you and i, friend [cordy]

…will go down in history

friday, mid afternoon, 7 may 2004

They weren’t fooling anyone, sitting there on a bench, two bottles wrapped in black plastic bags. But they had the dog, and most people looking in their direction were looking at Bonnie. Besides, Hyde Park was big; no way Edith and Cordelia were the only ones day drinking in the sun.

Bonnie was napping; she had chased after a bird but that had been enough, apparently, after walking a few blocks from the flat. But that flat felt stuffy, small, when Edith was sitting there with nothing to do, nothing to write.

“Dunno what to do now,” she said, setting her bottle down on the bench space between them and leaning forward a little to check that Bonnie’s lead was still wrapped around her foot. She had just told her that her column in the June Quibbler would be her last, and she shrugged as it replayed in her head. It was the right thing to do—she needed to do something more now that she had this book to her name—but so far it seemed like the only thing. Another book seemed like a logical next step, but there wasn’t anything left in her brain to put on paper.

Edith sighed, picking up her beer again. “At least you’ve got your second book already in the works,” she added, watching a rollerblader in the distance for a few seconds before turning her head to look at Cordy. “How’s that going, by the way?” She should have been asking about it more, but up until a few days ago, she couldn’t focus on things that weren’t explicitly about her.

@Cordelia Leighton

Bonnie was nice. She was a good dog, Cordelia thought. The thought was slow, lazy, taking its time curling through her mind, twisting through the lovely pink fog of addictive substances. Cordelia reached down to scratch at the dog's head as she slept.

Cordelia had been crossfaded since eight pm on the first of May, and had no intention of being sober for the rest of the month.

Perhaps 'intention' wasn't quite the right word -- she had, briefly, considered being sober for the event, like she had been the first anniversary. That one had been particularly bad for her -- the shock of the passage of linear time had shaken her out of her dissociative fugue state and she had cried for days. The year after she had drunk, and cried, but it had felt -- less. Just, less.

Now she was well in the practice of self-medication, both throughout the year and this month in particular. Nicotine for work, cannabis to soften the edges of the world, wine to dull the pain of memory, draught of peace to stop the churn of 'what-ifs',  caffeine to keep her awake and away from nightmares. It was the furthest thing from healthy, but, hey, Michael had gotten blackout drunk for a full weekend in April. It wasn't as if she was alone in wanting to drown, this time of year.

"Hm?" Cordelia said, Edith's words -- like everything she had said since meeting Cordelia out here -- took time to process through the cotton in her ears. "Seems time, though," she said slowly, sipping at her bottle. "Like, the book, it -- its bookends, on the column, isn't it? You've got to do something -- nouveau. Change the discourse again, sumthat. Get out of the Quibbler."

Perhaps she should have warned Edith that she was going to be this well out of it. Oh well. Cordelia took another swig.

Cordelia watched the muggle skater with unmerited focus. "Oh, it's good," Cordelia said, with a small shrug. "It's... it's going." Cordelia blinked twice, slow. "Told my boyfriend about it, finally. Last week." She wondered when Edith told hers about her book -- not that it was any of her business. Except, she wondered, and she wondered if it all was different when your boyfriend wasn't the center of a whole chapter of your book. "Went -- it went."

Cordelia wasn’t really paying attention to her, and Edith shrugged at her hm?. It wasn’t important enough to repeat herself. It wasn’t a conversation that really needed two sides, anyway. Edith just needed to hear herself talk, as if she needed to hear out loud that she had zero plans for her future. (She did not.)

But she was paying attention, apparently. Edith nodded, having another drink. It did seem like it was time to quit the magazine, didn’t it? “Yeah,” she agreed, nodding again, slower. She could find something nouveau. But what the fuck was new for her? In the world of writing it would be… children’s books? Something that had a happy ending. In the world of careers in general it would be… who the fuck knew? She wasn’t qualified for anything.

At least Cordy’s other book was good. It was going. That was something. And at least she had this other thing, wouldn’t be just one and done with her published book.

She had told her boyfriend, though, and she didn’t make it sound like it had gone very well. “Oh.” It went, she said, and Edith nodded again. She could interpret that however she wanted, but she figured she knew what she meant. Edith had another drink, weighing the bottle in her hand to try and figure out how many swallows she had left. Not too many, it seemed.

But that conversation--the one after Fergie had read her book--was still fresh in her mind, but he had been supportive when she had told him about the book in the first place, and this didn’t sound like that. Edith sniffed as she glanced down at her dog again. “What did he say?”