“Heh,” Gemma says. “Right. I see where this is going.”

“I will never forget how hurt she looked.” There is something desperate and haunted to Ava’s tone. “When she understood that this boy was not going to touch her. What this boy would do was stand over her, frightened, gawking, like she was a helpless baby deer.”

Ava swallows again. “I’ve never forgotten how hurt she looked, Gemma. And then she rolled to the other end of the bed and went to sleep. The next day,” she says, “I woke up and she was gone. My uncle was on his bed, eating a Danish. He said, ‘Get the fuck up. We have to go.’ He was in his boxers and had fucking morning wood, too. Like his fucking cock was just—anyway, whatever. But he looked so disgusted talking to me, and he had this danger in his voice.

“This’ll sound silly, hey?” Ava laughs nervously. “But like: I thought he was going to hit me. And on the drive back home he said, ‘I woulda been all over her like a pig in shit.’”

There was a long silence. “I understand,” says Gemma. They didn’t speak for some time, so she adds, “How’s your uncle these days?”

Ava unpauses the TV. “I don’t know,” she says quietly. The rain is still coming down, a staccato of car-wash sprays on glass. “I really don’t know.”

The rain stops as they get ready for the party. The sky is the colour of bathwater. Ava puts on music and opens another red. Olive is finishing washing the dishes and she pours herself a glass. “Where are you going?”

“The roof!” Ava says. “Work party!”

“What are we listening to?”

“The internet.”

“Har-dee-fucking-har.” Olive falls into the corduroy recliner and swivels around.

“Can we put one of the shades up?” says Gemma.

“Sure.”

“We live like vampiiiiiires,” sings Olive as Gemma crosses to the window and sun floods the room.

“Megan Nash,” Ava says, uncapping lip liner by the living room mirror, “is who we’re listening to. She’s from Saskatchewan.”

“Pretty song,” says Gemma.

Olive motions her thumb at Ava. “This bitch and her sad girls with guitars.”

“Gotta be good at something.” Ava smirks.

“Hey,” says Olive, “are they fixing the A/C?”

“I’ve called a bunch.”

“Philistines.”

Gemma laughs. She’s putting on a black tie-neck blouse over a green pencil skirt. “Even a place like this, landlord doesn’t fix anything, eh?”

“You know it, girlfriend.” Olive swivels again. It’s kinda fun, Gemma thinks, seeing Olive lively in this way.

“Oh hey,” Gemma remembers, “I saw a pair of ankle boots in the entranceway? Can I borrow them? The shoes I have don’t go with this outfit.”

“They’re Olive’s,” Ava says. “Olive?”

“Sure, go crazy.”

Gemma steps through the curtain of beads into the entryway. She tries on the boots—they fit, her feet clicking on the tile. The other two women laugh about something over the music. Through the curtain Gemma sees Ava standing in her bra and underwear, her hair shining in the sunlight. Gemma kneels to take the boots off.