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“Is that supposed to be a guard?” Laudna’s voice, vicious from the living room, startles the quiet of her Saturday. Imogen pauses, smiles, lays the shirt she is folding onto the bed. “Do you know what a fucking guard is?”
She ducks her head around the door; what Laudna was doing could only tangentially be described as sitting. “Everything alright, honey?”
“You would think,” Laudna says, with prim condescension, which tells Imogen exactly how aggrieved she is, “that professional athletes, at the Olympics, the Olympics, Imogen, would be able to throw a fucking stone.” She looks to the television, sees easy movement, gentle voices, cool whites that seem pretty soothing. The mess of Laudna’s hair suggests otherwise; Imogen is uncertain why curling would be so enraging.
She says, “Is it… not going well?”
Laudna flaps her hands towards the screen so flailingly that she threatens to take flight. “Look at it!”
“I’m looking. And you’re deeply invested in who wins between,” Imogen squints, “the Czech Republic and Switzerland?”
“I’m invested in what should be a display of basic competency, at the very least.” She flops against the sofa in disgust, hanging her head over the back like a particularly fetching bat, defying the rules of vertebrae.
“Maybe it’s harder than it looks?” Imogen offers, in the spirit of generosity, to which Laudna only scoffs. “Kinda feels like they’d know what they were doing.”
“Well, how do you feel when it’s summer, and equestrian?”
”Can’t say I’ve ever watched it,” Imogen answers honestly, resting her elbows on the back of the sofa, leaning down so she’s closer, so that Laudna doesn’t have to strain her neck. She says, unable to stop herself, “‘Besides, that ain’t exactly the same as ranch-riding, all of those fancy folks, dancing the horses around—“ The side of Laudna’s mouth pulls up. Imogen rolls her eyes. “Alright, you’ve made your point.”
”Hmm,” Laudna hums, teasingly walking her fingers up Imogen’s forearm, a canter, an amble, “I can’t quite picture you doing a little prancing trot.”
“How long exactly have you known this much about curling, of all things?” Imogen asks, unable to hide the laugh in her voice, the bemusing lack of surprise.
“Oh, ages!” Laudna smiles. “At least three days.”
“They slide those stones, right? Try and get ‘em in the circles?” She turns her arm and Laudna walks back down the inside.
”Essentially.” Laudna chews on her lip. “Though, you know, it is a tad more complicated.”
”They use the brush things to steer it?”
”Hmm, well,” Laudna muses, extending to her the patience she refuses the curlers. “Not— I mean, a little, it helps control the curl but steer isn’t what I’d— It’s a disruption of the pebbling, really, frictional modification.”
”Slows it down?”
”Hmm!” she squeaks, and Imogen appreciates the restraint when she’s clearly wrong, tries to ignore how cute she finds it. “Not really, the opposite actually.”
”Complicated?”
“The physics are somewhat opaque,” she confides, then excitedly, “it’s fascinating.”
“Stone closest to the rings. Sounds like horseshoes.” This time the yelp is almost inaudible, and Imogen can’t help but grin.
Laudna sits up. “You’re teasing me,” she says, narrowing her eyes, though her lips twitch with the denial of a smile. “I feel like you’re not taking this seriously, Imogen.”
“I am, I am, I promise,” she says, squeezing the fingers that trace her palm. “I just don’t understand it. Curling isn’t exactly big in small town Texas.”
Laudna tugs on her hand. “Come,” she says, “sit.” Imogen clambers over the back of the sofa, tucks in next to her. The light, fluttery feeling of Laudna’s legs pressed against hers is upsettingly short lived. “Just watch them for a little bit, ok?” she says, unfolding herself and hurtling over the chair arm. “I’m going to— that is, I’ll be a little bit, don’t come look.” She waits for Imogen to nod her agreement. “Shout me if someone decides to perform like they know what the fuck they’re doing.”
Imogen watches. She can’t say she follows what is happening, doesn’t know what a hammer is, or a blank, but it's a little mesmerising, the way that the stones curve, the way the players slide around like they’re hovering. She supposes she can see the appeal. She’s only half paying attention, though, distracted by the scraping from the other side of the door, the humming, the intrigue. Distracted by Laudna, which isn’t exactly new, has been her default state for the past three years.
When Laudna returns it is with an aura of triumph. She excitedly hassles Imogen from the sofa and pulls her into the hall. “Stay there, darling, don’t move,” she says, positioning Imogen with firm hands on her hips, which she is not going to think about later, she’s not. Then Laudna skitters into the kitchen and Imogen is left to do as she is told.
There is a clatter, cursing, the unmistakable sound of the storage cupboard upending itself. Fighting the instinct to help, Imogen remains where she is, takes the opportunity to assess the redecoration of their hallway.
A third of the way down, two mugs stand sentinel, rim up, one pressed against either wall. At the far end, Laudna has desecrated the wood with chalk circles, like she’s trying to summon something unholy.
It is their longest stretch of floor space. Laudna has stationed her at the living room door, the front entrance at the other end of the narrow corridor, the spine of their apartment. Thrown unceremoniously from a protruding rib is the flat headed mop, followed by Laudna, who practically falls back into view and hobbles towards her.
“Alright,” Laudna says, chin raised, shoulders sloping. She cannot quite lift whatever she has dragged from the kitchen, pitches it into Imogen’s unready hands with notable difficulty. “Here you go.” Imogen looks down at her bounty and can do little but blink. Smooth and cold in her hands is the chopping board, a circular marble monstrosity that Laudna liberated secondhand from the market (a goddamn steal, Imogen, look at this texturing!). This, Imogen could maybe understand, if she has grasped what is happening here, of which she is not certain. Slightly more perplexing is the iron, stuck to the top with crisscrossed duct tape.
“There’s only two of us, so I’m skip, rather than the other way around, which is unnecessarily confusing,” Laudna says to her blankness. She folds in half to scoop up the mop, the hinge of a marionette. “Obviously, we can’t mark below the hardwood, and the chalk did a piss-poor job, so imagination it is!” She points to the mugs on either side of the hall and says, “Hog!” Imogen's forearms are starting to burn. Laudna swivels, points her mop at the circles. “House!
“Now,” she continues, with a focus Imogen will not admit to finding frighteningly appealing. “You’re going to throw the stone, ok?”
Imogen looks at the hunkering mass in her hands. “Ain’t that going to break the floor?”
”Well, it’s not a literal throw, please don’t chuck the chopping board, I’m certain something will shatter, and it will probably be me.” Laudna tucks the mop under her arm, covers Imogen’s hands with her own. She is chilled, and soft, and the ache in Imogen’s arms vanishes, along with everything else but the feel of Laudna’s skin against hers.
Laudna guides the stone to the floor, places Imogen’s hands where she wants them. “It’s a push, alright? Push it with enough force that you think it will stop in the house, and I’ll be down there to help.” It takes Imogen a moment to respond, so distracted is she by the way Laudna’s hair falls into her eyes, how this close Imogen can make out individual eyelashes, the faint lines around her eyes. “Imogen?”
“Right,” she says, but her breathy voice does not sound sure at all. She coughs.“Ok. I mean, I don’t think that’s going to do anything, Laudna?”
Laudna smiles, a smug twist at the side of her mouth, and Imogen’s stomach swoops. “We’ll see about that. Give it a bit of spin, alright?” She steps back carefully, gingerly picks her way along the wall until she is half way along the hall, just past the mugs. “Ready?”
Imogen sighs, gives a thumbs up, something she regrets instantly. With very little expectation, Imogen wraps her hand around the iron, and pushes as hard as she can.
The marble slides across the hall in defiance of all logic. Imogen may not have been top of her class at school, but she knows enough about friction to understand that this should not be happening. “What?” she whispers, then louder, “What?”
Laudna whoops, cheers, scoots herself alongside the chopping board on socked feet. She twirls the mop in her hand like a staff. The stone slides, and slides, and keeps sliding. Imogen thinks it is probably going to take a chunk out of the skirting, but the promise of their deposit getting returned died years ago. Then Laudna focuses, and bends, and puts her mop to task.
She sweeps a path in front of the makeshift stone, mop dancing across the floor. The marble twists, rotates, and starts to curve just a little. It slows, staggering towards the chalk circle. Imogen’s mouth falls open.
“How’re you doing this?” she calls, awestruck, unable to look away from the frantic movement of Laudna’s arms.
“Inversely!” Laudna says, brow furrowed in concentration. “Slowing rather than quickening, And I didn’t attach the scourer, what is this, 2015?” The stone slows too quickly, losing momentum, and grinds to a halt with the barest edge nudging the blue chalk. “That counts!” Laudna shouts, throwing her hands into the air. “That absolutely fucking counts!” When she turns back, her elated smile almost touches her ears. “Spectacular work, Imogen. I knew you could do it!”
The exhilaration is catching. Imogen buoys, and laughs, and darts forward to observe their achievement. She takes a step and makes it no further, her foot refusing contact with the floor. She tilts back, and back, and keeps tilting back until all she can see is the ceiling, until the back of her head smacks against the floor with a resounding, wincing thunk.
It doesn’t hurt, not really, but she lets out a long, embarrassed groan of pain regardless. “Imogen?” Laudna’s voice, sounding far away, baffled by her own despondency. “Imogen!” There is the sound of what must be the mop clattering to the floor, a light but frantic patter of footsteps and then Laudna is above her, stunningly beautiful, haloed like an angelic shadow.
“Hi,” Imogen breathes, and she hasn’t even hit her head hard enough to lean on concussion as an excuse.
“Are you alright?” Laudna says, high, worried. Spindly fingers flutter over Imogen’s face, her hair, her shoulders; soothingly cold, so tender that Imogen can’t help but lean into it. “Oh my god, should I call an ambulance? I need to call an ambulance. Do you need an ambulance?”
Aborting her attempt to flee, Imogen grasps at Laudna’s wrist, halting her as gently as she can. “Wait, wait.” Laudna waits, staring hard enough that she could probably see any brain damage through will alone. “I’m fine, it’s alright.”
Prodding delicately at the back of her head, Laudna glares as if she expects to find a haemorrhage. ”Can you wiggle your toes?” Imogen can, and does, though her socks cling uncomfortably. Laudna nods, ticking boxes in her head, and the set of her shoulders relaxes minutely. She rests her hand on Imogen’s shoulder, as if to hold her still, hold her down.
”Laudna,” she says. “Why’s the floor so slippy?”
”Because of the oil,” Laudna says, as if this was something she should have known.
“Ok. Why’s there oil on the floor?”
”How else was the stone going to slide, Imogen?” Which makes sense, it does, it's not like Imogen thought they were performing unknown feats of magic, though with Laudna you could never be sure; everything about her was magical. Though— “Don’t worry!” Laudna says, reading the thought from her face, “It’s not your chilli oil!”
“Oh, thank g—“
“The flakes would absolutely interfere with the contact!”
She pulls a face as if this should have been obvious and Imogen takes a beat too long to say, “So it’s?”
“Oh! The extra virgin Fearne brought from Tuscany.” There are times in her life when Imogen thinks she should be annoyed, but it never seems to manifest. It is impossible to muster anything but fondness.
She says, “That explains the glide, then.” Laudna looks from the shining patches on the knees of her dress, to Imogen, splayed out on the floor of their hall. Guilt starts to harden the sharp line of her jaw, worry and recrimination a thundercloud. “Hey,” Imogen says, the softness of her voice practically indecent, “we got it in the house.” She uses her smile to pull up the edges of Laudna’s, stokes the embers of winsome pride.
Laudna wriggles down next to her, ruining her comportment and cleanliness both. They lay shoulder to shoulder, Laudna’s head tucked against hers. Imogen flexes her fingers, brushes them against the back of Laudna’s hand. She would be content to lie here forever so long as Laudna didn’t move.
“Do you want to watch the rest of the game with me?” Laudna asks. “You know, if we’re not rushing to the hospital.”
”I think I’m going to be spending the next two hours washing fancy oil out of my hair, Laudna.”
”Of course,” she says, regret starting to muffle her spark, scribed in the way she lowers her gaze. “Right.”
”But after?” Imogen says. “That would be— I mean, if you’d like that?”
Laudna turns towards her, the light in her eyes answer enough. Her nose brushes against Imogen’s, her smile soft, crinkling around the edges. Now, as always, Imogen wants to kiss her.
Not today, she thinks. There is always the chance it could go wrong, and today is too happy to ruin. It is the same thing she tells herself every day: tomorrow. Tomorrow she will ask; tomorrow she’ll tell Laudna how she feels.