#debtam

When Tammy wakes, it’s to a budding tingle in the base of her palm and a numbness in her fingertips. She forgets where she is, for one small moment, bliss swirling around in her head, behind her eyes, and then she opens them to chestnut waves. They wash away with the tide. She’s surprised she didn’t drown through the night. Surprised the current didn’t pull her in.

She looks at Debbie’s face and it hurts, almost, to see her so close, to be so close that she can see the pores in her skin and the way each individual hair of her brow turns. Her hand is tucked under Deb’s cheek, cradling the side of it, and Debbie’s leg is tucked between her own, their ankles locked. I don’t like hugs that much, thank you. Hand shake? Tammy’s head starts to ache. Paradox on paradox on paradox.

Debbie Ocean, criminal mastermind, needs your hand to hold in the dark, scared of trusting too hard, wins every game of Monopoly, squeaks when sneezes. Never passes go and collects two hundred in real life; always on Park Place, waiting to topple you, waiting to catch you at your weakest, ready to capitalize on your oversights. No reason to collect two hundred when she gets the world thrown at her feet just from being present, from being where no one else could ever be.

What time is it? 9:42. Thank you, clock on the wall. Have to hurry. Tick tock, tick tock. We have to go before the tide comes in again, don’t want to watch the castle wash away.

“Deb.”

It sounds rough coming out of Tammy’s mouth. Like sand on her tongue, grainy and filthy and guilt-ridden. Taken from the earth by accident.

“Debbie…” She strokes over a cheekbone with the thumb that Deb is laying on. Uses her other hand to rub at her bare shoulder, and Debbie shifts a little. The comforter slips down, past her breasts and to the middle of her torso, just above her navel, and Tammy, without much second thought, gazes at her. Breathes her in. Thinks about how easy it is to appreciate Deborah from afar. How, up close, it’s almost like you’re obligated to do so, like you owe it to yourself to worship every aspect of her. Tammy slides her hand along her arm and then down to her flank. All smooth skin until it’s not. There’s a scar right across her abdomen, and it’s absolutely ugly, raised and glossy and raw. She knows it’s from a biking accident in Debbie’s youth. She also knows that whenever other people ask about it, Debbie tells them everything but the truth.

No one knows but you. Lips on her own for the first time, and then a second, and a third, and infinity and so forth. Bitterness creeps in. That was said often enough, wasn’t it? No one. Who taught you that? No one, with a grin. Who else is coming? No one. Two tickets only. One way.  Who is she? No one, Tammy.

She traces over the scar with a tenderness she knows she will probably regret. “Wake up, please,” she whispers, and it’s almost a plea, like she needs Deb’s permission to leave. Needs Deb to tell her to go, that she doesn’t need her here now, that she has kids at home who are waiting on her.

“Hm?”

“I need to go home.”

She pulls at her top lip with her teeth. Deb doesn’t open her eyes. Doesn’t give much acknowledgment at all, really, except for an unintelligible mumble and a vague raise of her eyebrows. She says it again, quieter this time, the words barely making it past her lips before they crumble and fall. Tammy watches Deb’s breathing start to shallow out and knows she’s awake, knows she’s ignoring her statement, and she groans on the inside. Too old for games, she wants to say. Too old, too experienced in how you work, what makes you tick.

“You don’t have to.”

What? “I do, Deb.” Does she? Yes, always. Her family needs her. The house is probably in ruin. The aftermath of Mount Vesuvius on Pompeii, a disaster worth tending to, something she knows she’s good at.

“You could stay.”

She could stay. A theoretical ‘could’. She could stay, and suffer through the looks that Debbie throws to Louise when she thinks that Tammy isn’t looking, cook up meals for the three of them, complain about the heating in the loft. Be the one that’s there when they need someone else.

Tend to their emotional sores, lick over their wounds like a dog. Come here, puppy, want a treat?

Of course.

Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred. Stay here. Pay rent. Go bankrupt. Let me have you.

“Yeah, right.” Tammy wiggles her fingers. Debbie’s cheek is still resting in her palm, both of her hands trapping Tammy’s arm, one hooked under it and one draped over it to keep the blonde in place. Their legs are still intertwined, and much to Tammy’s surprise, she’s the first to undo their little puzzle. With a halfhearted chuckle, she pulls her hand away and rolls over onto her back. Sits up after a minute. Don’t want to get too dizzy, old gal, take it easy.

She doesn’t have to look over to know that Debbie isn’t even looking at her, not like she wants her to, like she’s got the missing piece to each heist in the palm of her hands, like she has the world in her pocket.

Debbie has her eyes closed.

Tammy gets up. Finds her clothes amongst the mess of Deb’s room, scoffs at how an almost-forty-year-old could have the organizational skills of a fifteen-year-old. After tugging her socks on, perched on the side of the bed while Debbie squeezes out the weak parts of her sleep, she clears her throat and reaches over to rub over Deb’s hip. She gets a glimpse of earthy brown in response. A groan. Legs kicking off sheets. Debbie’s body, pale and lithe and pure in the morning’s light. She looks colder than she is. Like if you touched her, your fingertips would turn blue, and your breath would fog, and you’d freeze, but Tammy knows that it only gets cold in the north, and that the further south you travel, the softer the ground gets.

She looks away and knows Debbie is smirking at the back of her head.

“Have you seen my keys?”

Yes, they’re on the counter. Tell me to leave. Speak your mind, I want to hear it. I want it to bite.

“Come on. Leaving so soon?”

“Yes, Deb. I have to go. I have kids and a husband that doesn’t know how to cook breakfast.”

“Oh, yeah.” Deb’s voice is airy and loose. A deadpan that she has always had and always will have, probably, because who is Debbie Ocean without sarcasm, and what is sarcasm without someone to believe it? “I forgot about them.”

She’s starting to grow frustrated. Fuck you, Debbie. I wanted Boardwalk. Couldn’t you at least give me Boardwalk? Something of my own to hold, something to cherish without feeling overshadowed, taunted. Craved. Life’s second biggest profit, because the first is you.

“That’s not funny,” Tammy mutters, wiping her palms on her jeans as she stands. You can’t do that, Deb. You can’t forget about the other property. Boardwalk is crucial. You need it, too.

“It kind of is.”

“Debbie,” she warns, and she feels an edge creeping up from her chest. Hornets in her lungs. She presses her fingers to her temple and starts to walk towards the door. Send out the swarm, no regrets! Destroy the hive, you reap what you sow, the fields flood and you have no choice but to pass go. You’ll need the two hundred when the world disappears, Deb.

Tammy leaves the bedroom and makes her way into the kitchen. Coffee would help. Coffee would bring clarity to everything. Clear out the fog. Dust out the cobwebs. Leave the spider without a home.

Debbie comes down around the second cupful, keyring around her middle finger. She waves it around. The keys make an obnoxious sound that Tammy hates but smiles at nonetheless.

“You’re a gem.” She means it. Kind of. Hard to open up, beautiful on the inside. Beautiful and sharp. Don’t press too hard, you’ll get cut.

“You made coffee?”

“Well, you take forever to get up, so…”

“I don’t mind.”

Tammy nods and sips from the mug in her hands. No creamer. A little sugar. Helps her wake up to something sweet every now and then. They stand in shared silence for a little while, Debbie propped against the island and Tammy opposite her against the corner of the counterspace, the junction between the oven and the sink. The keys go round and round on Deb’s finger. Tammy watches. Thinks about how her finger would taste now. Now that all of the adrenaline and shock and vulnerability has worn off. Like metal, probably. Like blood.

She finishes her cup of coffee and turns to rinse it out in the sink. Takes a little too long. Am I stalling? Tick tock, Tam-Tam. The tide’s coming in. She pushes her hand into the mug until it cramps, feels the hot water burn into her skin, watches as her fingers turn pink, doesn’t stop until the last stubborn grain of coffee gives way to the water.

Arms wrap around her waist from behind, and she feels a nose tuck into her hair. Then she feels lips on her neck, not kissing but touching there. A resting place.

You’re always welcome, come on in, make yourself at home.

Debbie holds her waist with one hand and presses the other to her gut, and then sinks it lower. Holds the button of Tammy’s jeans with one hand. For one terrifying second, Tammy thinks she’ll pop it open. She doesn’t. Deb pulls the front taut, drags the zipper up, lets go. Bites playfully at Tammy’s neck and pulls away.

The older woman turns around, cheeks flushed beyond her control. “Deb,” she sighs, head tilting in the same way it always does around Debbie Ocean, exasperated and a little tired.

“What’d you want me to say? ‘Tam-Tam, your zipper’s down. I can see your panties.’ I’m not a perv.”

“You obviously are if you were looking at my fucking panties.” It’s playful. Some of the tension dissipates, and Tammy catches herself smiling without thinking about it. When was the last time she did that? Last night, maybe. Only around Deb.

“Okay. Okay, I deserve that.”

“Hand ‘em over.”

Cool nickel presses into her palm, and she curls her fingers around as much as she can, but Debbie’s hand remains, holding onto the thin piece of keyring. Tammy raises an eyebrow. “What now?”

“Tax,” Debbie insists, head bobbing as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. Fascinating, truly. Her eyes don’t change with anything she says, not even when she’s laughing. Everything that comes out of her mouth could mean everything or nothing, and you would never know the difference. Tammy sure didn’t.

“Tax?” Her brows furrow so deep that she thinks they might meet in the middle. What does she want, a trade for Tammy’s keys? Another job? Here’s your life, but only if you leave it behind. The profit of Boardwalk falls, weeping, at the feet of Park Place.

Debbie nods again and, tightening her grip on the keyring, points to her mouth with her spare hand. “Just one. Then I’ll let you go.”

“You’ll let me go?” Tammy echoes. Her face relaxes, eyebrows raising as she weighs the option in her palm, the fingerpad of her index stroking over the ridges of her car key. “Okay.” The tide rolls in and the castle collapses. The moat’s no use for the Ocean.

She leans in and presses her lips, shy and careful, to Deb’s, and then she pulls away and tugs hard at her keys. “Thank you,” she exaggerates. She starts to thank Debbie for letting her stay the night, especially since it was so late when they’d gotten home, and her house is far away, so far away, into the countryside, and that really, she didn’t have to, but thank you, Debbie. And then she feels another kiss, one much harder and more demanding than she could have given, one that takes and takes until she can’t really breathe. But then she can. Deb pulls away and leans back against the counter. Watches Tammy’s face struggle to convey how she feels; watches Tammy struggle to figure out how she feels.

“What has gotten into you?” Asking Tammy to stay. Hiding her keys. Teasing her. Getting up in the morning, standing with her as she drank her coffee, being present. Kissing her on the lips, unprovoked, outside of the bedroom. These were new. She didn’t know how to feel about them, because everything that was ever new with Deb was always another thing to trip on.

“What can I say? Prison changed me.”

Something about the way it leaves her mouth lets Tammy know that it’s not completely true. Whatever it is, there’s an aspect to the statement that throws it off, like it’s not the whole story, like Deb has something to hide.

Debbie’s mouth fights a curl at the corners and Tammy just chuckles, once, hard through her nose, and walks to the door.

“Yeah,” she says, and that’s it. She slides her shoes on.

“I’m serious.”

“I know you are, Deb. You’re serious about everything.” Tammy flashes her a look, caves into a smile, opens the door. Picks up the card of chance and takes a long, long look at it, all brown eyes and silk robe and long legs. Go to Mediterranean Avenue. Pass go. Collect two hundred.

You won’t win this game, Deb.

“Tammy.”

“Give it a rest. Thank you for letting me stay, really.” She has one foot out of the door. Her eyes linger on Debbie. She could stay. Probably. Looking at Deb, now, she sees something she hasn’t seen in a decade, maybe. Maybe a little less. Something in her eyes.

The sheep comes out to graze while the wolf is away. The fruit falls from the tree, soft and ripe. The bees make way for the beekeeper. Boardwalk’s profit appeals to Park Place. The game is off.

Tammy closes the door and walks to her car.

An arm slings across Tammy’s shoulders one second and a mouth is covering hers the next. There’s no need to wonder who, not when the act is accompanied by Debbie’s low hum, the feel of her body pressed against her own one Tammy knows well—a souvenir from years past.  

There are hands, then, nudging and wanting, and it doesn’t take much to pull her into a bedroom, get her up against the wall: thighs parted, back arched, hands on Debbie’s shoulders.

Voices filter through the open door, the low rumble a reminder that they aren’t alone in the house, their ragtag team of criminals two rooms over. Celebrating their riches.

Tammy sighs, Debbie’s name caught in her throat, and Debbie smiles against skin, her laugh light and airy. It’s easy, this, and god.

Sometimes Tammy hates it, the flippancy. The way Debbie will kiss her as if it’s nothing at all: simple but rarely sweet. They’re not serious—never have been—but it doesn’t stop the dull ache, the buried want.