For Auld Lang Syne (A Ghost Town New Year's Eve Special)
Dec 31, 2018 12:44:12 GMT
Post by girl-like-substance on Dec 31, 2018 12:44:12 GMT
I said I was going to take a break to focus on other stuff after I finished Ghost Town. And that ... hasn't happened. I need to move on; that's what this fic is for, a coda to Ghost Town, Go Home and Arbitrary Execution. It's probably the weakest of these one-shots, in a lot of ways, but I want to end this and this is the only way I can think of. Content warnings for self-harm, smoking, depression, AIDS, and let's add (implied) abuse, homophobia and transphobia to be safe.
Okay. I'm done. Let's get this over with.
FOR AULD LANG SYNE
“I thought you quit?”
Jodi makes a face.
“It's Christmas,” she says, tapping the ash off her cigarette. “I'm allowed at Christmas.”
“Last I checked, Christmas was over a couple of days ago,” says Ella, shutting the door and joining her on the patio.
“Twelve days, Ella. I have a little while yet.”
Ella smiles and shakes her head.
“That's not really in the spirit of things, Jodi.”
“You know, I wouldn't have invited you down here if I'd known you'd hung up your paintbrush and joined the bloody Christmas police.”
“All right, all right,” says Ella, raising her hands in mock surrender. “You win.”
They stand there for a moment by the pillar, looking out at the yard behind the building. Not much of a view in this part of Goldenrod, to be honest: cracked paving-stones, ice-scabbed walls of the shabby apartments behind Jodi's own. She's always saying that she's glad she won't be around in thirty years' time, when the wave of gentrification hits this place the way it hit Redmonk in the late nineties, and Ella always says I see like she understands.
But she doesn't, really. She barely leaves Mahogany these days, except for the odd trip to Ecruteak to see a film or go shopping with her daughter. It's a small place, and not always a good one, but it's home.
Still. Here she is. Spending Christmas with her sister's family, for the first time since they were in their twenties.
God. She's been here over a week already and it still isn't any less awkward.
“Are you okay?” asks Jodi, without looking at her. She knows the answer already, of course, but Ella has known Jodi long enough to be familiar with the way she downplays the fact that she can read your emotions. It might be an empath thing, or maybe it's just a Jodi thing, one of those little kindnesses that make up the core of all her interactions.
Ella loves that about her. Always has done. What she doesn't like is that it's pretty much impossible to lie to her.
“I dunno,” she admits, reluctantly. “It's been a hard year.”
The corner of Jodi's mouth lifts. There's a reason she got Ella down here this Christmas, after all.
“Yeah,” she says. “It really has.”
She leans her cane against the pillar and reaches out for Ella's hand, the way she used to when they were young. Ella leaves it for a long moment, unsure if she should, but Jodi doesn't take her hand away and eventually she has to reach back, threading her rough artist's fingers through Jodi's own. As they touch, something warm coils around her insides, like a metaphysical hug. Jodi's psionics. Ella has been on the receiving end of them quite a bit these past few days.
Another awkward thing. Ella isn't sure if this means she's forgiven or not; she suspects that Jodi is just like this with everyone, instinctively and unreservedly kind, regardless of whether the other person deserves it.
“Did you want to talk about it?” asks Jodi, squeezing her hand.
Yes, says Ella in her head.
“No,” she says aloud. “I'm okay, sis. It's just gonna take time.”
“Okay.”
She accepts the answer the exact same way she did the last few times, with no trace of malice in her voice – with nothing at all but concern for her sister's wellbeing. Ella risks a glance at her face, sees worried eyes looking back at her from beneath her iron-grey hair.
“You know I'm always your sister, right?” she says, just like she used to back when she was the cool older sister and Ella was an ignorant dork. Or more accurately, when they were teenagers; Ella can't pretend that these aren't still the roles they play. “I know I have a lot of other things going now, but that doesn't mean I'm not your sister any more.”
“Yeah, I know,” Ella says, letting go of her hand. “I know.”
She does know. It's just that Ella hasn't been much of a sister back. And while Jodi has been very kind, has invited her here to forget things for a while regardless, Ella knows that there are limits to what you can ask of people.
Jodi looks at her for a long moment, then sighs and turns away to stub out her cigarette on the side of the pillar.
“Ella,” she says, the way their mother would have done, and Ella feels something dark twist in her gut like a dying fish at the bottom of the boat.
“Look, I appreciate all you're doing,” she says. “I really do. I just … it was only a few weeks ago, Jodi, I …”
Her voice cracks. She can feel Jodi's urge to do something for her burning inside her, like a log burner whose heat you feel from the doorway before you're even really inside the room. But Jodi just stands there, leaning on her cane, and sighs again.
“I'm not trying to rush you,” she says. “I just want you to know that you don't have to do this by yourself, Ella. Not leaving my little sister in the lurch.”
Ella's lips twitch, despite herself. How long has it been since she was last called that?
“Not sure I'm all that little any more. Taller than you, anyway.”
“Pfft. Everyone's taller than me. And hey, you threw up literally into my face when you were a baby. Six months, fifty-six, a hundred and six – I don't care, you're still my little sister.”
“Are you planning on letting a day go by this Christmas when you don't remind me about that?”
“Not till it stops making you smile.”
Is she―? Yes. Yes, she is. Darn it. Ella has to hand it to Jodi: whether it's being psychic or just a lifetime spent dealing with people in trouble, she is so darn good at dragging people out of the dark.
That's why she accepted the invitation, after all. Most Christmases, either Ella and her son go to her daughter's house in Ecruteak or both kids come home to Mahogany. But this year, there was no invitation to Ecruteak, and Mark moved out to Sinnoh in the spring, and, well. Maybe she's still a little sister after all, because it seems she isn't too old to run to Jodi for comfort yet.
“You know,” she begins, wanting to say something nice but not quite sure what; before she can think of anything, however, a grey noivern the size of a large mastiff swoops down out of nowhere and skids to a halt in the snowy yard.
“Hey, look who's back,” says Jodi, reaching out to scratch between his ears. “Nice fly around the block?”
Lothian chirps and bounds over, shrinking dramatically as his wings fold back on themselves. Ella watches him with quiet admiration: he must be nearly as old as she is now, and yet he's still as limber as when Jodi first brought him home from her trainer journey.
Another thing she's a little jealous of, honestly. Ella likes bug-types, so of course none of her partners have ever made it past ten. She wishes Pollux had held on to the end of the year. She really could have used his company these past few weeks.
“Yeah, we're having fun too,” Jodi tells Lothian, in response to some cue beyond Ella's ability to detect. She's never asked how it is that Lothian talks to her, but she assumes it's some kind of ultrasonic thing. “We're just going in.” She glances at Ella. “Coming?”
“Sure,” she says. “Cold out here, anyway.”
Jodi raises her eyebrows.
“Don't let the Mahogany folks catch you saying that you think it's cold in Goldenrod. They'll think you're going soft.”
“I won't tell if you don't.”
That same old grin, the one that makes her for an instant look like she did that day all those years ago when Ella first came home to discover she had a sister. Ella's heart aches to see it.
“Your secret's safe with me, Ella. C'mon.”
Lothian rushes on ahead to get the door, all his years of looking after his human visible in how easily he twists the handle in his teeth. Ella catches the door as it opens, holds it for Jodi, and gets a little smile of thanks.
It's been a challenging holiday, in a lot of ways. When Ella first arrived, back on the twenty-first, she said hello and immediately burst into tears, and from that moment on Jodi took up the cause of distracting her from everything that's happened with an energy that seems entirely out of place in a woman her age. She dragged her out with her to the refuge, got her involved in preparing Christmas dinner for the kids, taught her how to play Carcassonne, and even managed to kick her into the twenty-first century.
“It's a proper phone,” she said, when Ella opened her gift on Christmas morning. “Now you can do Instagram. That thing Mark's always on,” she added, seeing her confusion. “Look, the kids at the refuge got me into it, and I immediately thought of you. Lots of art and inspiration. And I just found this one called my-asshole-venipede? This person in America – sorry, Unova, I guess, I can never remember which is which – they have this horrible little bug-type that I think you'd love.”
So now Ella's on Instagram. She said she was too old to learn this stuff, but Jodi doesn't believe in being too old for anything, and now Ella finds herself standing here in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil for coffee and looking at pictures of giant evil centipedes.
Jodi was right. She does love it. The venipede in question is skittish and one-eyed and filled with a fury at the world so ridiculously incommensurate to her size that Ella finds herself smiling at her phone the way her kids do when she sees a new photo. There are other bug-types on Instagram (#insectagram, these accounts call themselves, with a punning command of hashtags that seems impossibly clever to her), but few of them have as strong a personality, and none have a partner with such a knack for framing a shot and coming up with sardonic captions.
Today's caption is just sweet, though. zelda wishes you a shitty new year, but her human gwyneth hopes you have a better one. i started this thing because my doctor said i should get a hobby, and i honestly didnt expect anything, but there's 562 of you looking at this shit for some reason, so thanks. y'all are helping keep us alive. And a picture of a young woman with spiky blue hair and an unplaceable ethnicity, smiling awkwardly at the camera and cradling her venipede against her chest with badly scarred arms. Ella stares at it for a moment, trying to figure out what it is that's caught her attention, then realises that the woman is trans and feels a nervous flutter in her chest. Somehow, she's always surprised to realise that her sister's not the only one, and she's never been able to work out if this means she's bigoted or not.
Hopefully it's just that she lives in Mahogany. As far as she knows, her town has produced exactly two trans people in its history (or two who are out, anyway), and both fled to Goldenrod as soon as they could. For darn good reason, too.
Probably best not to think about that right now. Ella taps to like – and then, after a moment's hesitation, adds a comment wishing Gwyneth and Zelda a happy New Year. It takes a while – typing is not her strong suit, especially on a phone – but it's all right. She has nothing better to do.
“Hah. So that's what's taking so long, eh? Bloody kids and their bloody phones. Honestly, you're worse than my nephew.”
She looks up guiltily to see Tacoma, Jodi's decidedly-not-legal wife, leaning against the fridge with her arms folded.
“It's the venipede,” Ella tries to explain. “I, um, I was wishing her and her partner a happy New Year.”
Tacoma grins, her mouth flaring with green light.
“I'm kidding, Ella,” she says, reaching for the kettle. “Glad you're having fun.”
“Oh.”
God, how embarrassing. Ella has known Tacoma all her life, but sometimes it's still a little tricky to relax around her. It's not that she's a weird ageless ghost – Jodi and Tacoma have been together long enough that Ella is more than used to the humanoid mass of purple fog in all the photos – but that she has an unnerving capacity to turn Ella back into a nervous teenager with nothing but a raised eyebrow and a sarcastic remark.
Ella's mother once told her that in her soul she was still convinced she was twenty-five, that even after she had grown-up kids of her own, she never once really felt like she was an adult. It came as something of a relief to hear it, honestly. If her mother of all people still felt like a kid, then maybe Ella wasn't just being pathetic.
“Honestly, I didn't think you'd go for it,” Tacoma continues, nodding at the phone as she pours the water into the percolator. “Told Jodi it was a waste of money.” She clicks her tongue, or at least she makes the noise; Ella isn't sure she actually has a tongue. “But she was right. As usual.”
“Me either. Guess she gets it from Michelle. You know that day we showed up and ruined all your lives?” Another smile, to let Ella know she's joking. “Once she was done being worried about Jodi, she looked at me and said come on in, I'll make you some hot chocolate. And the last time she'd seen me was in a coffin at my funeral. So you know.”
“Yeah, Mum was great.”
Ella remembers all that business. Until now, she considered it the worst December of her life, but no matter how bad it got, her mother never batted an eyelid. Not till the trial, anyway. Ella was home when she brought Jodi back from the county courthouse; she'd never seen Jodi so thoroughly destroyed, or her mother so apocalyptically angry. Like she could have melted clean through Mount Mortar with the force of her fury.
That was early '77, back when Jodi still visited. A year or two later, she stopped coming back at all, except for a few secret visits when Tacoma flew her in under cover of darkness. We can't stay, she said, her tears leaving mascara streaks beneath her eyelids. I'm so sorry. I love you, and I love this town. But we can't live here any more.
And Ella said it was okay, even though it wasn't, and she spent the next forty years being a part of the community that tried to feed her sister and her girlfriend to a monster from another world, and then her family exploded and she had the gall to show up and ask Jodi to save her again.
Maybe something of this shows on her face. Tacoma sighs and puts down the kettle.
“Okay,” she says. “You know me, this isn't my thing, but I guess I have to make sure. You're having a good break, right?”
“Yeah,” replies Ella, touched that she of all people has asked. “Yeah, I … I dunno what I was expecting, but the two of you – all of you, really, Carmine and everyone – you've been wonderful.”
Better than she deserves. But Tacoma will have no way how to respond to that, so. Best not say that.
“Oh, thank God. I had no idea what I was gonna do if you'd said no.” The smile returns, just for a moment. “I, uh … you've been here over a week now and I haven't said. But I'm sorry about Darren. I know he and I didn't really get on, at all actually, but …” She shrugs. “He made you happy. And, well, I'm sorry things didn't work out.”
Honestly, it's okay; Ella's the one who's refused to talk about this, not her. Mostly she's surprised that Tacoma is talking about feelings. She supposes she must have done at some point in her life – she's spent the last forty years with an empath, after all – but even so, it just doesn't seem to fit her. Like if Darren suddenly offered to cook.
The past slithers in quietly and catches her unawares, sinking its fangs in deep. Ella grits her teeth and pulls them out, one by one. This is not the time to be like that.
“Thanks,” she says. “I really appreciate it. And you having me here and all, too. I know you're busy, and you probably didn't want to spend your Christmas tiptoeing around Jodi's sister.”
Tacoma snorts.
“My sister too now, for my sins,” she says. “You're always welcome here, Ella.”
The words hit her like a pickaxe to the gut. Tacoma too? Ella knew she was nice underneath all her studied meanness, she did, but she really wasn't expecting … whatever this is.
She wants to say something, to protest that she doesn't have to be like this if she doesn't want to, but the words won't come out. And then Tacoma continues, and the moment is past anyway.
“And don't you worry about Lisa, either,” she says, starting to look uncomfortable. “Bet Jodi's already talked to you about her, but … she'll sort her out, yeah? Even if she won't listen to her mum, she'll listen to her Aunt Jodi.”
“Yeah, course. I'm sure she will.”
It just slips out, without any input from her brain at all, and Ella winces to hear herself. She loves that Lisa and Mark adore their aunt; she was always afraid that Mahogany would poison them against her, that Ella's efforts to teach them not to judge would be undone by the other townspeople. No need to be so bloody bitter about it.
“Hey.” Tacoma puts a shadowy hand on her shoulder. “Lisa's just confused, all right? And Jodi's a good mediator. That's all I meant.”
Ella takes a deep breath. Let it go, she commands. Jodi is doing a good thing. She doesn't have to. Be grateful.
“Yeah,” she says. “I know, I just … she's my daughter, Tacoma.”
“I know, Ella. I know.”
Long pause. The little light on her phone is flashing again. Blue. She can't remember if that means a notification or a new text message, but she can't seem to make herself click the button to check.
Tacoma claps her hands together, wisps of darkness bursting between her palms.
“Right,” she says, suddenly all business again. “Enough mushy stuff. Coffee's probably ready, eh?”
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry, I'll finish that now.”
“Nah,” says Tacoma, waving a hand at the door. “You're on holiday, you go on in. Hug Jodi or whatever. I've got this.”
Ella has to hide a smile. Okay. Sometimes Tacoma is kind of intimidating, but sometimes she's just a big spooky dork.
“Sure,” she says. “Thanks, Tacoma.”
Tacoma wrinkles her nose.
“Yeah, yeah. Go on, get out of here and play with your phone, kid.”
Ella laughs, because this is a joke and it's the response Tacoma wants, and goes.
By the time Tacoma has come back in, the coffee tray floating ahead of her on a cloud of shadows, Jodi has finished shuffling the Carcassonne tiles and sorting the followers by colour.
“Just so you know,” Tacoma says, “I've also got the brandy. If you're feeling like you want a festive kinda coffee.”
Curled up on his favourite armchair, Lothian twitches in his sleep, ears swivelling towards her. Ella wonders if she's just walked into his dream, if in the ice cave of his imagination there is suddenly a spooky ghost lady.
“Yes, please,” says Jodi, sweeping all the red followers into her hand. She always seems to play red, for some reason. Ella hasn't asked why. “Are you playing?”
“Love to, but no time. Got to stop in at the clinic and check on that chandelure before the party.”
“Meet us there?”
“Hope I'm not out that long. Should be back in time to walk over with you. Ella, brandy?”
“Why not,” she says. “As Jodi keeps telling me, it's Christmas.”
“That's the spirit.” Fiery green grin. “No pun intended.”
The splash of brandy into coffee. A spectral kiss planted in Jodi's thinning hair. Little wooden people and a dragon snoozing by the radio.
It's not home. It's not New Year's with Darren, not music and her pinsir asleep by the fire and a glass of Prosecco at midnight. But it's something, all right, and while Ella still aches to her core with all the things that it isn't, it might just be enough for now.
“Whoa,” says Jodi, taking a sip of coffee and blinking. “Uh, how much did you put in this, spooky?”
“Is it too much? You can have mine.”
“Oh no,” says Jodi, putting a protective hand over her cup. “This is my ridiculously alcoholic coffee. Besides, I can't let you go into work drunk.”
“It's a splash of brandy, love. I'm not a lightweight like you.”
“I'm not a― actually okay, I guess you have a point.”
They're so cute. For a moment, Ella suspects them of putting this on to entertain her, but that can't be right, can it? They're always like this; she's not sure she can even imagine them any other way.
A few minutes pass in flipping tiles and quiet, focused conversation. Ella hasn't played a board game since she was a kid, and never one that requires this kind of strategy, but she's learning why Jodi likes them. You have to think before you move. It feels like it's doing good things for her brain.
“I'd finish that town,” says Tacoma, who has finished her coffee but still not left, perched on the arm of the chair with one hand buried in Lothian's mane. “There, Ella. Steal it off her.”
“Oh. Thanks.” One tile, one follower, and very healthy number of points to Ella. “Uh … sorry, sis.”
“Hey,” says Jodi, raising an eyebrow at Tacoma. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“Uh, yours, love. Of course.” She stands up hurriedly. “So yeah, gotta go. Lothi, you're in charge till I get back. Make sure these two don't choke on the small parts or anything.”
On his armchair, Lothian uncurls and sits up, puffing out his chest as if to say that of course he's looking after them, and if he looked like he was asleep then that's just because he was being subtle about it.
“Atta boy,” says Tacoma. “See you in a bit.”
“See you!”
“Bye.”
The front door closes, and a fleeting darkness crosses the window. Gone, then. Leaving just Ella and her sister, either side of a board game. Maybe the brandy's making her maudlin, but if she closes her eyes she could almost think they were kids again, their parents stepped out of the room to get drinks while Ella dithers about taking her turn.
“Hey,” says Jodi. “I thought I was meant to be the lightweight? Don't go falling asleep on me, Ella. Not unless you want your followers rearranged.”
“Hm? No, I'm awake, I'm awake.”
She takes a tile and places it without thinking, trying to seem alert; Jodi picks it up again and returns it to her hand.
“That'll finish my road,” she says. “You don't want that.” She reaches up, tilts Ella's head toward her. “You okay? You've been real quiet since you spoke to Tacoma.”
“Yeah,” replies Ella, without thinking. “I'm fine.”
Jodi's eyes flicker with that familiar sarcastic light. Behind her, Lothian slithers off his chair and stalks over to join her in looking judgemental.
“Um, Ella.”
“Oh. Yeah. Psychic.” Darn it. “Well, uh, it's just everything. You know?”
“Yeah, I do.” Jodi frowns. “Tacoma didn't say anything tactless, did she? I know she and Darren―”
“No, nothing like that,” Ella says, unable to bear the thought of Tacoma being blamed when she was so kind. “She was just nice. And, uh, that's … I don't know that I was expecting that.”
Jodi laughs.
“Yeah, I get that,” she says, running her fingers absently through Lothian's mane. “Sometimes I don't think she expects to be nice to anybody either. But, well, stick around for the party and you'll see how nice she is.”
“Huh? What d'you mean?”
“Didn't I mention? We've got her number one fan coming over.” That smile again, stripping away the years like a palette knife scraping through layers of paint. “Well, apart from me, anyway. He stayed at the refuge for a while, way back when, and I got an email from him the other week asking if maybe he could visit, to show the kids they have a future, so I asked if he wanted to come to the New Year's party. And he said yes, so.”
“Who is it? You're talking like I know.”
“We-ell,” says Jodi, making side-to-side motions of her head. “You'll know him when you see him, I'm sure.”
Lothian chirps, as if to back her up; Ella can't help but roll her eyes.
“You're both being very mysterious,” she says.
“Got to give you something to look forward to, huh?”
She's so darn good. She really is. Ella would love to tell her, but she just doesn't have the words any more.
“Thanks,” she says instead. “Knew you'd look out for me, sis.”
She regrets the words as soon as they leave her mouth – is that all Jodi is to her? Someone to hold her hand and show her pretty new things? – but Jodi doesn't seem to mind; she chuckles and motions at the tile in Ella's hand.
“Sure I will,” she says. “Now c'mon. Put that down already and let me win.”
“You think you're gonna win, huh?”
“Hey, I've been playing this for fifteen years. You haven't even broken fifteen days yet.”
So it goes. As if they really are kids again, as if her old ariados is hibernating upstairs and they're waiting for Mum and Dad to get home from work and the festivities to begin.
The Moon Bridge LGBT+ Youth Community Centre and Refuge – usually just 'the refuge', in Jodi's circles – is just around the corner from the flat. As Jodi gets older and her leg ever worse, she keeps moving closer and closer; sometimes she jokes that by the time she finally retires, she'll be living in her office. Yeah, right, says Tacoma. I'd die before I live with a bunch of kids. And then, a minute later: wait. Shit. Can I take another run at that one? And everyone laughs, in a way that makes Ella aware that they've all enjoyed this joke a thousand times before without her, and she laughs nervously along with them like the outsider she is.
Still. Tonight she's feeling pretty good about things. She liked coming here for Christmas dinner, helping out in the kitchen and chatting to the kids over the turkey. Some of them were a little intimidating at first, with their dyed hair and piercings, but after a few minutes she realised that they were all just glad to be here, to have a place to be and people to be with. She gets that. She was glad to be there too.
And she's glad to be heading back now, going slow so Jodi can keep up and listening to her chatter about how much Alix liked talking to Ella about art back on Christmas Day. She looks over her head, shares a little isn't-she-cute glance with Tacoma, and then has to hurriedly rearrange her face when Jodi suddenly asks what's so funny.
“Nothing, sis,” she says.
Jodi looks at Tacoma instead, who rolls her burning eyes and bends to kiss her cheek.
“You're just a sweetheart, Ms Ortega.”
“Hmph,” says Jodi. “You're not half bad yourself, Dr Spearing.”
She acts cool, but Ella notices that she reaches up and touches the spot where Tacoma kissed her all the same.
Almost takes her breath away. She can't imagine this interaction ever taking place between her and Darren, not even when they were young. People just don't do that kind of thing in Mahogany.
But forget it: they're here already, right outside the ramp and big automatic doors bolted haphazardly onto the weather-beaten old stones. Yellow light shining invitingly through the glass. And above it, the most garish sign Ella has ever seen, the first seven letters in the colours of the rainbow and all the rest in hues stolen from as many different pride flags as Jodi could find online.
“Y'know,” says Tacoma, looking up at it with some pride, “I gotta say, five years on and it's still our best work.”
“It's absolutely hideous, spooky. Everyone who helped with it agreed.”
“I know.” Tacoma sighs in contentment. “Like I said, our best work.”
This place is always fascinating to Ella; there's just nothing like it at all back home. The reception area is practically wallpapered with flyers for support groups and advocacy services, and behind the desk is a young man who Ella knows from previous meetings to be extremely sweet but whose many and intricate tattoos intimidate her nevertheless.
“Hey, boss,” he says. “Hey, boss' wife.”
“Fuck off, Jasmeet,” replies Tacoma cheerfully.
“Hey, boss' sister,” he continues, apparently unfazed. “Hey, boss' dragon.”
Lothian rears, bracing his claws against the edge of the desk, and hums some kind of cryptic greeting; in response, Jasmeet blows him the laziest kiss Ella has ever seen.
“Love you too, pal,” he says. “You have fun, yeah? And spare a thought for the guy on the phones.”
“Of course we will,” Jodi assures him. “I'll bring you a glass of something at midnight. Probably non-alcoholic, sorry, but―”
“Uh, no you won't,” says Tacoma. “You'll send someone with a glass of something. Delegate, Ms Ortega.”
Ella can't tell if this is a joke or some kind of request that Jodi put less of herself into her work; she tries a smile, and is relieved to see Jodi smile too, Lothian pulling back to hoot at her like he agrees.
“Okay, well, I guess if my doctor says so, I don't have any choice,” she says. “See you, Jaz.”
“See you, boss.”
Out of the reception, past the stairs and lift up to the dormitories, and down the hall. It's rainbow-coloured, but the lights are out again, and in the dim glow of the emergency lighting the banded walls look like waves in a washed-out ocean. Lots of doors. Ella has no idea where they go. But up ahead at the end there's the light and noise of the dayroom, and … and actually, now that she's here again, she's kind of nervous.
Jodi's psionics curl around her like an affectionate furret, and Ella meets her eye for a moment, startled. She says nothing, just raises her eyebrows and gives her that look again, the one that destroys the years and all the distance they have brought. God. Sometimes Ella just loves her sister so darn much.
But no time to dwell on her kindness: someone calls out Jodi's name, and now here they are, among the mismatched chairs and sofas and the tables with drinks and snacks. Leaf and Charlotte are already here, moving among the kids and making sure everyone is okay; as Ella watches, Dusk comes in as well, his – shoot, their, Ella corrects herself – their arm around Alix, who looks a little shaky.
Hm. Ella looks around for Jodi, sees her already deep in conversation with her friend Carmine and her two girlfriends whose names Ella doesn't remember, Lothian off bothering someone's nidorino. And Tacoma's talking to that boy with the hair and his friend Ray. So … okay, so she has to start somewhere, and Alix was nice at the dinner. She wants to draw a – what did she call it? A webcomic? Right.
“Hey,” she says, coming over. “Everything okay?”
Dusk's eyes flick over to her, cold, appraising. Ella gets the feeling they don't particularly like her. This is fine. Her being her, them being them, she considers this a fairly reasonable reaction.
“Everything's cool,” they say. “Alix?”
“Yeah.” Alix tries a smile too, but it doesn't quite stick. Her diglett rears protectively at her heels, raising his claws to defend against imaginary enemies. Expecting violence, Ella realises, and feels a little sick. “Hi, Ella.”
She keeps rubbing her arm, dark fingers curled gingerly against her sleeve as if the skin beneath is sore. Behind her, Dusk's face is set, serious: do not let her know you've noticed.
“So I remember you told me on Christmas that you were working on your main character,” says Ella, fighting a sudden, almost violent urge to hug her. “Have you made any progress?”
“Oh. Yeah.” Alix hesitates. “I, um … yeah, I have some drawings in my sketchbook? Not like any good or anything,” she adds quickly, desperately. “But like I've – I've been, um, I think I have an idea for the story now.”
“I'd love to see them,” says Ella. “If that's okay with you.”
Alix glances at Dusk, as if she needs permission; they smile, their hostility evaporating the instant before she sees them, and then she smiles a little too and excuses herself to get her book. Her diglett lingers for a moment, making sure nobody follows, and then hurries on after her, walking on the knuckles of his claws to keep the edges sharp.
“Thanks,” says Dusk, after she's gone. “She could use a distraction right now. Some encouragement.”
“Of course,” says Ella. “Absolutely.”
No smile now, but a brusque, businesslike nod.
“Thanks,” they repeat. “'Scuse me. I need to talk to Jodi for a moment.”
They leave without waiting for a response. Ella watches them go, letting the sting of their snub settle on her like the lingering pain of a slap across the face, and then composes herself for Alix. The poor kid can't be any older than Foster, Tacoma's brother's son. Too young for the vicious politics of adults.
There she is now, coming back in with her sketchbook clutched tight to her chest. Looking anxious and hopeful.
“Um,” she says, joining Ella and motioning for her diglett to stop pacing. “So like she's this robot, right …”
Guests: children, volunteers, friends of Jodi and of the refuge. Charlie Fay, who fled Mahogany at sixteen to find Jodi in Goldenrod and ask for help. (My first foundling, Jodi says, hugging him tight. Welcome back.) Sam and Gabriella, who ran the petrol station back home for eleven years, until things got bad after the cult was destroyed and people refused to pretend they were cousins any more. (Gabbi, Gabbi, Gabbi, says Tacoma. I'm offended. You're in your seventies and you're still prettier than me? And Gabriella laughs and kisses her cheek: sorry, sweetheart, but I've been gorgeous for far too long to stop now.)
Others too, that Ella can't name. A tall black woman with scarred lips and a tiny brindled furret; a man who looks like an elderly Bert Convy, who makes Jodi squeal with delight and rush to embrace him; even a tall, shambling creature with one eye and a body of papery bandages, which Ella assumes must be a former patient of Tacoma's and which clasps her hand between its own, whispering in a crackly voice that momentarily blurs the TV with static.
Ella has always struggled to understand Jodi's family, this odd sprawling network of friends and colleagues and desperate children. It's a personal failing, or maybe just a limitation that fifty-six years in Mahogany has imposed on her worldview: what is a family, if it isn't you and your spouse and kids?
But standing here, marvelling at the people who come and go like pigeons through a dovecote, she's starting to get it. Look at them all, these people who care, who have coalesced around her sister like nacre around a pearl. She can't even be jealous, although she'd like to be; that feels like the Mahogany thing, to envy all these other sisters and brothers that Jodi has collected over the years. But no. She's just glad. Jodi always did have more love in her than there was space for in Mahogany. It's good to know that she's found enough people to satisfy it now.
The TV is on in the background somewhere, tuned to JTV1 and the annual night-long musical variety show. Occasionally the presenter announces an act that someone thinks one of their friends will like, and they'll pull them out of the crowd to come and watch; about ten minutes after drifting back to Ella to discuss art again, Alix looks up suddenly at the TV, her young ears detecting the phrase Black Peaches where Ella missed it, and asks tentatively if that isn't that seventies band that Jodi likes.
“You know, I think it is,” says Ella. “Shall we go and get her?”
Half the room has had the same idea, it seems; a moment later, laughing and trying not to spill her drink, Jodi is being led to the TV by a small army of teenagers to watch her favourite greying musicians making a terrible racket with synthesisers. Lothian is nervous, of course, seeing her being pulled around like that, but Tacoma excuses herself from a conversation with one of Carmine's girlfriends to sit by him and stroke his neck, whispering in his ear.
Ella watches them all with something unnameable rising inside her. Jodi looks like a mother here, eyes bright and a little teary; Ella is reminded of coming in from her studio when her kids were young and seeing them curled up either side of Darren on the sofa. Back when things were simple and everybody loved each other. Before her kids were old enough to take sides in conflicts that should have had no sides at all.
New Year's Eves past tremble through her heart, thick coils of frost winding around her chest like the chains of a cryogonal. Darren. That dumb, goofy smile that hasn't changed since they were kids climbing through each other's bedroom windows. Dire Straits on the stereo. Generous glasses of wine and―
No. She is not doing this, not tonight. There are good people here. They're not her family, not really, but they could be, if she wanted. They'd do that for her. That's what Jodi's people are.
So no, she isn't going to wallow. She's going to find someone else to talk to and she's going to make the most of this gift that Jodi's given her. And wouldn't you know it, someone else has just arrived, an elegant Japanese woman in her late forties with a couple of much younger women in tow.
“Hi, everyone,” she says, ushering them in. “Sorry I'm late. I brought guests, too. They're the only two staying at the Centre over the holidays, and I thought it would be mean to leave them all on their own. I hope you don't mind.”
“Of course not!” says Leaf, taking her coat. “Any friends of yours, Tamiko. And who are you?”
“I'm Cass, this is Ringo,” says the short, round one with the pink hair, motioning to the spearow on her shoulder. Her tall Indian friend murmurs something too quietly for Ella to catch, stroking the lizard clinging to her shirt with an anxious sort of energy. She's trans, isn't she? But not like Jodi is. Not …
This time, Ella realises, she definitely is being bigoted. What, not beautiful? Is she seriously going to be like that about this poor kid?
Ugh. You can take the woman out of Mahogany, she thinks. But.
“And, uh, this is Artemis and Brauron,” adds Cass, breaking into her thoughts. “Thanks for having us.”
“Pleased to meet you both,” says Leaf. “Come on in. And― oh, sorry, one moment. What is it, Ben?”
That sounds like a cue. Ella steps in and smiles.
“Hi,” she says. “I'm Ella. Can I get you a drink?”
“Oh hi,” says Cass. “That'd be great, thanks.”
“What would you like?”
There's no alcohol here tonight – Jodi's orders; most of the kids are underage, and there are several guests who would rather not be in the same room as a bottle of wine anyway – but Ella pours the three of them some lemonade, which they accept gratefully.
“I'll leave you to it,” says Tamiko, smiling at Ella from behind the two kids. “Just going to catch up with Jodi.”
Artemis watches her go silently. She looks very afraid for the biggest person in the room, but then, maybe that's why she's so afraid. Ella imagines being the centre of attention must be hell for a trans woman.
“You're on your journey?” she asks. It seems a safe start. Safer than being a judgemental Mahogany jerk, anyway.
“Yeah,” says Cass. “I know, I know, we're like a decade late, but you know. Better late than never, right?”
“Right.” God, a trainer journey. Ella remembers hers, in the kind of hazy way that makes everything seem bright and golden. Two years, four badges, three bug-types named for constellations. She's sure she was homesick, but of course she doesn't remember any of that. “So you're not breaking for the holidays?”
The two of them exchange a look that makes Ella a little ashamed to have asked.
“Nah,” says Cass, faux-casual. “Stuff's complicated back home. And it's a long way back to Kanto. I'm from Cerulean, Artemis is Pewter, so.”
“Oh, right.” She can salvage this. Not the first time she's made a fool of herself; won't be the last. “Sorry. I'll be honest, I'm a little new to all this. I live in Mahogany.”
Cass scowls, looking for an instant so like her spearow that Ella almost smiles. Sometimes you can look at a person and just know immediately what it is that they and their partner found in each other.
“Isn't that like that tiny little place in the middle of nowhere? Like with a gym and then a hundred miles of forest in all directions?”
“Cass,” says Artemis. Her voice is very deep and very soft, and Ella knows at once that she has spent a long, long time trying to keep it quiet.
“Huh? Oh, yeah, right.” Sheepish grin. “Sorry, I, uh, still haven't learned to think before I talk.”
“No, it's fine,” says Ella. “That's kind of why I said it. My sister Jodi” – she waves a hand at her, laughing with Sam and Gabriella – “she runs this place, but I just hide out there in the woods and paint bug-types. If I make mistakes, that's why.”
“You're an artist?” asks Artemis, looking down at her with interest.
“Sure. But you probably don't know me. Not unless you went into one of two very specific galleries here. Or you bought a souvenir in Mahogany.”
“We haven't made it there yet,” says Cass. “Oh, behave, birdbrain.” She pushes her spearow's beak away from her glass. “Um, yeah. We didn't really fancy hiking through December, so we're hanging around in Goldenrod for a bit. Plenty to do here. Lots of training, too. Brauron and Artie almost beat Whitney last time, but like me and Ringo aren't such hotshots.”
Artemis shrinks back a little, her hand tightening on the strap of her bag.
“We're not all that,” she mutters. “The leaders are getting kind of tough on us now I have a few badges.”
“Nothing you can't handle, though!” says Cass, in a kind of chirpy best-friend way that touches Ella's heart. These two are close. She wonders how close, exactly, given that Tamiko brought them here, but maybe she shouldn't presume.
A better question: how many badges? Three, apparently – very good going indeed, considering it seems Artemis only started this summer. Ella tells her this, but apparently this is the wrong thing to do, because she squirms and looks even more uncomfortable than before. So Ella apologises, and Artemis looks even more uncomfortable, and now Ella has absolutely no idea what she could say that wouldn't make things worse – but fortunately, this is the moment at which Jodi arrives.
“Hi!” she says, with that breathless excitement she reserves for meeting new people. “I'm sorry I didn't say hello earlier, I guess I'm just a terrible host. I see you've met my sister Ella? I'm Jodi. I'm in charge of this place, by which I mean I'm the one who gets blamed when something goes wrong.”
“Hi,” says Cass. “I'm Cass, this is Ringo.”
Skraarrrk, says Ringo, eyeing Jodi like he's wondering how her tonsils taste. At Jodi's side, Lothian narrows his eyes and swivels his ears forward, and Ringo rapidly decides to become extremely interested in Cass' hair.
“And I'm, um, Artemis. This is Brauron.”
“Artemis,” repeats Jodi. “I love it.”
Shy smile.
“Um, thanks. I chose it myself.”
“So did I,” says Jodi. “But I just picked Jodi 'cause it sounded pretty.” Self-deprecating smile. “Maybe it's because we didn't have any internet in the seventies, but everyone now is so much more creative and ambitious with their names.”
Ella watches, spellbound. How is she doing this? A second ago Artemis looked like she was on the verge of running out the door again, and now she's laughing like she's never had more fun.
“Oh, well,” she says, her hands ceasing their restless motion and lying still at last. “I felt kinda pretentious choosing it.”
“Pretentious? Oh no, not at all!” Jodi smiles. “If trans girls aren't classical goddesses, who is?”
“Hah. Yeah, I – I guess.”
Is it because Jodi's trans too? Ella remembers the first time she met someone who looked like her other than her father – a woman in her fifties who ran a gallery in Ecruteak, who made twenty-year-old Ella realise with a start that she really did have a future ahead of her. That one day she'd be a grown-up with a life of her own. Now she looks at Artemis hanging on Jodi's every word, and wonders if she ever truly believed she'd live to be sixty-three.
“No guessing necessary,” says Jodi. “We're pretty great. Speaking of which, actually, why don't you come with me a minute? I actually think we have a couple other Greek gods here tonight, and I'm sure they'd love to meet you …”
The two of them go off towards the knot of kids gathered around Dusk; Ella hazily identifies two as Terpsichore and Athena. The group absorb Jodi as easily as blinking, and a moment later Artemis too, Terpsichore flinging up her hands in what Ella assumes is an oh my days, me too kind of gesture.
“Huh,” says Cass, staring after them. “Wow.”
“Wow?” asks Ella.
“I've, uh … literally never seen her like that before.” Cass blinks, tears her eyes away with an obvious effort. “Artie, I mean.”
“Yeah,” says Ella. “Jodi has that effect on people.”
She doesn't mention the psionics. Jodi's spent her whole life saying sorry, I'm psychic, but Ella is certain her power to soothe people is much more than just her empathy.
“Mm. I can see that.” Cass sighs. “Uh. Yeah, sorry. Guess I've just been like a little worried. Weird time for both of us, being away for the holidays like this. We've never done it before.”
“Same,” says Ella, glad of the connection. “I'm normally with my kids this time of year. At home.”
Cass' eyes meet hers. They're much sharper than Ella was expecting. Like she can see straight through her adult disguise to the idiot kid Ella half believes she still is.
“Well,” she says. “Guess you know, then. Kinda weird. But I don't know. Kinda magical, too.”
Artemis, saying something, smiling; Athena laughing and nodding. Jodi next to them, leaning heavily on her cane while Lothian rubs his head against her hip. Silent. But making sure that Artemis is okay. They were strangers, up until five minutes ago. And now this.
Cass only has one badge, apparently. But Falkner was super nice about it, even if she did only win on a technicality. Ella wants to ask about that, and she's about to, except that just then Morty Fletcher walks in and suddenly there isn't any room in the world for anything else.
He's just. He's right there. The gym leader that every teenage girl on the peninsula – or all the ones who like guys, Ella corrects herself – has a crush on. (That Lisa had a … but no, best not think about that.) Tousled blond hair, violet eyes. One of Johto's finest trainers. Honestly? Probably the handsomest, too.
And there's Arianrhod as well, his partner: small for a gengar, barely three feet tall, but one of the most formidable pokémon in the Indigo League, with a vast movepool and the smarts to make use of it. Ella has seen her hold her ground against Lance Harding's dragonite on TV before. And now here she is, floating along next to Morty like any other partner pokémon, oblivious to the roomful of staring faces.
“Oh my God,” says Cass, eyes wide. “That's …”
“Yeah,” murmurs Ella. “It is.”
He and Arianrhod aren't alone, either. There's another man with them, wearing a vivid purple suit that makes Ella feel like she should have noticed him sooner.
“Who's that?” asks Cass. “D'you know?”
“Uh, no. I didn't think―”
“Morty!”
Tacoma, crossing the room in a swirl of darkness, her grin flashing like green lightning. Morty calls out her name too and meets her in a hug that Ella would call bone-crushing if she thought Tacoma actually had a skeleton.
What the hell? The surprise guest, Tacoma's number one fan – that's Morty bloody Fletcher?
“It's been too long, doc,” he says. “How are you?”
“Old and dead, kid, old and dead. You?”
“Yeah, fine.”
“And you two? Roddy, Eusine?”
“We're all good,” says the man in purple. “Are you going to introduce us to all these people?”
“Hm?” Tacoma turns, realises that everyone is staring and straightens up, clearing her throat. “Right, right. So yeah. Special guest for you all. Morty stayed with us for a bit, back in the day. Roddy too. And Eusine is his plus one.”
Morty takes Eusine's hand for a moment, casual, deliberate, and sends a ripple through the room that Ella can read in the kids' faces. Morty stayed here? Morty Fletcher? And he has a boyfriend? And he stayed here, and now he's a gym leader, and …?
Her eye alights on Alix, looking at him with the intensity of a cat watching birds. Seeing a future, Ella thinks. Realising that ending up here doesn't mean you've failed.
“Hi, all,” says Morty, raising a hand in greeting. “Good to be back. I'm looking forward to getting to know you all.”
“It's wonderful to see you again,” says Jodi, detaching herself from her collection of goddesses. “And it's very kind of you to make time to visit. Now, I think it's probably time we all stopped staring and offered you two something to drink.”
A quick glance, tossed deftly at the crowd, and the party comes back to life again, everyone realising they were gawking, hurriedly resuming their individual conversations. Most of them are about Morty, judging by all the looks, but it's all right; Jodi has broken the spell, and everything is now back to normal. There's a celebrity here, sure. But he's chatting to Jodi like anyone else, so maybe he's also just a guy.
“Wow,” says Cass, taking a gulp of her lemonade. “Morty Fletcher, huh. Does your sister know a lot of people like that?”
“I have no idea,” replies Ella. “But I kind of wish I did.”
Cass looks up at her again. Same sharp, penetrating glance.
“Hey,” she says, sounding uncertain. “Uh … listen, I get that I'm just like some dumb kid or whatever, but y'know. You could always find out.”
For a long moment Ella stands there, frozen; she wasn't expecting life advice tonight, and definitely not from a girl less than half her age. It takes her a long moment to swallow her urge to snap at Cass, and by the time she's managed it she realises her anger is entirely misplaced. Cass is right. She could find out. Jodi would probably welcome it; she might have dozens more siblings now, but that's not to say she doesn't still love Ella. She's been trying to be a sister to her ever since Ella arrived.
She could find out. She could be a sister again. It's just a question of whether or not Jodi deserves to be put through that, after everything. Whether what Ella wants is more important than all the ways in which she stood by and watched as life happened to Jodi and the people that she loves.
A break. Cass has been captured by the kid with all the piercings whose name and gender Ella is uncertain of, and in her absence Ella is free to disengage for a moment and clear her head. She steps back from the crowd and walks quietly over to an unattended chair, where she sits and goes through her bag for her reading glasses. One of the downsides of her Christmas present: even aside from the complicated menus, she feels her age keenly every time she peers at the screen. She did consider contacts, a few years ago when she started having trouble with newspapers, but she doesn't think she could stand sticking her fingers in her eyes like that.
Anyway, the grim reality of middle age aside: Instagram. There's some art, some sunsets, a lot of New Year's stuff. That scizor, Adler, looking contritely at a wine glass snapped in two halfway down the stem. (Someone STILL doesn't know that giant metal pincers and glass don't mix, says the caption.) Ella taps to like that one, keeps scrolling.
A beautiful painting of a couple raising champagne flutes against a backdrop of fireworks. (Digital! That's a thing now, apparently. Ella's pretty sure it's what Alix wants to do.) Three spinarak stumbling around a puddle of spilled wine, looking woozy. (guess they're getting into the spirit of things.) And look: Zelda the venipede, on the shoulder of a plump woman with the same golden skin as Ella, frozen in the moment of kissing Gwyneth.
lesson from 2018 (Gwyneth writes): never too late to say sorry. things are kinda shit still, and theres a long way to go yet, but i think its gonna be a happy new year
Ella stares at the screen, a little choked up. Silly, really, to get emotional about the lives of people she doesn't know and never will, of whom she has only seen a few photographs and a couple of bitterly sarcastic captions. But still. She cares about Gwyneth and Zelda, in a way she's never encountered before. A curious kind of devotion to the wellbeing of a stranger on the other side of the planet.
So much for clearing her head. She blinks back a tear, taps to like, and starts to type out a comment wishing the three of them the very be―
“Hi. It's Ella, isn't it?”
She starts, whips off her glasses to stare guiltily into the face of the woman who arrived with Cass and Artemis.
“Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you.”
“No. No, it's fine.” Ella stuffs her glasses back in their case, fumbling in her haste and leaving one arm sticking out. She thinks about fixing it, but she's too embarrassed to even let on she's noticed. “Tamiko, right?”
“Yes. May I …?”
“Sure,” says Ella, motioning to the empty seat across from her. “Be my guest.”
“Thanks.” Tamiko sits, puts her glass down on the table. “I have to say, it's exciting to finally meet you.”
“Sorry?”
“Jodi's sister!” Tamiko gestures through the swell of kids at Jodi, currently sandwiched between Alix and Eusine, tossing an apricot to a delighted Lothian. “I've heard so much about you.”
Her mouth is open, isn't it? Yes, it definitely is. She'd like to close it, but for some reason her face doesn't want to obey her. Nothing about this conversation is going how Ella expected.
“Really?” she asks. “Me?”
“Yes, of course.” Tamiko's smile broadens. “I volunteer here every other weekend, and Jodi's always talking about her cool artist sister.”
“Cool …?” Ella shakes her head. “No, I think you must be mistaken. I live in the middle of nowhere and paint bugs.”
“And landscapes. Jodi has one of yours in her office, doesn't she?”
She does? Ella has to think about it for a moment, and then she remembers: Jodi hung one of her pictures above her bed, back in their parents' house. A view of Mahogany from the hills north of town. She must have taken it with her when she moved. And hung it. In her office. For everyone to look at. This picture that Ella probably did when she was twelve.
Kind of embarrassing, if that's the introduction that people get to her art. But very sweet, all the same. That's a big canvas, and Jodi left town in a hurry; she abandoned a lot of her books and tapes, even some of her photos. But not this, it seems. Not her little sister's painting.
“Wow,” she says. “I, um … didn't know that.”
“You didn't?” Tamiko looks surprised. “It's hung there as long as I've been here. Which is, well.” Rueful smile. “A little longer than I care to admit, these days.”
“Oh.” Ella coughs. “This is, uh, this Christmas has actually been my first time visiting the refuge.”
Tamiko sits up a little straighter.
“Really,” she says. What is that in her eyes? Ella doesn't know, distrusts it instinctively. “Quite an occasion then, huh. How are you liking it?”
“A lot. It's … really something. Seeing her like this.” She glances across the room, through the cheery fog of laughter and excited teenagers. Jodi's moved on again now, one hand scratching absently between Lothian's ears while she listens to Artemis tell her about something that requires a lot of gestures. “I guess I didn't really understand until now.”
“I think a lot of us feel that way,” Tamiko tells her. “It's difficult to get your head around until you experience it.” She takes a sip of something dark. Can't be wine, but it looks a lot like it. “I'm from Cherrygrove. Not as small as Mahogany, but it's a small city. How I ended up here is a long story, but I have to say, I never found a family there that I liked as much as this one.”
She uses the word family in a way that makes Ella dizzyingly aware of the gulf between them, of the familiarity that Tamiko and all these others have with this strange world.
“I see,” she says slowly, trying to give herself time to think of a better response. “When did you first come here?”
“Oof,” says Tamiko, in a way that suggests the answer might be an earlier year than she's willing to admit. “Would you believe '89?”
“You must have been very young,” Ella says, half joking, and is relieved to see Tamiko laugh.
“I was,” she says. “I was twenty and I had a lot to run away from. A lot to run to, as well. Goldenrod and the dyke bars, as we called them back then. I thought I was into women because I didn't like men,” she adds, by way of explanation. “Took me twenty more years to realise that I just didn't like anyone at all. Acest ace in town.”
Is that a thing? It must be a thing. Ella nods like she understood that last sentence; fortunately, Tamiko either falls for it or is kind enough to pretend to, and carries on:
“Anyway, Goldenrod was a mess back then. I'm sure you you know.” Yes. Ella remembers late '85, early '86, the first couple of celebrity deaths, and calling Jodi in a panic: what is this? What's happening? Are you okay? (It's an epidemic. I organised three funerals last month. No, but I won't die.) “Jodi was in the middle of it; lots of her friends gave her power of attorney. So their families couldn't swoop in from out of town and ruin the end of their lives when it … happened.” Tamiko frowns. “Sorry. I'm sure you already know this. Your sister, after all.”
“No, I want to hear it,” says Ella, instead of saying that she didn't know, that her insides ache with the sense of history from which Jodi's straight cis sister is rightfully excluded. “How did you meet her?”
Ben laughs his too-loud laugh somewhere nearby, reeling out of a group of friends in search of crisps; the two of them look up for a moment, the spell cracking, before Tamiko resumes speaking and the party fades into the background once more.
“I went to Redmonk,” she tells Ella. “First week in town. I ended up in the 88, but I was too afraid to talk to anyone, so I had one drink and went home. Alone. My partner Makoto was hibernating, same as she is now – arbok, you see. If I'd had her …” She clicks her tongue, seeing her past self, her youthful mistakes. “Back then, you know, you didn't go down Tenarrow Road or Parker Street alone after five – didn't go through that whole area between the Dials and Silver Row, actually. There were people there who knew where you'd come from and were unhappy about it.” She sighs. “Anyway, listen to me, I could talk for Johto. Long story short, I got rescued, Jodi said we live nearby, come back with us and get cleaned up, and, well, I never went home that night.”
“Really?” asks Ella, before she can stop herself, and Tamiko smiles and nods. Somehow she doesn't seem to be embarrassed at all.
“Not like that,” she says. “Though, God, I tried. They were both so cool, and I was so desperate to prove I was like them. But they were very responsible. Pretended not to notice I was trying to flirt with them, put me in the spare room. And we've been friends ever since.”
Ella tries to imagine it: Jodi in her thirties, before her chronic pain worsened and her stamina started to fail her; Tacoma ten years dead, when she began to soften at the edges, age becoming impossible to tell. Late night. A tiny ground-floor flat in Redmonk. Young Tamiko doing her best to worm her way into their bedroom.
Nope. Her vaunted artistic imagination has failed her. None of this matches up at all with anything she recognises as real life.
“That's incredible,” she says. “I never knew … I mean, sorry, I'm just so Mahogany.”
“We all started somewhere. I was very Cherrygrove for a long time. And I'm sure Mahogany has lots to offer of its own.”
She wants Ella to talk about herself now, doesn't she? To talk about her home and art and kids. And Ella could do that, sure; she could say my husband just left me, my daughter blames me for it, my last partner died in November, and now I sit alone at home looking at canvases I don't finish while my mail piles up unread on the kitchen table.
She could. And she half wants to, is the scary thing. Tamiko would listen well; Ella can tell she's that kind of person. She could say it.
She doesn't.
“I wouldn't be so sure of that,” she says, instead. “In some ways it's the same town Jodi and I grew up in.”
“Good people don't come from nowhere,” says Tamiko, serious now. “There has to be something worthwhile there.”
“Oh, I don't know about that. I'm sure your Goldenrod stories are much more interesting.”
“Hah! Look, if you want me to dish the dirt on Jodi, you're going to have to offer me something in exchange.”
Ella laughs, surprised, and takes another sip of her orange juice.
“Well,” she says. “If that's what it takes. I guess I can embarrass my sister if you're willing to embarrass her back.”
“Embarrass myself, more like.” Tamiko raises a regretful eyebrow. “I've only ever known Jodi as a responsible adult. Most of my horror stories end with me and my friends asking her for help. Oh actually, no, that's a lie – one of them ends with her getting arrested for assault.”
“What! Okay, you have to tell me that one.”
“You first.”
“All right, all right.” Which story? Because she does have them, she realises; she has a whole childhood to draw on, even if she and Jodi grew apart afterwards. “So she and Tacoma, they've always been really close – Tacoma says that if she'd only known Jodi was a girl before, it wouldn't have taken her so long to realise she was a lesbian. And back then Tacoma had this kangaskhan, right―”
“What? Oh my God, that's perfect. I always knew her partner must have been something huge and scary.”
“I know, I know. Her name was Nikki, she was a real terror, and there was this one time when …”
Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding.
Fork against glass: time for a speech, it seems. Ella looks up and sees Tacoma doing the honours at the head of the room, next to Jodi. Leaning very heavily on her cane now, Lothian pressing his head against her leg to soothe the muscle with his vibrations. She's done a lot of standing tonight.
Is it midnight already? Ella could have sworn she only sat down five minutes ago. But no, a glance at her watch confirms that there are just a few minutes left in the year.
“Thank you, Tacoma,” says Jodi. “It's always useful to have a spare pair of hands.”
Tacoma smiles briefly, steps back. Ella is a little surprised she didn't say anything, but she supposes that this is Jodi's moment really. She's the director, after all.
“First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for coming here tonight,” Jodi continues. “And for supporting us throughout the year. 2018 hasn't been easy for any of us, I know, but we've made it, and that's entirely down to your time and effort, whether you're a patron, a donor or a volunteer. And of course I'd like to give special thanks to Jasmeet, who's spending his New Year's Eve on the hotline in case anyone calls.”
A ripple of laughter, some applause. Mostly from the adults in the room, but a couple of kids, too. Jasmeet has his fans, it seems.
“And secondly, I'd like us to take a moment to remember those of us who aren't here.” Jodi pauses, breathes in deeply. “Some of us couldn't make it tonight. Others never got the chance to. In particular, I'd like to remember Nicky Conroy, Hester Molina, Iolo Jones and Gloria Parker, who we lost this year – and, as always, Rochelle Ennis, who died six minutes before midnight on New Year's Eve, 1986. She showed me you were allowed to be a girl if you wanted, and she also told me that I should work with kids, so in a way, none of us would be here tonight without her.” Another pause, so brief that Ella almost thinks she imagined it. “As we step out of this year into the next, please take a moment to remember your own absent friends, and know that no matter what, you are bringing them with you into the new year.” She raises her glass. “To those who aren't here tonight.”
God. Ella remembers Rochelle. She never met her, but she called Jodi on the first day of 1987 to wish her a happy New Year, and got trapped in a terrifying ten-minute monologue about how angry she was, about how sometimes she scared herself with what she wanted to do. For the sake of her friends, for the unreal people. The boys, and the sex workers, and the junkies, and the women like her and Rochelle. Rochelle? asked Ella in a timid little voice, and then Jodi swore and said sorry and not to worry, Ella, happy New Year.
Ella wasn't there for her then, when she and her friends were being arrested by cops wearing latex gloves. But she's here now, at least. And even if she has no right to this history, this pain, she's starting to see that her presence here might mean more than she suspected.
“To those who aren't here,” she says, with everyone else, and drinks. Jodi is silent for a few seconds, giving them a moment to reflect, then smiles.
“Okay, that's enough of that,” she says brightly. “We have a duty to preserve these histories, to honour our fallen and carry on their work, but that's not what New Year's Eve is about. We're here tonight to celebrate what we achieved this year – all of it, even if all you managed was to find your way here, to a place where you're safe and among friends. That's not nothing. It never is. And I'm so proud of all of you, I really am.”
She is, as well. Ella can feel it, pouring out of her in rich, warm waves that bring tears to eyes all across the room: here's Alix, wiping her face on her sleeve, there's Morty, sniffing deeply. Darn empaths, Ella thinks, but she's too deeply wrapped up in Jodi's passion to be cross.
“To all of you,” says Jodi, raising her glass again. “To all you've achieved, and to all you will achieve, next year.”
“To all of us.”
“And to Jodi!” calls Carmine, from the sidelines. “Because let's be honest, we'd all be lost without her.”
“Oh,” murmurs Jodi, going red, clutching her glass and cane, but her voice is lost in the enthusiasm of the response:
“To Jodi!”
Ella calls out as cheerily as all the rest, takes a deep drink of her juice. To Jodi indeed. To the person who makes this darn thing work, somehow.
“Car-mine,” says Jodi plaintively, as the voices die down. “Are you trying to give an old woman a heart attack?”
“Just making sure you get your due, Jodi,” Carmine replies, through the laughter. “Look, it was me or Tacoma, and we decided I'd be more tactful.”
“That was the tactful version? I dread to think how Tacoma would have done it.” At Jodi's side, Lothian looks up suddenly; she nods, message apparently received, and puts down her glass to scratch between his ears. “But it looks like we're almost out of time,” she says. “I always leave the speech till late, so that you're spared me going on for half an hour about how much I love you. So let's put that aside for now.” She gestures at the wall clock, the second hand just edging past the eight. “Are you ready? One, two, and … Ten. Nine …”
The whole room is concentrating on the clock, speaking together with one voice. Eight. Seven. Ella is reminded of being a kid again – of the first New Year's Eve she was old enough to stay up for, when she chanted out the countdown with childish enthusiasm and Jodi started chanting with her because Ella was so excited that she couldn't resist. Six. Five. Mum and Dad joined in too, somewhere around seven or eight. And there they were together, shouting numbers at the TV as the TV people shouted back. Four. Three. Now two of them are dead and the other two barely see each other. But Ella is here now, isn't she? And she's learning. Two. There are people here, waiting for her with open arms. A sister. A family.
One.
“Happy New Year!”
A couple of cheers, some clapping, a whole lot of toasting. Ella clinks her glass against Tamiko's, Cass', Morty's, Alix's, anyone's who will come anywhere near her, and drains it to the last sludgy dregs of orange pulp.
“Okay,” cries Jodi, radiant with her happiness. “Okay, come on, you have to sing now. Should auld acquaintance be forgot …”
“… and never brought to mind?” sings Ella, with the rest of them; and as it turns out nobody knows any words beyond the first verse and the chorus except Jodi, who shakes her head in mock-disgust and keeps on singing by herself as everyone else falls by the wayside.
“We two have run about the slopes, and picked the daisies fine …”
“Did you know there were this many verses?” whispers Tamiko, as people quiet down to listen. “I always forget, and every year Jodi does this and I'm surprised.”
“… but we've wandered many a weary foot, since auld lang syne …”
“Yeah,” says Ella, eyes still fixed on her sister. “She's always loved singing.”
“And there's a hand, my trusty friend!” sings Jodi, grabbing Tacoma's hand. “And give me a hand o' thine! And we'll take a right good-will draught, for auld lang syne. C'mon now, you know the chorus, guys, let's finish together. For auld lang syne, my dear …”
Yes, they know the chorus. And yes: they will take that cup of kindness yet, Ella decides, as she sings. For auld lang syne, and for the present too, for this holiday break, for these people that she will come and visit again, when she can.
She excuses herself to Tamiko and makes her way across the room, past Cass and Artemis soothing their startled pokémon, past Alix laughing with Terpsichore, her arm forgotten, past Morty kissing Eusine and making the kids swoon. Past Sam and Gabriella, just sitting there and watching, hand in hand. Past Carmine and her partners making friends with Arianrhod. Past everyone, all the way to Jodi.
“Hey, sis,” she says.
Jodi glances at Tacoma, who nods and withdraws quietly to join Carmine, motioning for Lothian to come with her.
“Hey, Ella. What's up?”
“Nothing,” she says. “I mean everything. I mean I love you.”
It's like the night has rolled back for a moment and let a single sunbeam through to alight on Jodi's face.
“I love you too,” she says, flinging her arms around her. “Happy New Year, Ella.”
“Happy New Year, Jodi,” says Ella, hugging back as she hasn't done in years. “Happy New Year.”
Darren has left her. Lisa blames her for it. Pollux is dead. These things are still as true now as they were on the twenty-first, when she arrived in tears. But tomorrow Ella will talk about them with her sister, and tonight she is happy, as happy as Gwyneth and her girlfriend on the other side of the world or Jodi and hers right here in this room, and 2019 will be another bloody year but they made it.
“Are you crying?” asks Jodi, hugging her tighter. “It's okay, Ella. It's okay.”
