said, shrugging.

“I did not sleep with her for a discount,” Violet stated. “And I don’t know if we’re going to buy Cerebral yet. I’m still trying to think about what the best option is. Do we stretch the budget we don’t have a little bit, or–”

“Oh, my God. None of us cares about that right now,” Sarai interrupted her. “How did you end up in bed with Stella Ross, Violet Anne Russell?”

“Don’t use my middle name like that.” Violet chuckled. “And yes, I ran out on the whole drinks thing. I don’t know what happened. I guess I felt like maybe I was getting a little too close to someone who I kind of don’t like all that much, who is way more successful than me, which made me jealous but also got me feeling like a failure, and she’s just so…”

“What? Hot?” Enya asked.

“No, frustrating. I mean, yes, she’s hot, too; that’s true. But it’s like she’s so confident and at ease with herself, and I’m sitting there all nervous because when we last knew each other, I was the one who was going places. She didn’t even know what she wanted to do for a living. She said she wanted to work in business, but that’s not exactly specific. I knew, at least at that point, that I was going to work for the family business, and I was so sure that I was going to kick ass there, and–”

“Vi, fast forward, like, ten years,” Sarai said, making a motion with her hand. “Get to the sex.”

“Yeah, get to the sex,” Arlowe added and removed her headphones from her neck, setting them down on the table.

“She called me to talk about the discounts. Remember that?”

“Yes,” Arlowe and Enya said at the same time.

“We sort of argued. Not a big deal, but it didn’t end with any kind of real resolution, and I decided to go get coffee.”

“Which you then didn’t bring back,” Sarai pointed out.

“Because when I got to the café, Stella was sitting there, working.”

“She was there?” Enya asked.

“Yes. We talked about some stuff, and she told me that she’d had a realization about something from back then recently, which was that she’d wanted to… well, fuck me up against a wall. Those were her words.”