Gail
Maybe it's the third champagne going to her head.
It might be. Since they started the job they have never had more than a beer at a time, conscious of their need to stay sober and ready for anything. But it's Christmas and they both know they are not going to be hearing from Adrian today. So, they are celebrating with a drink in the restaurant where they have decided to eat their sad little imitation of a Christmas lunch. Here they are surrounded by other sad Christmas parties, couples reduced to their couple-dom, bereft of family for some reason on this day, as well as sad little families, bereft of places to go for some reason this Christmas.
Gail and Dan are both bereft of places to go and bereft of family. That's a double whammy neither of them want to think too hard about.
So they're drinking.
And maybe Gail is projecting the sadness onto the people around them— maybe they are having the Christmas lunch they actually wanted— but she prefers to think they are in the same pathetic boat that she and Dan are, cut loose from their usual moorings, making the most of who they do have with them.
And Gail prides herself on being able to hold her booze, but she has to admit absence has made the fortitude weaker. So, it might be the third drink. Or it might be the Christmas lunch conversation needing something to spice it up. Or it might just be the force of missing Holly, a feeling that hasn't really left her since last night that makes her decide to tell him.
Whatever it is, she decides somewhere at the half-tide mast of her third glass that Dan will be her practice run for learning how to get the words out. She waits for him to finish telling his story about a high school play, a story she doesn't really even listen to while she was gathering up the courage to say it.
"So, I have a girlfriend."
She drops it into the air between them, chasing the small announcement with a sip of her drink so she won't have to look at him.
"What?" he says, through a mouthful of food, like he can barely take anything in past his delight at eating something other than take out or his or Gail's equally average cooking.
"I have a girlfriend," she says again, slower, glancing over at him.
She sees the flicker in his eye as he interprets what she is saying.
"A girlfriend girlfriend?" he asks, holding his fork over his plate.
"Yes," she says patiently.
"Really?"
"Yes," she says again, frowning, already wishing she hadn't said anything. "Really."
"Hmm," is all he says, leaning back in his seat and grinning over the bottle at her. "Wasn't expecting that."
"People always assume the most likely scenario," she tells him, shrugging, borrowing Ola's response to her from a few weeks back. "And besides, a month or two ago, you would have been right to assume."
"What do you mean?"
"Well … ," Gail starts, but isn't sure exactly how much she wants to go into. "Doesn't matter." She says, shaking her head.
He puts down his fork and picks up his beer, taking a swig and nodding, as if to concede that it is entirely up to her what she tells him.
"So why didn't you tell me?" he asks her. "I tell you all kinds of stuff about me. You even know about me wetting my pants at school in grade one."
"Yes," Gail nods slowly. "And I can now never un-know that. I don't know, I guess I didn't know how you'd react," she tells him, shrugging. But then she takes a breath and stops herself. That's not really fair. It didn't take her too long to figure out he'd be totally cool about it if or when she did tell him. She sighs. "Well, it's not just that. It's kind of new, and I guess I'm not really used to telling people— to having to tell people," she adds.
"So I'm the first to know?" Dan asks, grinning. "I feel honoured."
"No," Gail says, blushing. "My friends and family know, but they mostly figured it out. I have just never told anyone. We haven't been together that long," she adds, offering it up as an excuse for her reticence, a reticence she is now starting to feel kind of embarrassed by.
"Right." Dan says, nodding. "I get it. So you're telling me."
"Yes," she nods.
"Why me?"
"I don't know, because you're here?" She shrugs and looks down at her half-eaten meal. "Or maybe I just ran out of conversation."
Dan chuckles. " No bedwetting stories to share, huh?"
"Maybe. You'll never know." She smiles, enjoying the awkward sense of relief that he is taking it so easily.
"Fair enough. Anyway, now you can tell me about her. I haven't stopped talking about Lisa since we started this job."
"I know, I'm so sick of Lisa." She tells him, glaring.
He looks at her for a long moment with that kind of smiling, superior face Steve gets sometimes when he's trying to be brotherly but he's really being patronising.
"Thanks for telling me."
"What am I supposed to say to that?" she snarks, blushing. "That you're welcome?"
He laughs and shakes his head. "I don't know, actually." He sits there and grins at her. "But I think Lisa's going to feel a whole lot better when she meets you now."
"Oh, shut up," Gail narrows her eyes at him.
"So tell me about her," he says, giving her a grin and leaning back in his chair again. "She hot?"
"Don't be such a dude," Gail shoots back, scathing.
But then ego wins out as she smiles and picks up her fork.
"Of course she's hot, Dan."
