Laura smiled at the name. ‘What about your parents?’ Laura asked, wiping at her mouth.
‘My father’s name is Ammon. He was born in Egypt, the eldest of four boys. My father graduated high school top of his class and enrolled in a teaching course. This was where he met my mother. She was born and raised in southern Australia and moved here with her parents when she was fifteen – an only child. They met at nineteen, were married by twenty … five years later my sister was born. They are both real overachievers. My mother, a midwife, then head of the unit by thirty. My father, a professor of anthropology, just obsessed with different cultures and societies. He started teaching at a community college then worked his way up to Harvard.’
‘They sound like interesting people. What’s your mother’s name?’
‘Fleur.’ Her name scraped on her tongue. Eve couldn’t remember the last time she had said her name.
Eve collected their plates, moving away from the memory she had created. She ran a finger over the white marble counter tops and silver fitted appliances. The apartment was huge. Eve was sure she could have played basketball in the living room, if she wanted to. Across from the open plan kitchen was a custom-made bookcase that reached the roof, accompanied by an attached wooden ladder to reach the hardcover books at the top. Beyond the impressive book collection were hardwood floors and a living room that Eve could fit her entire apartment into ten times over, fitted with a long leather couch and shag rug. She stared at the home theatre system. A long hallway beckoned beside the arms-width panelled flat screen.
‘Sorry.’ Eve noticed Laura watching her. ‘I’m just a bit in awe of this place.’
Eve came to sit across from her. She lay her hands across Laura’s forearm and pulled it flat to the marble. She traced small freckles and a thin scar that ran just above the fold of her arm. Laura watched her silently as her soft fingertips traced nonsensical shapes. Laura let out a short laugh when she traced her name across her skin.
‘Happiest childhood memory?’ Laura asked.
Eve continued to trace. She took a moment to answer. ‘It was a really hot day. We were all outside, trying to get a breeze. The air conditioning had broken down again. I think I was around seven, sitting on our front porch. Anna was sitting on a swing my father had put at one end of our porch. Chips was sitting behind me in the shade. Anna called out to me, saying how great it would be if we had some rain. Then these clouds came out of nowhere. And it did. The rain came. I can remember saying, over and over, “Anna wished it.” I danced on the front lawn. Chips bobbed up and down by my feet. My parents and Anna made a tight circle around me, they were laughing along with me.’ Eve stopped tracing circles and looked up at Laura. ‘Love in the rain. That’s what I think of when I think of home.’ Eve raised her head and laughed. She grabbed Laura’s hand and kissed her palm.
‘Let’s get more comfortable.’ Laura led her into the lounge room. Eve lay down on the thick shag rug. Laura lay next to her and curved her body into her side. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever lain here before.’
‘There’s a first for everything.’ Eve wrapped a warm arm around her.
‘Any hobbies?’ Laura whispered into Eve’s shirt. She felt Eve vibrate with laughter.
‘Now, or when I was younger?’
‘Both.’
‘I used to dance … ballet and some contemporary. I started when I was six and stopped nearly a year ago.’
‘Why?’ Laura brushed strands of hair back from Eve’s forehead.
Eve looked at the ceiling. ‘It just stopped being important to me, I guess. I loved it though, perfecting your body to behave in a certain way. Moving through the air like that.’ She sunk against the rug. ‘I was accepted into a pretty good ballet school but I rejected the offer.’
‘Did you want to go?’
‘Not at the time.’
‘You must have been pretty good then.’
Eve didn’t answer. She hadn’t realised how much she missed it. ‘Ask me another.’
‘Any other hobbies?’
‘Boxing. I started when I was around fourteen, fifteen. Along with ballet, I did it every day.’
‘You’re just an overachiever, aren’t you?’ Laura smirked.
‘I come from a family of overachievers but … no, I just keep busy.’ Eve shrugged.
‘Any tattoos?’ Laura asked, scanning the side of her face.
‘I have a few, only one you can see for the moment though. The rest are in … indecent places.’ Eve sat up slowly. ‘This one I can show you.’
Eve pulled her right arm out of her shirt to reveal the design that ran from her upper arm to her collarbone. A mix colours arranged in a magnificent night sky. Within the sky were constellations, Laura remembered some. She traced the Sagittarius constellation with her pinkie. Her eyes read the scrolled inscription that rested just below Eve’s collarbone. ‘In the beginning, there were only stars.’ Laura read aloud. She couldn’t take her eyes off it.
‘I loved the stars when I was little. My parents and I used to stay up and watch the sky. All of these stars … these constellations. All that space, all that time, all that wonder had been there for millions of years. Like, just by looking up I had defied gravity itself. It was an escape. It showed that, no matter what, the stars at night were always constant.’ Eve sighed. She had never explained what the sky did to her before.
Eve grabbed Laura’s hand. She traced the outside of her fingers and the folds of skin that joined her fingers together, like a child tracing their hand on the pavement with a coloured piece of chalk. Eve probed her skin with soft fingertips and, eventually, turned her hand over and kissed her wrist. Her eyes slowly lifted and found Laura’s.
‘Favourite colour?’ Laura asked, giving a short laugh when Eve smirked and laced their fingers together.
‘Blue.’
‘Can I ask you a question?’ Eve asked.
‘Anything.’ Laura rested her head on Eve’s shoulder.
‘What was your first girlfriend like?’
‘I was twenty-one when I met her. I was just starting as an actress so I had to keep my relationship … private. It didn’t last that long, but it was better than any of the relationships I’d had with guys. She was …’ Laura searched for the right word, remembering. ‘Exhausting, pushy, selfish, needy but, oh, was she funny. Tough. I think that’s what I liked about her. She was someone who didn’t know No. Strong willed. It was another four years before I told my parents.’ Laura sighed, remembering how that had gone down. ‘I knew what I wanted after her and, sadly for my mother, it wasn’t something a man could ever give me.’
‘How did they take it?’
Laura pinched her nose. No matter how many years had passed, the memory still felt fresh. ‘My father was ashamed of himself, for not knowing his daughter, he told me, and for not being there when I needed him. My mother … was different. She more or less disowned me for a year.’ She swallowed. ‘I still remember that first phone call, after all that time. Her voice … Jesus, her voice was all choked up like I had died. I don’t think she’ll ever understand how much … how much she hurt me.’
‘I’m sorry, Laura.’
Laura wiped at her face and gave a short laugh. ‘God … you ask me one question