Logs:Ridiculous

Ridiculous
CN: reference to antisemitism
Dramatis Personae Polaris, Wendy
In Absentia	2020-09-22 "You against a pack of angry Mormons? For that I'd almost set foot in their church."
Location <NYC> Polaris, Wendy, and Winona's Apartment - Lower East Side
This tiny apartment is on the fifth storey of an aging and ill-maintained walk-up, its walls dingy and paper-thin. The living room immediately inside the entrance has space for a couch and a coffee table, but little else, though its windows offer a commanding view of the narrow side street below to anyone who cranes far enough to look past the rusting fire escape. The kitchen is tiny and has no windows at all, but being partly open to the living area is at least not completely claustrophobic. One bedroom is almost the size of the living room, which doesn't say much, and the other is much smaller -- really only intended as a study or home office -- to make room for the single closet-sized bathroom. Even with mostly cheap, second-hand furniture, the place has grown steadily more homey over the months. A creaky futon is flanked by an empty food service drum on one side and two stacked milk crates on the other. In place of a coffee table is a long, low bench with a flowery sarong as a tablecloth. Potted herbs line the windowsills, and whimsical metal sculptures line the walls and tables (or the items serving in place of them). A brightly colorful fused glass mezuzah is mounted in the doorway, while a set of matching candlesticks and goblet sit on a disintegrating radiator cabinet in the living room. The weather had turned just a touch warmer to make the Autumn Equinox a pleasant day, but the sun is setting now and the chill setting in with it. Polaris has been quiet this afternoon--uncharacteristically so, and restless: home from work, into the shower, onto the couch, tucked into bed, then out onto the fire escape, where she's been ever since without even looking in the refrigerator. She's wearing a soft black t-shirt with a faded white graphic of a compass and the cursive words "the light and the sea" and green pajama pants adorned with graphics of black cartoon lightning bolts. Her hair is loose and fall across the sides of her face like an occasionally wind-stirred curtain. She hold a cigarette in her hand--though hasn't lit it yet--and The Book of Mormon in her lap. Wendy has been home more recently, sweaty and tired after a day of deliveries. She's just out of the shower, hair still damp around her shoulders, dressed now in hunter green pajama pants covered in silhouettes of bears and a soft cream-colored sweater. She emerges onto the fire escape with a very Lisa Frank-esque blanket draped around her shoulders, a vividly colored tiger in an equally technicolor jungle. She has a mug in each hand, hot cocoa, and offers one to Polaris before shedding the blanket to drape around the other woman instead. Her eyes fall to the book, though she takes a seat beside Polaris without a word. Polaris looks up when Wendy arrives, receives the cocoa, her eyes wide with surprised pleasure. "Oh shit. It's officially cocoa season." She looks more perplexed at the blanket, but at a delay pulls it tighter around her shoulders with a murmured "Thanks." Her gaze follows Wendy's. "I know you're gonna think I've lost it, but...I might actually do this." "Officially," Wendy agrees, her head dipping to lap at her own mug. Her eyes squeeze slowly shut as Polaris speaks. She takes a few more laps of the cocoa, slender fingers tightening around the mug. "Have you even been to a service with him?" "I didn't mean right away," Polaris complains. "I'm gonna ask to go with him this week. Maybe...maybe they'll turn out real rad. I mean, they count him among their number." Despite these word she slumps, taking a slow sip of her cocoa. "Pretty sure I'll get treated to a different standard, though." "He's a doctor. And grew up with them." Wendy plucks the book up from Polaris's lap, flipping it open to a page at random and peering at it. "For I, Nephi, have not taught them many things concerning the manner of the Jews; for their works were works of darkness, and their doings were doings of abominations." She hands it back, taking another small sip of cocoa. "Maybe they'll be real rad." Her eyes have closed again, her posture hunched forward over her cocoa. "It's really that serious?" Polaris's shoulders pull in tight. "He doesn't believe that. He pushes back--there are others who do, too. There's fucked up shit in a lot of scriptures. It's always up to people--living or dead--to reckon with that." She drops a hand to the book, fingers playing gently over the myriad colorful tabs along its fore-edge as though they were piano keys. "I love him, Wendy. I mean I'm in love with him. Hard." "He is," Wendy concedes carefully, "pretty excellent." At first this is all she says. Her forefinger taps slowly at her mug, her toes scrunching against the cold metal stair. "Is he serious? About you?" "God, he's fucking amazing," Polaris says dreamily. "I've never felt like this about anyone before. Ever." Her voice is quiet, awed. The question, though, she doesn't answer at once, sipping her cocoa instead. Then, "I don't think he'll ever be serious about me if there's no prospect of us--you know, getting married and all that." "Married." Wendy echoes this pensively, a smile wisping across her face. She cracks an eye open, peeks sidelong at Polaris. "I'm trying to picture you. A horde of small children. Writing on your mommy blog about perfecting your recipe for -- cheesy potatoes." She leans sideways, shoulder leaning up against Polaris's. "He's a very complicated man. Even outside the --" A small hesitation. "Church." The breathy laugh that wells out of Polaris seems to surprise her. "Okay, no. Three children max, and you know my casserole game is strong." She leans back into Wendy gratefully, taking a long pull at her cocoa. "He's allowed to be complicated. I can deal with complicated. I'd deal with a lot, for him." She's quiet a moment, deflating. "I'm being ridiculous, aren't I?" Wendy's quiet laugh answers Polaris immediately, but her words are slower to follow. "I don't know," finally comes, her brows scrunching slow and her eyes tipped down to her cocoa. "I want to say yes. There's already so much in this world that hates us and makes everything difficult. Adding more of that --" Her head shakes, quick. "But there's already so much that hates us and makes everything difficult. Maybe what's ridiculous is not holding tight to the amazing parts, when we find them." "Maybe it's ridiculous either way." Polaris rests her head on Wendy's shoulder, wavy green locks falling across her face again. "You're amazing," she mumbles. "If you tell me this is bullshit and I need to step back, I will. But who knows, maybe it'll be moot when they ban me over throwing hands with the first person to suggest my hair is 'inappropriate.'" Wendy's shoulders shake, silent. "You against a pack of angry Mormons? For that I'd almost set foot in their church." She takes a longer drink, her smile coming easier. "Almost."