This part was actually supposed to go in the last chapter that I posted last night (my time) but it didn't.
Because I am an idiot. And hahazard. And forgetful. But it's here now.
So I thought I'd put it up today as a new chapter because I have to get this story FINISHED!
So just pretend it continued on in this chapter. Or whatever works.
Holly
Holly wanders into the kitchen.
Both her parents are in there, reading. She smiles at the sight of them. If she ever pictures her parents, it is like this. Her biggest memory of winter holidays as a kid was the long quiet tracts of reading they all used to indulge in, taking up long stretches of snowy afternoons. Sure they took her places, and went on visits, and did holiday things, but there were also those languorous days spent with no agenda and the heating turned right up. All they all did was sit around and read, rotating around the house, sometimes swapping books and always taking strict clockwork turns boiling the kettle for rounds of tea.
"Hey, do you remember that day, when I was about nine and you realised you hadn't seen me for hours. You were looking for me everywhere," Holly asks them, leaning on the door. "And then you finally found me I was lying in the hallway of the apartment building reading? The neighbours were having to step over me to get to their doors."
"Yes. You thought the whole world was your reading nook." Tasya looks up at her, chin in hand and smiles her slow smile. " I also found your father sitting on the kitchen floor in front of the oven once, working on the intro of one of his books."
"To be fair, I was cooking something at the time," he tells them, turning the page of his paper.
"Well Mom, I used to come home and find you reading on my bed."
"Your room was the warmest." Tasya shrugs. "So the cat was always in there. I thought I'd learn something from him." She laughs. "This family has always had a slight reading problem."
"No wonder Gail calls me a nerd. You guys want a cup of tea?" Holly asks, flipping on the kettle and stepping over to collect their empty cups. She doesn't know why she even asked. They always want tea.
"Dad, you done with this?" Holly holds up the national news section. He nods. Her father only ever had one rule; no one touches any section of the paper until he has. It was an unspoken one, but a rule nonetheless.
She takes it and climbs up onto the kitchen bench to read. Her mother gives her a look, but she says nothing. Holly smiles to herself and ignores it.
When the kettle finally boils she jumps down and pours them all tea.
"Is Gail asleep?" her father asks.
"Yep," Holly says, looking up in the cupboard for something to snack on.
"Good." Her mother says, turning her book over, face down and stretching her arms above her head. "She looks like she needs it."
"Don't tell her that," Holly jokes, passing them the open tin of cookies. Her father takes one.
Her mother shakes her head. "I'm still full of that lunch."
The four of them went to lunch in the morning, at her father's favourite sandwich place.
Holly climbs back up on the bench, chewing.
"That sounded like a hard thing, this job she was doing," her mother says, changing her mind and picking out a cookie.
"Mmm," is all Holly says, taking her glass of her head and putting them on, She opens the paper. She wouldn't really know. Gail has barely told her anything yet.
"She seems like a nice girl," her father says, his mouth full.
"Nice huh? You'd think so, Dad." Holly grins. "She brought you bagels."
She doesn't bother reminding him that Gail is a full-grown woman, not a girl. Her father has a habit of calling anyone under geriatric age a boy or girl.
He chuckles. "That's pretty much all it takes. But seriously, I like her."
Holly looks at her mother, expectant.
Tasya smiles at her knowingly, acknowledging that Holly wants to know what she thinks.
"She's not quite what I expected," her mother says, picking up her cup of tea, tipping her head thoughtfully from one side to the other. I thought she'd more …" she searches futilely for a word. "I don't know," she shrugs. "From what you told me last time, I didn't expect her to be so sweet."
Holly can't help smiling, trying to remember what she'd said last time. It's hard to work around Gail's general saltiness when describing her, and she has no idea what impression she gave her mother. Holly bets not many people describe Gail as sweet. But Gail is, often, when she wants to be— when she wants people to know that she actually, at her core, kind of is.
Holly swings her legs gently against the kitchen cupboards, staring out the window instead of reading the paper in her lap. Gail coped surprisingly well with the lunch today, too, falling easily into the rhythms of conversation with her parents, despite her tiredness and purported awkwardness. She politely asked questions and answered them, telling them about her own family and her job and how her job and Holly's job connect. She turned red, though, when Holly told them about Gail trying to kick her off a crime scene when they met. But she also managed a bit of cheeky banter with Holly's father, which, of course, delighted him. As Holly well knows by now even an exhausted and on her best behaviour Gail can still dish up a little sass on call.
"Yeah, she is sweet when she is not freaked out. I don't know," Holly shrugs. "I guess she's feeling comfortable here."
"Well that's good," her father says, putting down one paper and picking up another and laying it in front of him.
"No you don't." her mother tells him, putting a firm hand on the paper before he can open a page. "We have things to do, remember? Library meeting, then I am going to the studio and you said you'd meet Ian about his article?"
Peter puts the paper down, sighing loudly. "Oh, I forgot about that."
"As you always do," Tasya sighs, pats his cheek, and then pulls something from his beard. "Come on."
He gets up, turns around, gives Holly a comic resigned look and marches slowly out of the room. Holly smiles. He always acts like that. Then as soon as he gets out in company, he is so damn gregarious you' d never know he was reluctant to leave the house.
"We'll be back later. Around eight, probably." Tasya tells her, folding the papers back into a pile on the table.
"Okay, I'll make something for dinner." Holly tells her, wiping her glasses on the bottom of her shirt.
"Thanks." Her mother pauses on her way out, tapping her knee and saying, "Holly, do you have to sit on the bench when there is a perfectly good chair over there? People have to cook on that counter, you know." She walks out of the kitchen.
Holly grins. She knew her mother wouldn't be able to resist saying something at some point. And there it is. Obedient, she slides off the bench and goes and sits at the table with her tea. She fleetingly wonders if Gail is still awake. But positive she will still be out, she decides to leave her in peace a little longer.
On the way back from lunch Holly had noticed how weary and wan Gail looked. She was transformed from the bright Gail of this morning, now trudging slowly along the street, yawning and keeping quiet as Peter told them about some of the student protests that had been happening on his university campus over education costs. By the time they got home, Holly was pretty sure Gail was only withholding from succumbing to her fatigue out of politeness, out of her shyness about being in someone else's home.
So Holly made it happen the only way she knew how, by enlisting her parents to convince Gail not long after they filed back into the apartment.
"Mom, Dad, tell Gail you won't think less of her if she has a sleep this afternoon instead of hanging out with you guys."
So that's what they told a blushing Gail, who then let herself be dragged off to the spare room. She wasn't too tired to deliver her best evil eye at Holly as she shut the door behind them. But even so, with Holly sitting on the bed next to her, reading, Gail yielded; seemingly having no choice about what she wanted to do once her head hit the pillow.
Gail does seemdifferent here, though. Something has shifted for her. Holly thinks of her this morning as they walked to the florist, of the way she walked. She seems lighter here in Montreal, like her feet don't hit the pavement as hard. She smiles when she thinks of the way Gail openly, happily held her hand along the busy main street, the way she sat next to her in the café, her thigh pressed against Holly's as they sat there, leaning her face in toward hers as they huddled over a shared magazine, instead of keeping her distance like she often does in public. It's like she can't even be bothered caring. Then there was the way she chatted easily to her parents at lunch, showing off her best Gail. And it wasn't pretence— a be-on-your-best-behaviour act for the parents. It was just Gail being Gail when she is at ease with herself. She seems unshackled by something here in Montreal.
Holly isn't sure exactly what it is. She doesn't know if it is about her being somewhere else, away from her life, or about being done with the job, or just about being happy. But whatever it is, Holly feels like she is seeing the woman she detected somewhere inside Gail so long ago when they first met— the flashes of something that had intrigued her. It was a woman who, under the bravado and bitchiness, was still sharp and funny, but also textured and substantial and warm. Of course, there is still snap and sass, which Holly wouldn't give up for the world, but it is less defensive, less quick-draw reaction to her own fragility. For some reason Gail is finding it easier here to allow this richer version of herself, however vulnerable, to breathe. And Holly likes it a lot.
Gail
As she opens her eyes to unfamiliar shadows being tossed against the white ceiling of the small bedroom by the waning sun, it takes Gail a moment to work out where she is again and what she should be doing next. Such is her confusion at waking up to daylight it takes her a full minute of rushing through potential things she might be supposed to be doing instead of sleeping before she finally relaxes into the realisation that she doesn't have to do anything at all; that she is in Montreal. That she is on holiday. That for everything that has happened of late she has been granted this small but handsomely wrapped gift of time as her own.
Gail tries to piece together the day, from waking when it was still dark, disoriented and unnerved by finding herself in a strange room again, to talking to Tasya in the kitchen, to the walk this morning, to lunch with Holly's parents and then finally, to that helpless plunge into sleep that finally tossed her ashore here in this bed as the afternoon wanes into evening.
She shuts her eyes again, and then opens them again as she hears a rustling sound next her. She turns her head to find Holly sitting cross-legged on the bed next to her, leaning over the newspaper, a teacup resting precariously on the rumpled quilt next to her.
Holly is completely focused on her reading, her cheek resting in her hand, her eyes scanning the page. Her glasses have made the journey halfway down her nose. She slowly pushes them back up before turning the paper over in her hands.
Gail just smiles to herself and watches her for a while, her eyes half open, indulging in the sheer pleasure of now being able to do just that instead of having to conjure this woman up in her mind like she had to for the last few weeks. Not only has she been handed this gift of time, she's been given back Holly. Seeing her at the airport last night when she'd got off that plane, and feeling the relief and the happiness and the thousand other feelings she doesn't even know how to name, much less describe, Gail knows that coming here was one of the best decisions she's ever made in a life full of what has so far mostly been questionable decisions.
She watches Holly take a sip of her tea and put it down again, not even noticing that she nearly spills it, so engrossed is she in whatever she is reading.
Eventually Gail can't help herself. She wants her attention. Reaching out, she gives the tangled ponytail hanging down her back a small affectionate tug.
Holly turns toward her.
"Hey," she smiles, her brown eyes crinkling. "Sleep well?"
Gail just nods, not ready to break the peaceful bubble of that delicious sleep just yet by speaking. Holly slowly folds up the paper and leans over, placing both it and the teacup on the bedside table. She then turns back to Gail, wriggling further down the bed, turning to her and resting her elbow on the pillow.
Hi," she says again, grinning lazily at her.
Gail raises her hands up over her head and stretches, emitting a long yawn.
"Hey. What time is it?" she finally asks, husky.
"About four."
"Where's your mom and dad?" she mumbles, wondering if she should be getting up.
"They're out for a few more hours. Relax," Holly tells her, smiling and running her fingers gently through her hair.
"Okay," Gail says, amenable, turning toward Holly. "But only if you get in here with me."
Holly, clearly just as amenable, does exactly that, slowly pulling off her thick jumper and slipping under the covers next to her. Gail curls her hands up under Holly's t-shirt, sliding them up her back and nuzzles her face into her neck.
"It's New Year's the day after tomorrow," Holly says, kissing the top of her head.
"Is it?" Gail asks, surprised. She has lost track of time. And she forgot about the impending New Year. She sighs. This shitstorm of a year is finally reaching its denouement. Shutting her eyes and enjoying the slow stroke of Holly's hand on her waist, she wonders how she would have felt if things had gone as initially planned, before she was supposed to do this job— how she would feel if she had stayed in Toronto and Holly was here in Montreal. She knows now how much she would have hated missing marking the changing of the year to another with Holly, this time that holds such portent of what might possibly be— if she is as lucky right now as she thinks she might be— a much better, more rewarding year to come.
"So, what will we be doing?"
"Whatever we want to do." Holly tells her.
"What about your parents?"
"Oh, they'll be going to the same party they go to every year here with Dad's friends from the university. They won't expect us to spend it with them." Holly wriggles further down the bed, dropping a quick kiss on Gail's lips on her way past. "So, what do you want to do?"
Gail rolls back onto her back, tucking her hands behind her head, shrugging and smiling as Holly pushes up her singlet and begins dropping light kisses onto her stomach. "I don't mind. I'm just glad I get to spend it with you now."
"And I am glad," Holly lifts her head, smiling, raising herself up to sit over her. She leans down, kissing her softly on the sternum, "I don't have to spend it with my Dad's math geek friends, sweet as they are."
"What do you mean?" Gail teases, arching her back and lifting her arms to accommodate Holly's apparent decision that her singlet is no longer necessary attire. "I'd have thought that would be right up your alley."
But Holly just gives her one of those looks; those amused, bemused whatever looks she has been greeting Gail's smartassery with since the day they met, and then pulls off her own t-shirt.
"Okay, well," Gail teases, running her hands up over Holly's thighs, which are pressed against her side, and up onto her hips. "I guess we'll be discussing our New Year plans later then, Holly."
"Oh, well," Holly echoes, sitting back, her arms crossed, eyes shining. "We can discuss it right now if you like, Gail. For as long as you like." she tells her, grinning. "In fact, why don't we really workshop it, take a few hours- right up until my parents get home. I mean, this," she waves a hand in the air between all their tantalisingly bare skin, "this can totally wait until tonight when they are here, trying to sleep in the next room. I mean," she leans right over her, just stopping before her skin meets Gail's. "I know how much you love keeping quiet."
Gail gives her a look, hooks her fingers into Holly's bra, yanks her downward and shuts her up with a kiss.
Thanks for your reviews.