It's been just over a month since Holly's been back in San Francisco. She and Gail have continued to text each other on a regular basis, continuing their random banter of texts about their daily whatever.
Holly's phone is beeping rhythmically, indicating someone's trying to video chat with her. She hits accept without looking, expecting it to be her sister wanting to show off the kids' costumes before they head out trick-or-treating. After hitting accept, Holly went back to finishing to report her findings knowing that her sister wont mind waiting a second for Holly to finish up. Holly hears, "nerd?"
Holly looks up and around her lab, "Gail?" she says with hope in her voice, hoping that Gail is there in her lab, that Gail has come to see her, to surprise her.
"Yeah?" she hears.
Holly shakes her head, chastising herself for thinking that Gail came to San Francisco, Holly realizes that it is Gail on the phone, "oh, sorry, I didn't realize it was you." Holly walks over to the phone, finally coming in view of the blonde.
"But you hit accept?" questions Gail.
"I know," Holly smiles sheepishly, "I just thought you were my sister…" something beeps in the lab distracting Holly.
"Nice," mumbles Gail, "first you want to be friends, now you want to be sisters."
The beeping noise stops and Holly comes back into sight, "sorry, I didn't catch that last bit, what did you say?"
Gail pauses and thinks, is now really the time to tell Holly that I may have more than friendly feeling towards her, that I may be feeling romantic feelings for her, that I may wish to think of her than more than just a friend, that I think we could be more than friends, Gail pauses for a second, or should I have done that last month when we were face to face?
Holly has been staring at a pensive Gail, a Gail's whose face hasn't changed for the past ten maybe fifteen seconds. "Gail? GAIL? Gail, I think my screen froze, I'll call you back in just a minute."
"Nothing," sighs Gail, answering Holly's question.
"Why are you so grumpy? It's Halloween," asks Holly.
"Exactly," says Gail, "luckily I'm done my shift, the worst non-holiday to work is Halloween, especially when it falls on a Friday or Saturday. Adults dressing up in costumes, drinking too much, and feeling they're able to drive home. I find I mostly get stuck at Ride Programs."
"Really?" questions Holly. "I would have thought it would be St. Paddy's day."
"Oh," Gail's eyes go big, "I forgot about that one. Too many people thinking they're okay to drive when they're not. They can tie for worst."
Holly laughs and Gail smiles at her. Holly smiles back.
Changing subjects slightly, "you coming home for Christmas?" asks Gail.
"I don't know yet," truthfully answers Holly.
"You didn't come home for Thanksgiving," whines Gail, Gail surprised by her own tone reminds herself to keep her emotions in check.
"Yeah, well, America has theirs in November…"
"So weird," they chorus.
"You coming home then?"
"No," Holly smiles, "we're starting an experiment on the Wednesday going to let it sit with no interactions for the 24 hours, seeing how air borne something can get, then check it out on Friday, start another experiment, the same experiment," Holly clarifies, "and let it sit for the weekend, then check it out on the Monday, and compare the results, I'm so excited!"
"Nerd."
Holly smiles at Gail. Gail can't help but smile back. Gail opens her mouth to say something else, but can hear Holly's phone begin to chime, "sorry that'll be my sister."
"That's okay."
"Thanks for calling," says Holly sincerely. "Enjoy the rest of your evening."
"Wow," jokes Gail, "so formal," as she feels she's being ushered off the phone.
Holly smiles, "bye Gail."
"Bye nerd."
Gail ends the call. She sighs; she throws her phone onto her bed. Gail doesn't know why she calls Holly, seeing a happy Holly so far away makes it all worse. Gail picks up her phone, this time to text her mom. She sends off a simple. 'ok.' She sighs again and face plants onto her bed.
Holly accepts her sister's call, "hey Holly! The kids wanted to show you their costumes," Cindy turns around to yell to her kids to come into view. Cindy turns back and realizes her sister's face hasn't changed and it's super red. "Holly are you feeling all right? Your face is really red."
Without moving Holly looks at her reflection on her screen and notices her sister is right. Damn, thinks Holly, how does Gail make me blush so easily when talking to her? Do you think she notices? I mean, my face wasn't this red when we first started talking.
"Holly!" she hears her sister call, but still doesn't respond, still lost in her thoughts.
I should have kissed her properly when I had the chance last month, to see if there was anything there, any sort of spark. Now I feel like I'm just torturing myself. Now it's like Schrödinger's cat. If I kissed her and there was no spark, I wouldn't have cared, I would have looked in the box to see if the cat was alive or not, but I didn't kiss her so the cat could still be alive or dead, I don't know!
She hears Cindy again, "Holly! Shit, I think my screen's frozen, I'm going to call you back."
Holly sighs.
"Holly?"
"Yeah?"
"Oh, I was about to hang up on you, I thought my screen was frozen."
Holly smiles sheepishly, "that seems to be happening a lot today."
"How so? I only just called you?"
"Um, nothing." Holly changes subjects, "where are the kids?"
"Kids!" Cindy calls again, "come say 'hi' to Aunt Holly!"
Holly goes through the stages of her regular conversation with her family, listening to the kids' stories from school, Cindy's grievances with the kids not listening to her, the kids smiling wickedly at her, and of course the excitement for Halloween.
Gail lifts her head to look at the clock, not 6 yet. She makes a quick decision and sends a text to Traci who invited her earlier to walk the subdivision with her and Leo. Traci sends a text back saying she has five minutes to get there. Gail quickly gets off her bed, grabs her jacket and keys and leaves her apartment.
Traci and Gail are walking slowly along the road watching Leo run up a driveway yell 'trick or treat' receive some compliments for his cool police officer costume, get some candy thrown into his bag, and run back to Traci and Gail.
They continue to walk along the street, plenty of kids and parents out, the illuminated street lights giving everyone a sense of security from the odd car passing by. Gail sees some lady vaguely familiar walking towards them with two children following her. "Hey," says the lady.
"Hey," says Gail. Gail and Traci stop, waiting for Leo to catch up.
"You know her Gail?" asks Traci.
The lady addresses Gail, "who's this?" nodding her head towards Traci. "My sister not enough for you?"
Gail scrunches up her face just as Leo returns with more candy, "Aunt Gail I got a Crispy Crunch for you, I just need two more and a Coffee Crisp and you have to babysit me on Saturday!" Leo squeals and runs to the next house knowing Gail and Traci will follow along on the road.
Gail says, "this is my friend Traci and that was her son Leo." Gail gestures towards the lady, "Traci this is Holly's sister….I actually don't know your name…"
Cindy blushes, "sorry, I'm Cindy. I shouldn't have said that-"
"MOM!" Leo yells one house over.
Traci touches Gail's arm, "I need to keep walking." Gail nods her head, she watches her friend walk away.
"No, it's okay," says Gail, "I do like your sister, but we're not together," Gail gets a furrow on her face, confused as to why Cindy would think they were.
"Could have fooled me," Cindy says. Just then her kids come back with their load of candy.
"Mom, look!" The one then realizes his mom's not alone; he looks at Gail and remembers her from his grandparents' house a couple of weeks ago, "why is Aunt Holly's friend here?"
Sheesh! The whole family knows me… thinks Gail.
"We just ran into each other," Cindy answers honestly. "Take your sister to the next house, then we'll need to head back because I'm getting tired, I need to sit down."
"AWWWWW…..but mom, it's Halloween, we haven't even reached the end of the street yet!" the daughter whines.
"Yeah mom!" the son chimes in, "please can we go to the end?"
"I can't," says Cindy, "I wont be able to walk back." The two are about to complain again, but Cindy gives them a stern look, "go to the next house, we will discuss this when you get back." The kids run off, Cindy looks back at Gail, "sorry about that, trick or treating is tough when you're pregnant," she looks over at the bench next to the road, "if I sat on that bench right now, I might not get up," she laughs.
Gail looks down the street and counts about ten houses, twenty if you add the ones on the opposite side, "if you want you can take a rest and I'll walk the kids to the end of the street. We will always be within your eye sight," Gail suggests.
Cindy kind of looks at her, looks at the bench, looks at Gail again. Silence.
"I shouldn't have offered," says Gail jumping in, "I barely know you, I only know Holly-" Gail starts to say feeling that her request was inappropriate.
Cindy surprises her by saying, "no, you can take them, that would be great; Alfred, my husband, was supposed to take them but he had to work late, I'm just going to sit down here. I mean you're a cop right?" Gail nods her head, Cindy sits down, "I mean that's all I've seem to be able to get out of my sister about you, I called her shortly after she talked to you today, and I don't know what you two were talking about, but her face was beet red." Cindy's kids coming running back, "new plan!" The kids look at their mom sitting on the bench. She looks at Gail, "this is Aunt Holly's friend Gail, Gail these are my kids Will and Rain." She addresses her kids, "Gail's going to walk you to the end of the street, you are not going to convince her to walk any further," she says the last part to Gail as well. "Okay, see you guys in a bit," she dismisses them.
Gail sends a quick text to Traci that she'll meet her back at her house. "Okay kids!" says Gail "let's go get some candy!" The three start to walk away.
"Watch out for cars!" yells Cindy. Gail waves her arm in acknowledgement.
This was the best Halloween Gail's had in a while.
Thanks for reading.
I hope you and yours are doing okay.
With all this time on my hands, maybe it's time for me to revisit that quilt idea…
Stay safe
