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On the seventh step into the living room, Devon crushes something underfoot. Stepping back, it’s a flower petal. Dried out. Stepping back, they’re everywhere. Gemma’s plants are dying. The moment Devon walked through the door, the house had smelt different. Mark doesn’t clean anymore. The petals pile up.
Devon meets Gemma on a summer night at a ring toss stand. The night is sweet and humid, lit by winking fairy lights, straight out of a faded photograph. Devon likes Gemma preemptively, if she could get Mark to come somewhere fun despite himself.
“Ring toss, really?” he’s saying, trying to twist the smile off his face. “Let me also get my super soaker. Or no, my oversized lollipop and my hat with a little propeller on it.”
“He’s only saying that ‘cause he knows he can’t beat me,” Devon says. “You’re looking at the reigning Scout Family Ring Toss Champion.”
“Now that may sound impressive,” Mark adds to Gemma in a faux-whisper, “but there are only two members of the Scout family and one of them has not competed since he was twelve.”
Gemma laughs at that. She really is very pretty. Mark had said so, but of course Mark had said so. Devon had liked her preemptively, from the way Mark talked about her. “Don’t you worry, Mark,” Gemma says, pulling her hair back, “I’ll defend your honor.”
Mark rolls his eyes, his ears a loudly pleased red.
“Alright, well, prepare to eat shit in my brother’s honor,” Devon says as Gemma lines up beside her.
Gemma looks her way with a glint in her eye that takes Devon entirely by surprise. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”
Later that evening, Devon manages to get Gemma alone. “Okay, so, this is totally cliché, but I do have to say it.”
Gemma nods knowingly. “If I break your brother’s heart, they’ll never find the body?”
“Well, I was thinking more along the lines of ‘I’ll egg your car’, but, yeah, that’s pretty much it,” Devon concedes.
Gemma nods again, face set somewhere between indulgent and solemn. “I won’t.”
When Devon—inevitably—wins, she picks out a wonderfully misshapen heart plush with a misprinted face. She lifts it above her head. “As your benevolent ring toss champion—,”
“As if!” Mark calls.
“—as your totally benevolent ring toss champion,” Devon continues, “I’ve decided to dedicate this prize to the young lovers and their equally matched lack of ring toss skills.” She offers the toy to Gemma with an appropriate amount of ceremony.
Mark squints at it. “Well, thank you, Devon, for this incredibly ugly thing you’ve gotten us. It means so much. Do you know what it’s supposed to be?”
“It’s a heart, duh. It’s on theme.”
“How very gracious.” Gemma, clearly more fun than Mark, matches Devon’s officious tone.
“Benevolent!” Devon corrects.
“Benevolent, yes.” Gemma takes the plush and turns it over. “There’s something off about its eyes, I think. They’re all empty. Like a serial killer. Or a politician.”
Mark leans over and pokes it. “You know, I think she’s just trying to get rid of this.”
Gemma smiles. “I love it. I’m going to put it on my desk and have it stare at my students.”
Gemma comes over to Devon’s place a few weeks later to watch a movie.
“I hope the flowers aren’t weird,” Gemma says. She’s holding a bouquet in one hand and a plastic bucket in the other. “The thing about having as many plants as I do, is you end up with more flowers than you ever know what to do with. By the same token I’ve brought you this bucket of raspberries.”
It’s the first time the two of them are hanging out without Mark. Devon’s excited—she likes Gemma, even if she has to doubt her romantic judgment, and she wants to get to know her better. The last person to bring Devon flowers was her college girlfriend.
“No, no, the flowers are nice.” Devon takes them and beckons Gemma inside. “I don’t think I’ve had fresh flowers or fresh fruit in the house since, well, ever.”
Gemma watches her pick out a vase. “I’ll keep bringing them, then.”
And she does. Once a week: movie night, fruit or vegetables from the garden, and fresh cut flowers. They fill Devon’s apartment with their unapologetic pinks and blues and yellows. She never wants them to leave.
They nearly kiss at Mark and Devon’s cousin’s wedding.
Devon loves weddings. A dance floor’s opened up. The music is terrible and no one in their extended family has anything resembling motor skills. Mark is calling on this fact to get out of dancing with his girlfriend, but Devon has no such inhibitions and drags Gemma onto the dance floor herself. She may be a little drunk.
Gemma laughs and joins her easily and then they’re standing close and the music is loud. Devon dances like a maniac, which is how she always dances. It’s a wedding and Gemma is standing close, smell the sweat under her perfume close, feel the heat of her body like the sun on your skin close, and with each new move closer and closer, counting eyelashes close. Devon notices Gemma notice the vanishing space between them and the moment screeches to a halt.
Earlier that day, Gemma had caught the bridal bouquet to the cheers of the whole wedding party.
“I met a guy,” Devon says out of the blue.
“A guy?” Gemma leans in, smile teasing like she’s any other friend. “Tell me about him.”
“He’s—” Devon wants to play it cool, she does, but she’s only ever been good at lying to gym teachers. “You know, whatever’s happening between us isn’t happening.”
Gemma doesn’t reply, but she doesn’t deny anything either. Devon had sort of been hoping she’d deny it.
Devon tries again to put it into words, whatever it is. Whatever’s happening between them. “It can’t be happening, you understand? Because I have a brother—”
“It is happening.” Gemma’s hands, which are always warm, take hold of Devon’s. “I understand. Tell me about your guy.”
Ricken is away on some book tour and Devon’s bed is empty. “If you were going to die anyway,” she tells the dark, “maybe I should have just kissed you. If no one was going to get to be happy anyway.”
During an overnight hike Gemma and Devon eat their breakfast together—Ricken wakes up way too early and Mark way too late. They don’t say anything, just sit in the dawn. It’s comfortable. Devon is comfortable and fond.
Devon is the maid of honor. Don’t you have sisters of your own? Devon had joked. I want you there, Gemma had said.
The venue is beautiful. The flowers are beautiful. Devon had admired how confidently Gemma had picked them out, how well she saw what went together. Gemma is beautiful, wearing white. The morning of the wedding had dawned bright and easy. The sun lights her like a photograph.
Gemma’s pacing, had barely managed to sit down long enough to get her hair and her make-up done. “I guess everyone is nervous, right?” she says.
“Mark sure is,” Devon says. “You should see the texts I’m getting.”
“Of course Mark is.” Gemma slumps down in a chair, nervous energy dissipating. “It just seems like it should be simple. Forever your one and only.” Her voice is shot through with doubt. “No one feels that simply, do they?”
Devon doesn’t know what to say. She thought they’d decided not to doubt.
When Devon doesn’t answer, Gemma prompts, “Well, do they?”
Devon feels like an ant under a magnifying glass. “You know I don’t.”
Minutes tick by. Gemma doesn’t move. Devon, eventually, asks the question that’s always on her mind. “But you want this, right? Tell me you want this.”
Gemma hesitates for a moment and Devon gets her hopes up, though she doesn’t know what she’s hoping for. Gemma’s gaze lands on the picture of Mark she’s taped to the mirror. He’s fallen asleep at his desk. Gemma’s smile comes out, shy and helpless. “I do.”
“Okay,” Devon says. “Okay.” Then she smiles, big, because a wedding is a wedding and Devon loves weddings. “Then let’s get you married.”
“So, how are things?” Devon says, putting on her best prying voice.
Mark eyes her suspiciously. “How are things? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know, I hear my brother got married last month. Went on this whole honeymoon. I was wondering if he was ever going to tell me anything about it.”
Mark gives her a blank look, then waggles his eyebrows obnoxiously. “You want to hear about our honeymoon?”
Devon rolls her eyes. “You know that’s not what I—”
“That’s weird, Devon, that’s really weird.”
Devon gives him a good, sisterly shove. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Scout. Really, what would Ms. Miller say. Now are you going to tell me how you are or not?”
“Milter,” Mark says, instead.
“What?” Devon says.
“My scary, strict seventh grade teacher was called Ms. Milter,” Mark says.
“Okay.” Devon figures she’s not getting Mark to talk about his feelings today. She doesn’t need him to tell her, anyway. He steps lighter and laughs like he did as a boy. Just last week, she’d caught him whistling.
Mark surprises her. “It’s great. Just great, I don’t know. I’m not a poet. Makes you wish you were a poet.”
He’s got a look on his face like a lovestruck idiot and Devon can’t resent him, can’t even wish he were different, not when he’s right in front of her, her baby brother in love.
A week after the funeral, Mark had stood in front of Devon’s fireplace and said I don’t even have our wedding pictures up anymore. Now, the picture lives in Devon’s bedroom. Gemma in her wedding dress, smiling down forever from the bedroom wall.
Gemma pushes past Devon with barely a greeting and heads straight for the kitchen. She pours a glass of wine, her movements harsh and short as if she wishes she were breaking it instead.
Devon’s never seen her like this. “Aren’t you—?”
Gemma smiles like a blade coming down. “I aren’t.”
All the air leaves the room at once. “Jesus Christ, Gemma. Are you—oh, you’re not okay. I’m—” Devon sees the look on Gemma’s face, that Saturday afternoon. All gone. She reaches for Gemma and the second she’s in her arms, Gemma crumples. Devon doesn’t think they’ve ever been this close for this long. She doesn’t think Gemma has ever seemed small. They stay that way.
When Gemma lifts her face from Devon’s shoulder at last, she says, “You know I keep—I can’t stop—” she takes a rallying breath. “You should’ve seen Mark’s face—”
It’s just about the last thing Devon expects her to bring up. “Forget about Mark! Gemma, you—”
Gemma laughs, watery. “Would save us both a world of trouble, wouldn’t it? Forgetting Mark.”
Devon looks at her, leaning on the kitchen counter now. Gemma looks like a Hollywood dream of a ghost, tear-stained cheeks and unkempt hair, sick to death of her husband and so very lovely. She looks lonely. God, but Devon wants her, wants to take the loneliness away. Gemma’d probably let her, tonight, Devon realizes, and then it’s all she can think. She reaches for the right answer, for comforting words, but all she hears ringing like a bell in the back of her mind is she would, she would, she would.
Gemma puts herself back together, puts Devon out of her misery. “Don’t answer that,” she says and smooths out the wrinkles she’d made in Devon’s shirt. “Just drink with me.”
Devon enters Gemma’s office and comes face to face with a familiar, if slightly worse for wear, plush staring her down from atop the desk. “You still have that thing?” she asks
“Hmm?” Gemma follows her gaze. “Oh, Fedya. Of course I still have him. He’s crucial to keeping my students in line.”
Devon picks him up. “He’s like—molting.” She shows Gemma her hand, now stained with red fuzz.
“Yeah, it’s one of his best features.” Gemma hands her a tissue. “Here. I’m not positive he isn’t radioactive.”
While Devon cleans off her hands, she asks, “You named him?”
Gemma shrugs. “He needed a name.”
Gemma’s splayed across Devon’s couch. “So would you egg my car regardless, or only if he found out?”
She’s staying at Devon’s for the night. She’s had a fight with Mark. Devon’s losing track of what their fights are about these days.
Devon sighs, wishes she wasn’t tempted. “We can’t, Gemma. Maybe we could’ve once, but—”
“Could we?” Gemma wonders.
Devon continues, unperturbed. She’d know this line in her sleep. “You got married and I’ve got—”
“You’ve got Ricken,” Gemma finishes for her, like it’s a betrayal. After a second, the fight leaves her. “No, I know, I know. We chose. I chose. And it makes me happy all the time. Except when it doesn’t.”
Devon knows what that feels like. She moves in closer. “It’ll be alright in the morning, okay? Everything’s worse without the sun.”
Gemma drops her head to Devon’s shoulder. Either her exhaustion or Devon’s own makes her impossibly heavy. “Nothing lasts forever,” Gemma says, quiet now, soothing.
“Nothing lasts forever,” Devon agrees.
“God, you keep your garden so well,” says Devon, stepping into sunlight. “I keep killing succulents.”
Devon loves Gemma’s garden. It’s like the whole world fit in an upturned shell, and it smells sweet.
Gemma shoots her a look over her shoulder from where she’s tending to a rose bush. “Well, you don’t know my secret.”
“A secret? Care to share? I need all the help I can get.” Moving to join her, Devon catches sight of the look on her face and says, “Oh, I see. It’s because you love it.”
“No,” Gemma corrects, “you just have to keep at it.” Then she thinks about it for a second and adds, “I mean, I do love it, but that doesn’t make the flowers grow. You just keep them alive.”