Aster and The Leopards

Shitstorm

Maxine insisted on driving her home, and she was only happy to type her address on the GPS, not keen on waiting for an Uber. Aster stepped into the fancy black car and for a second the silly thought that it did not fit Maxine's style crossed her mind. Well, at least it probably had bulletproof windows. Another silly thought.

Her skin was getting warmer as the girl on the driver seat, hands tight on the steering wheel, sneaked glances at her. She was probably trying to gauge her reaction to the media harassment they just left behind. Aster thought she should probably say something to soothe her worries, but her mind was wandering in dangerous territory. Despite how open Maxine had been with her that night, she could not open her mouth and let some stupid comparison to Elizabeth Taylor slip – but that's where her stoned brain was taking her.

"I'm sorry about that."

"Why would you be sorry?" Aster was genuinely surprised. "One of the assholes outside actually work with me. I'm the one who should be sorry."

"Well..." Maxine shrugged her shoulders. It was evident she was holding something back too.

"Is it like that every time?"

"Only when someone tips them off, which happens a lot in New York."

"What are they aiming for? It's not like they got anything particularly interesting out of it today."

She deviated her focused stare on the road for a few seconds to look, really look at Aster, and smiled bitterly. "Today."

***

The rest of the ride home was silent, and Aster got out of the car with a quick nod. She watched as the two black cars – Maxine's and her security guard's – disappeared in the corner and took a deep breath for the first time in hours.

It took her a long time to fall asleep that night. At first, because she was starving and had to get up multiple times to raid the fridge. And then, because her mind could not stop wrapping itself around the thought of Maxine Finlay and go to rest. She disentangled her legs from the sheets once again and wandered around the house doing the most trivial things she could think about at three a.m., like washing dishes and checking for correspondence. At least her Amazon order had arrived.

Unfortunately, said order was a physical copy of Furious Love. Giving up on sleep at that point, she fumbled with the plastic that snugly covered the book and refused to rip apart. Aster sighed and got to her feet again to look for a pair of scissors. Her hands groped around her clothing drawers blindly, but instead of hard plastic, they found soft petals.

"What the...," she murmured, taking a sad-looking daisy from her jeans pocket, and her mind came to a halt. Without processing the facts, she went back to where she left the book sitting on her living room rug and fumbled with it once again, this time being way less careful with the packaging and undoing it with whatever was left of her nails. When the plastic was out of the way, she mindlessly placed the flower on one of the last pages and closed the book – only to give up and open it again, at the introduction.

Aster spent the rest of the dawn with her night lamp on, and if sometimes she imagined Maxine navigating the pages instead of Elizabeth, if sometimes she saw herself on Richard Burton's words, no one would ever know.

***

When her alarm rang at 7 a.m., Aster had been napping, still sitting on the bed, for half an hour. She could complain and cry about it all she wanted, it was no one's fault but hers, and so she resolutely got out of bed and dragged herself around the house to get ready for the day.

Despite the lack of sleep and the burning feeling on her throat, Aster was in a good mood when she entered the Culture Club headquarters, iced coffee in hand. Aster knew what it was, she was aware of the particular nature of the thrill she was feeling walking around town with her headphones on. But, for now, it was better not to look at it too closely, or else she'd become an unproductive mess.