Day four: Periods of wet snow until evening.
They are huddled at the counter, struggling to eat lunch with minimal elbowroom and barely any service either. It's snowing, and it is that wet, half-rain, half-snow that makes you really stop and consider if you actually need to go outside at all before you leave the building. Today the two of them decided no, that even though it isn't the best eating place around, they would opt for the café attached to the lab rather than venture into this miserable weather.
The only trouble is, it seems everyone at the lab has had the same idea, because the place is a mob scene and their punishment for leaving the office a fraction after midday is that they have to make do with the last two spots in the place, a teeny patch of counter right in front of the cash register.
"I know the one. I've seen her. Kind of stern." Thao stirs a sugar into her coffee and raises her eyebrows. "She's beautiful, though."
"I know." Holly sighs, lifting her glasses and rubbing her sore eyes. "But, like I said, she's kind of difficult. No," she corrects herself. "That's not entirely fair. She's a bit wounded, I think."
"Which makes her difficult?"
Holly nods. She stares into her coffee. She actually cannot believe she is having this conversation. She cannot believe she is having it at this place, on a lunchbreak, or with Thao. But she is.
Holly is not a real problem-talker. She's usually pretty good at working out what she needs, how to solve her personal issues for herself. And generally, she has been in relationships with women who are able to participate in resolving issues. But not this thing with Gail.
But this time, for some reason, Holly feels a need to talk out this thing she is having with Gail to someone. Maybe it is partly because Gail herself won't talk to her. And also, although Holly is pretty sure she has really done all she can do about Gail, and she now just has to wait, she still can't help feeling like she would like to have that confirmed as the advisable thing to do. Besides, Holly concedes to herself, maybe she just wants a little sympathy because this total and utter radio silence at Gail's end is kind of depressing and unsettling.
She knew she wouldn't be hearing from Gail quickly, but it doesn't stop her thinking about her, missing her and spending a touch too much time going over everything and wondering if maybe she could have reacted differently at some point. It is distracting and it is making the days long. So when Holly decided this morning, after another restless night, that she needed to get this thing off her chest, it was just a matter of figuring out whom to talk to.
Usually that person would be Nan. Solid, reliable, wondrous Nan, the friend Holly has loved so much and for so long. They have been through every kind of life and love drama together since university when they met at a party and bonded over, of all things, a love of a cheesy teen television show. It had been friend-love at first sight. Even now, with Nan in Chicago for six months already, their friendship easily survives the 'long' distance. Usually Nan would be the first person Holly would call.
But in this particular instance she knows telling Nan might not be ideal.
What will get in the way of her closest friend's ability to help is her extreme case of Straight Girl Fear, so much so that Holly knows that the minute Nan hears the part where Gail has never been with a woman before, it will colour any interpretation Nan can make of what is going on with Gail. She will just put the blinkers on and blame all the problems on that.
Holly has patiently tried to point out to Nan that her troubles might be blamed just as easily on her penchant for The Unavailable as it is Straight Girls. As attractive to women as Nan is with her tough girl swagger, her beautiful brown eyes and her quick wits, she has managed to leave behind her a string of failed relationships. Holly knows, but can't seem to get Nan to know, this is simply because of her inability to find women who are emotionally available to her.
Nan is so effortlessy and unconsciously charming that she can get even the straightest girls reconsidering their proclivities for a minute. She also can make women who are already in steady, monogamous relationships think that maybe they aren't quite enough for them any more. The problem is, these changes of tide for these women don't always seem to last. Most of the time Nan doesn't seem to care, but recently, there have been one or two who have hurt her badly. And now, after a long nursing of wounds, Nan has thrown herself back into the dating pool with a quick-fix strict no-straight-girl ruling. And Holly is pretty sure she will extend that to her best friend, too, should it come up.
It's funny, because if there is one thing she is fairly certain of, Holly is pretty damn sure that despite that conversation last week, that Gail is having very little trouble dealing with the changing terms of her sexuality. It seems to be the least of her problems. This is something else. Something different, bigger. It seems to be all about her ability to trust and love, not about who she will trust and love. The fact that Gail was formerly straight is probably at this point, the least of Holly's problems.
But Holly is not sure she can make Nan see that, or if she has the energy to try right now.
The other thing that makes her hesitant to talk to Nan is because right now Gail's behaviour right now really doesn't make her look good on paper. And if Holly is going to commit herself to anyone emotionally, she wants Nan to like her. Even if she wasn't hedgy about the straight girl thing, Nan's protectiveness of Holly, paired with Gail's questionable behaviour, might make it difficult for her to see past the question of whether it is worth pursuing at all to a point where she can advise Holly on if she is going about things the right way.
What she needs, she decided this morning, was someone more distanced from Holly's personal life, but who is close enough, and knows her well enough to care. And that person is Thao.
Holly and Thao had made a beeline for each other the minute they met at the lab. Holly had already been there a month when Thao returned from maternity leave to her old post in the blood lab. They instantly forged a connection in that way people do at work when they spot someone like-minded and kindred enough that you know that they will make the working week easier. Holly had been instantly impressed with Thao's unruffled calm, by her quiet but out-there sense of humour and by her incredible intelligence. Thao is cool and chic in a way that Holly will never, ever be, but it is not a threatening or exclusive cool. Holly will admit to herself that there were slightly crush-y feelings earlier on— who wouldn't have? —but they slowly evaporated into an enduring affection for the woman who has become her staunchest work ally over the years
So that is why they are now sitting in this café over a pretty average lunch, huddled against the dull roar of lunchtime trade. And why Holly has tried her best to tell Thao the story of her and Gail so far.
When they have finished eating, the stack their plates together in the small space in front of them because no one seems to want to clear them, and finish their coffees.
"You know when you meet someone, and you completely connect, so there is part of you that knows them in that you get them," Holly tells her, after finishing the briefest possible version of the story. "But at the same time you don't know know them, so you don't know how they are going to react to anything?"
Thao smiles and smooths her dark hair back behind her ear.
"I don't know if I am the right person to talk about new relationships with. I have been with Jeremy for nine years now. I can't even remember what it is like to be in the early days of a relationship." She frowns. "But it sounds like this woman has some fierce need for certainty in her life."
"Yeah, exactly," Holly rests her chin on her hand and contemplates. "I think she's had a bunch of relationships that haven't been too great, though I don't know too much about it."
Thao nods. "And it sounds like maybe she's not too in touch with her feelings, either. And that maybe she is not aware of this fact?"
Holly nods. She has forgotten how perceptive her friend can be. She only has to hear half a story, ever, to grasp all of it.
"I think she might know a little, but not really."
"Jeremy is like that. Even though he is incredibly chilled most of the time, when he gets upset, sometimes it's like he doesn't know why, even when it is glaringly obvious to me. Not always, but sometimes. I don't think his parents were too emotionally available. It's like he knows he's having feelings, but he can't place them or something."
"So, what do you do?" Holly watches a waiter ignore the stack of dishes in front of them and instead go and take a drink of her own coffee, left next to the register in front of them.
"Sometimes I have to actually point it out to him, tell him why he is angry, or sad or frustrated. But you can't always do that, either, especially if he's being completely unreasonable. Then it just becomes an excuse. He has to get there on his own." Thao laughs, tearing at her empty sugar packet. "It sounds like I am talking about one of my kids, not my husband."
Holly chuckles and sits back, making space for the waiter who has finally come to clear their table. "I wish I was as wise to these things as you."
"Ha," Thao says, smiling ruefully. "I'm only tuned to it now because I have been with him so long. I know that at first I had trouble understanding his behaviour. In fact, you seem to have it more figured out than I did back then."
"Maybe, but I still don't know what to do." Holly frowns. "I really like her, Thao. I do. And I have no seeming choice about that. So I need to figure out what to do."
"Do you think she cares about you?" Thao takes her napkin from her lap and neatly folds it, placing it on the counter.
"Yes. I do." Holly surprises even herself with the sureness of her response. But she does know that Gail cares. She also knows that Gail just has to figure out what is worth more to her, her fear or her feelings.
"Do you want to know what I think you should do?" Thao says gently, placing her hands flat on the counter.
"Yes, please." Holly tells her, grabbing her arm.
Thao smiles. "Exactly what you are doing. If I have learned one thing from being with Jeremy, it is patience. You can't always help them there. And hopefully, eventually, she'll get there on her own." Thao lays her hand briefly over Holly's and then lets it go. "You just sit tight."
Holly nods slowly, running her spoon in slow circles in the bottom of her cup. This is both exactly what she wanted to hear, and exactly what she didn't want to hear.
"Damn." Holly sighs a deep sigh, folding her arms over each other on the counter and lowering her chin onto her hands, frowning. "I thought you might say that." She groans. "How long am I going to have to wait?"
Instead of an answer she feels the sympathetic pat right between her shoulder blades.
"No really?" She turns to Thao.
Thao chuckles. "Sorry to laugh, but I have never, ever, seen you like this." She pats her back again. "Poor Holly."
"Uh huh. Poor Holly." Holly agrees, dropping her chin back onto her hands. "Not sure I have ever been like this."
