Night Like That (rewritten)

four

The gospel, according to Ivy, of how she met her best friend.

It had been the third year of university, and she'd had no hope about life. One lie that had been fed her was that university was significantly less reading than secondary school, and so she had strived to be a good student until the end of secondary school. Afterwards, she could be a successful bum her parents could show off.

Then she'd joined university and realised it had all been a bunch of bollocks. She needed to study to move to the next semester. She needed to attend class to get those extra points. She needed to exist outside of alcohol and weed as much as she needed to exist within them to have a semblance of a social life. It was actually a shock that her liver had not disintegrated by third year.

One dready afternoon, when the munchies had subsided and her concentration was shot to hell, she decided to cancel all her afternoon engagements (including a class she'd had no business missing), and make way for something other in CBD. It was not going to be the only time she did this, but it was going to be one that remained etched in her mind.

Alone, angry and sort of not sure where she was as she stood in the middle of CBD, she spotted a group of people animatedly talking about something. Upon closer inspection, they seemed to be about her age and were focused on heading somewhere. Hopefully, she'd thought, not class. And as any normal person (normal in the capacity of Ivy, anyway) would have thought, with none of their friends were with them, an abominable sense of direction, and good old boredom, following after was the sanest thing to do.

While she did frequent CBD for class, the only other things she bothered to know were chips joints that housed an almost suspicious amount of rats coupled with gloriously cheap, good and plentiful chips. This, in her world of weed munchies, was enough and so, she never bothered to know anything beyond. This then made sure she was sufficiently surprised when she stepped into an art gallery.

The air was cool, and the ambience was well above her college monetary dalliances. People spoke in that affect that suggested they had never known the glories of rumbling tummies that were held together with only smokie pasua topped with hope, and had she not been kind of lost, supremely alone and mildly interested, she was sure she'd have said something. Alas, concerning stalkers of strangely moustached people could not be choosers and so she went on looking.

Someone, from somewhere, handed her a glass of champagne and who was she to say no to glorious alcohol in the middle of the week? By the time she'd reached the fifth painting, she'd been properly buzzed, and the colours had suddenly become wonderfully vivid.

"This," she said to no one in particular, "reminds me of the hope I had as a child. Mmh, yes, I can see it now," she tapped at her chin and shot her leg forward, "me, at ten, when I still thought I could be a fairy."

"That is an astute observation," someone answered with a light, airy laugh.

She turned around and still buzzed in overpriced champagne, joined in but in giggles. It did not last long as she soon noticed she was, in fact, talking to a fairy.

There she stood, eyes twinkling in delight, her tummy shaking with laughter. She was round in the way that a warm June night would be like - sinful, unlikely. Under the artificial light, her skin glistened, and Ivy wasn't really sure if it was her buzz or if she just glistened like that. It would be entirely unfair, she decided, to be pretty and to also glisten; it was much too greedy for one person. She supposed to be a fairy was to have these things aplenty anyway. After a fashion of purely creepy staring, Ivy was not sure if she was besotted or simply jealous.

"You're pretty," she said plainly, studying her with earnest.

"Oh," she could not mistake the degree at which her smile had dropped. It wasn't by much but it was there.

She quickly reached to recovering. It was neither the time nor place to go gaying about. "You know, like, objectively speaking."

The smile perked back up. "You too!" She perked and maybe part of Ivy had been disheartened - not that she'd had a heart to begin with. It was much too soon to be having a heart anyway.

"So," she went on, barely able to stop looking at her as she returned her gaze to the art in front of her. She hadn't noticed it before but it was apparently that of a shedding jacaranda tree, "What brings you here?"

"Well," said the beautiful girl, "much like you, the art."

Ivy clicked her tongue three times in continuous succession. "I'll have you know, what brought me here was stalking tendencies then what kept me is the overflowing champagne."

"Stalking?"

"Don't look too into it. It's allowed when people think you're pretty," she mused and the girl giggled some more. "Or we can just call it frolicking in a way that followed people for longer than should be legal - for the plot, of course."

"Of course," the girl entertained and Ivy gifted her a smile of her own. "You were saying something magical about this one before I interrupted."

"You're right," she turned to face her. "That was rude, you know. I was in the zone."

"And you cannot see yourself getting back to it? Tsk," the girl shook her head, "are you a true consumer of art if you don't know how to stew artistic thoughts well?"

"I'll have you know I not only let them stew, I help them ferment and this piece, well..." it was not vivid anymore. The magic she had felt vanished and she was of the full suspicion it was because this beautiful girl had come to stand beside her. She'd stolen all of its shine. "It reminds me of my childhood."

"Really now? What part?" She could not help noticing the slight unserious tone and mock to the questions.

Ivy waved her hands about. "The purple. It's like, so there and it talks about... well, there was trauma..."

"Trauma?" She laughed.

"Fuck off," she said through a smile, hands dropping, "I am trying to match up with the ambience of this place and you are not helping."

The girl turned to look at her. She had the kind of smile that turned her eyes into crescents and so she had not been gifted the full sight of them until that very moment. They were a brown others would have called muddy. She would have mused it was the brown at the beginning of the world. Behind them was amused seriousness and in another world, possibly another space, she would have gayed about them then asked to take her to dinner that would last all of three days if not a week. "Match up with this pretentiousness?" She did Ivy a one over. "You're already art, why would you want to be grey in the midst of them?"

When Ivy was sixteen, she has taken an online quiz that showed her what kind of gay she was. She'd gotten the answer delusional and she had been aghast at it. Delusional? Her? She was the most sure headed person she knew and that was counting her hero, Wangari Maathai! But then, at seventeen, she had gotten herself entangled with the love of her life who liked to remind her that she was only ever gay for her. If it were not for her, she would have been with a man. And she had loved the fact that she was the kind of gay that turned straight girls gay.

Then she was nineteen and the turned-gay girl was straight again and she broke up with her via an image text with her new boyfriend who'd flown her to Borabora. She hadn't known Borabora was actually a thing.

She was also not sure if she was to read into the statement as flirty or just girl talk.

She decided it was the latter. "Really?" She twirled. "I was going for nineties Zorro but someone asked me if I was a pirate on my way in."

"I think you look fabulous," she said as she appraised her. "I'm Chastity by the way. Chastity Kioko." She reached out her hand for a shake.

"Ivy Ototi," she shook it.

Ivy knew, that without a doubt, Chastity Kioko was going to spell trouble for her.