"Hey, I haven't seen you in forever! How have you been?"
Anne snapped out of her daydreams to a dark-haired stranger sliding into her booth.
"I was just talking to Bob the other day and he said you have a new job," the newcomer persisted. She leaned forward in her seat and whispered, "There's a guy who won't leave me alone—over by the pool table, red shirt. What is he doing?"
Anne looked out of the corner of her eye. She could see a guy in a red shirt leaning against the pool table. He stared at them before turning away and setting his glass down with a thump. "I think you're safe," she whispered, before leaning back. "I don't remember telling Bob about my new job," she said, getting caught up in the make-believe, "but it's going really well so far! I'm reading to preschoolers and helping them make up stories, and they all have such awesome imaginations." That wasn't a lie. Just that day, she'd listened to a little girl telling her a story about a world in which people used peaches as hot-air balloons and eggplants as boats.
"That sounds like fun," said the other one. "What about school?"
"I'm writing an essay on nature in literature," Anne said. "There's so much to think about! There's metaphorical nature, novels with man versus nature conflicts, and nature that's more sympathetic to humans…I'm particularly interested in the role of nature in stories with only one human character, or only two human characters." She abruptly snapped her mouth shut and took a sip of her drink. "What about you?"
"I'm in pre-med," the stranger said. She glanced over her shoulder at the man in the red shirt, who wasn't paying the pair any attention. "Thank god he's leaving us alone. I'm sorry about that. I'm Gil."
"You're welcome," Anne said, looking at Gil's hand where it was clenched tightly around her drink. "Gil?"
Gil laughed and covered her eyes with one hand. "I'm a swimmer, so when I was a kid my friends called me Gills, and that turned into Gil."
Anne laughed. "That's really cute! I wish I'd had a nickname like that. I'm just plain Anne—I used to hate it."
"Anne's a beautiful name. Much nicer than Gil," she said, grinning and flashing her beautifully white teeth. "Are you here alone?" She looked around the booth and gestured at the empty glasses. "That would be a lot of alcohol, if you were."
Anne noted that Gil's hand had loosened around her drink and her shoulders had dropped from where they'd hovered around her neck. "Oh no, I'm here with my roommates, and my roommate's girlfriend." Anne pointed at some young women on the dance floor. "Priscilla, Stella, Philippa, and Phil's girlfriend Joan. I'm sure you'd get along with them all." She checked her watch. "Actually, we were going to head home to play some video games soon, if you'd like to join us."
"I'm not sure I'd be friends with girls who left their friend in their booth all alone," said Gil, "but I'll come along so I can spend more time with you." She sent a whisper of a wink towards Anne, who felt her cheeks heating up. She hadn't wanted to admit to herself that she was hoping to meet someone tonight. Sure, being around Phil at a gay bar tended to attract women and men alike, but Anne didn't have what Stella called "moves."
"They wanted me to dance with them, but I twisted my ankle last week and it's still not totally healed," Anne said. "And I love watching everyone dance and making up stories about them. See that girl with the Afro? I think she's going to propose to her girlfriend tonight. She's gotten all dressed up, and she looks happy and nervous."
"I think you're right," said Gil, propping her chin in one hand. "And that girl over there, hovering by the booth? I think she's in the closet and this is her first time at a gay bar."
Anne stirred her cocktail with her maraschino cherry. "Are you a lesbian? Or bi?"
The corner of Gil's mouth quirked up, not quite a smile. "I suppose lesbian comes the closest. I enjoyed dating my ex-boyfriend, but I don't think I'll end up with a man. You?"
Anne dropped her cherry and watched it drift to the bottom of her glass. She always asked for drinks without ice, so it had a clear path down. "When I was younger I discussed my ideal man—because of course at that age I thought it would be a man—with my best friend Diana, and then I discovered that that ideal was kind of impossible. I also dated someone who matched that ideal and he was so boring." Gil chuckled. "So then I thought, who really needs romance? It's a pretty idea, but media makes it out to be such an idealized thing, and speaking as someone who spends all my time in my imagination, there's no way real life would match up to that, and I have such wonderful friends." Anne smiled out at her friends on the dance floor. "Then Phil helped me realize that I was in love with all my female friends, so I thought I was a lesbian for a while. But I'm discovering men aren't awful, either. At least when they're not my ex Roy."
"Hold on," Gil said, frowning. "Do you go to Redmond?"
"Yes, I do, why?"
"Is that Roy Gardner?"
Anne burst out in surprised giggles. "Yes!" She collected herself and leaned forward. "How do you know Roy?"
"We have an English elective together. I can't believe you dated Roy! What a—" Gil stopped herself.
"Pretentious softboy with no sense of humor?" Anne supplied.
"Yeah, basically," Gil said, the corners of her eyes crinkling. "I also went on a few dates with his sister Dorothy."
"Oh, I love Dorothy!" Anne enthused. She was about to say more when the girls came up to join her.
Phil twined one arm around Anne's waist and leaned her head on Anne's shoulder. "Hey!" she said to Gil. To Anne, she added, "I didn't know that you knew Gil Blythe. Imagine the parties we could have had!"
"You know Gil?" Anne asked.
"Hun, you know me, I know everyone on campus!" Phil said, sliding into the booth next to Anne. Joan sat on Phil's other side, with Pris and Stella joining Gil. "Do you know everyone, Gil darling?" Anne flushed with annoyance. Normally she loved Phil's pet names and her natural charm, but tonight she cursed it.
Gil looked around the group. "I know you, Phil, and of course I know Joan." The two nodded to each other. "I think you've brought the others along to parties, right?"
"Didn't we have English together last semester?" Priscilla asked. "You were so good at interpreting poetry."
"Oh, that's right," Gil said easily, smiling. "So, Anne said something about video games?"
"Oooh, yes, come back with us!" Phil said, grinning. "It's not too late to pick up some booze. We could make a party of it!"
"You have a collection of five girls and it's not a party, but six girls is?" Joan asked.
"This is Gil we're talking about," Phil said mysteriously. Gil winked at Phil so quickly Anne almost thought she imagined it, except it highlighted her beautiful eyelashes. Curses. Anne could strangle Phil right now.
"Shall we go?" Priscilla fished in her bag for her phone and checked the time.
"Let's go!" Phil agreed, smiling. The girls all piled out of the bar and walked home in a clump, laughing. The warm early-fall air, still slightly sticky, swirled around bare legs and arms. Anne regretted her choice of leggings under her skirt, though it felt odd to wear a skirt and Docs without leggings. She tagged a little behind the others, as she sometimes did, and Gil worked her way out of the group to walk beside Anne. Anne took advantage of that to look Gil over more closely. She wore her hair in an elegant swoop, longer on one side and shorter on the other, in such a way that it framed her strong cheekbones and jaw. She wore no makeup.
"Like what you see?" Gil asked her softly, and Anne blushed.
"You have a very storybook face," Anne replied, deciding that Gil seemed to like her and that she could reveal her slightly oddball side.
Gil stopped walking and turned to look at her. "A storybook face." Anne loved her smile-it seemed to start on one side of her mouth and move to the other, lighting up her whole face in the process.
"Like...Vasilisa, maybe."
"Who's that?" Gil said, but she didn't seem to be listening.
"Beautiful Russian princess who…" Anne trailed off. They were standing just on the edge of a puddle of yellow light cast by a street lamp, which threw Gil's face into sharp relief. She seemed to be looking down at Anne's lips, and Anne was drawn to Gil's-with immense effort she recaught her train of thought. "...she eventually marries the prince, but she works hard to get there."
"That's a shame," Gil said. "I think it would have been much more interesting if she'd married a princess, don't you?" She held out a hand between them and Anne, mesmerized, reached up to take it. Gil's hand was warm and dry and soft, so Anne took the other one too. Her hands tingled.
"Always more interesting with two princesses," Anne agreed. She hesitated a moment, feeling her way through the air between them, rich with possibility. She dropped one of Gil's hands and continued to walk along the sidewalk, their friends now a block ahead of them. She glanced over at Gil. "I'm interested to see how this story goes, are you?"
Gil swallowed, her eyes flickering over Anne's face before coming to rest on her eyes. "Very interested."
"Glad to hear it." Anne arched one eyebrow at Gil before beginning to swing their hands in between them. She thought to herself that they would be in for a most intriguing night.