"What are you doing?" Holly texts Gail. Another month has gone by and it's the beginning of December. Holly still doesn't know if she'll be able to go home for Christmas or if she'll be spending it alone in California. Holly desperately wants to go home for Christmas for multiple reasons, one) to spend time with her family, two) her family is supposed to be getting bigger with her sister's due date any day now, and three) to see her friends. She groups Gail in with her friends, but in reality she knows Gail is a reason all on her own. Knowing that she converses more with Gail than any other person she has in her life right now.
"Nothing really," Gail texts back super fast.
"It's Friday, don't you ever go out on a Friday?" texts Holly, kind of joking but also not, happy to have someone to talk to, as she walks to the one window where the apartment building across the way's light will come shining into her apartment and bug her later so she pulls down the drape.
"I'm actually on a date right now. She's in the bathroom tho."
"Oh," says Holly aloud, Gail's on a date, now what? Does Holly stop bothering Gail (is she bothering Gail?) or does she ask about the date, is it weird to ask or is it even weirder to not ask. Holly gets all Shakespeare-ey in her head, 'to ask or not to ask, that is the question.' Holly laughs at her joke. She thinks she plays it safe with a, "How's it going?"
"I don't know yet, we just got here."
Holly reads that over a couple of times, now what does she text? She scrunches up her face, trying to remember what she would have texted Lisa or Rachel when she inadvertently interrupted one of their dates. She doesn't have to text anything because another one appears on her phone, "Can I text you later? Bye nerd."
"Oh, ok, bye," Holly essentially types her thoughts, but then adds a, "good luck." Holly tosses her phone onto her couch, now what is she going to do, she was kind of planning on conversing with Gail, that seems to be their normal Friday routine. Whether Gail's on shift or not, she has always been able to keep a conversation going.
Holly has now realized that she may need to make more friends. Ella was nice enough to show her around the city when she first got there, but Ella has a family with two young kids that keep her really busy on her off hours, and Holly doesn't want to bother her or intrude on family time. Hmmm… thinks Holly as she goes over the list of people she comes in contact with on a regular basis, assessing who she could try to befriend and become her outside of work friend. Someone she can talk to where it doesn't have to be strictly about work, like someone to talk to about sports. Toronto born, Toronto raised, Holly roots for the Toronto sports teams, maybe she could convince someone going to one of the sporting events, and it would be even cooler to see a Toronto team play one of the local teams, maybe the Raptors taking on the Warriors, or the Leafs against the Sharks, or if she waits until spring the Jays taking on the Giants. Holly smiles at that last thought. Maybe she'll ask around at work on Monday.
Gail's date form the other night went terribly. She doesn't know why she agreed to that one, she had gone on three previous blind dates set up by Elaine, all ending with Gail shaking her head, and re-realizing that Elaine clearly does not know her daughter that well if this is who she thinks Gail would want to be with. Or maybe not even be with, but would be a good match for Gail. Either way it probably didn't help that Holly had texted her at the start of the date, Gail could not get the brunette off her mind, wondering what the two would have talked about, it didn't really matter what they would have talked about, Gail would have still enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than her 'date' with whatever her name is. Gail laughs at her little joke, 'date,' that's how she should start thinking about them, a date in quotation marks. Gail feels terrible that she's been dodging Holly's texts. She hasn't responded to one in almost a week now.
Gail is sitting in the precinct, staring off into space, her shift's almost done, she's finished filling out her paper work, she's just waiting for the next round of officers to come in and replace her. That's where Dov finds her, just sitting there doing nothing completely in deep thought, at least that what it looks like to Dov.
"What's up Gail? What are you thinking about?"
It takes a second before Gail actually turns her head to look at Dov. She says, "Australian calendars."
"What?"
"Well not really Australian calendars, just calendars in the southern hemisphere. I mean, not really car calendars or cat calendars, but calendars that have landscapes on them or nature shots, do they follow their seasons or our seasons, do they get stuck with seeing pictures of beaches in July when they aren't even in summery months?"
"What?" Dov repeats himself.
Gail decides to just keep going with it, definitely not going to tell him what's truly on her mind, "I was at the mall the other day, and with the new year only a month away, I've been seeing a lot of calendars up for sale, and I was just wondering what they do in the Southern hemisphere. Is there one company that prints all the world's calendars and they get distributed to all the other countries, so people in the southern hemisphere get stuck and have to look at the opposite season they're in just because of us in the northern hemisphere?"
Dov scrunches up his face, completely sorry he asked. "What?" he says again, not sure how to get out of this conversation.
Chris, who also just got on shift, walks over to his roommates, "hey Gail, how's it going? Were you busy today?"
Dov places a hand on Chris' chest, "don't ask today, just turn around and walk away."
"Hey, that rhymes." He does as he's told and turns to go in a different direction and Dov starts to follow, but stops when he sees Oliver coming.
Gail's phone beeps; she notices the time and realizes her shift is over. She also opens the message she just received from Holly, but before she's able to read it she hears, "Peck?"
Gail turns around to face Oliver. "Shifts over Oliver, time for me to go, you'll have to ask me tomorrow."
Oliver smiles that smile of his and shakes his head, "not so fast darling, I need you to fill out this report better. It's going to court and we don't want this to be the reason the perp walks."
Even though Gail knows this is an extremely valid reason to redo a report she can't help herself and rolls her eyes, "ugh, you're such an Angela."
Oliver looks confused, "I'm a what?" But Gail's already gone, taking the paper work with her, to an empty quiet desk so she can finish it fast, leave, and read Holly's text. Thinking of making Holly's text her reward for properly done paperwork, especially since she hasn't sent her anything in a few days.
"Sorry sir," says Dov, "she's on a real 'The Office' kick right now. Don't ask."
"Okay then," nods Oliver, apparently that was a good enough reason as the two watch the blonde walk away, "she okay?"
"Not sure," admits Dov.
"Keep an eye on her."
"Will do sir," Dov follows after his roommate, hoping to help her fill out her report and not have her waste too much of her time here, knowing she will do her least damage at home, especially now that she's preoccupied with watching 'The Office.'
Gail hadn't been texting Holly since her blind date. Holly was wondering why, but it is very difficult to get an answer from Gail if she doesn't text back. But finally Holly receives a text. It had been a couple of days, but Holly kept sending Gail texts, not wanting to lose the connection. Holly assumes that Gail is embarrassed, she doesn't understand why Gail would be embarrassed about going on a date and having Holly know, unless…unless maybe the date went well, thinks Holly, but why would that matter. Now what? wonders Holly. But if it went well, wouldn't Gail have told Holly.
Holly's laptop she has open on her kitchen table makes a sound, reminding Holly she hasn't finished her observations for the experiment she meant to have submitted earlier today. She gets up from her couch and walks over to the kitchen table and sits down in the chair. She sees she has a new email, it's from her boss, she opens it expecting it to be a reminder about her report, but it's actually the Christmas schedule. She notices that they will be given a full week off. The labs will be closed for the week and no one is expected to work. She smiles, a week is plenty of time to go home to Toronto to see her family and friends and Gail. And Gail. Will she be seeing Gail, if Gail doesn't return her messages, how will they make plans to see each other?
Holly's phone pings, another message from Gail. Nothing for close to a week and now two in the past ten minutes, maybe she's just been busy Holly tries to tell herself. Does Holly let Gail know that she will be in Toronto over Christmas? Or will seeing Gail make it harder, especially if Gail is now seeing someone?
Thanks for reading.
I was talking to my coworker before we closed up the business for the next little while, and i asked him what are you going to do with all this time off now? He says he was online the other day and he saw that a no-hitter game was posted and he's super excited to watch it. In my head I was questioning this, why watch an old baseball game you essentially already know the results to? I know no-hitters are rare, but still. So guess what I did on Sunday? …I watched an old football game. In my defense I did not know who won, who am I kidding, I probably would have watched it anyways. What's the expression? 'Don't knock it 'til you've tried it.' Yeah, that sounds about right, pretty much sums it all up eh. In other words: I started cutting out squares and sewing them together, this quilt thing is a go
