CHAPTER 10
“So,” she said to Sarai.
“Yeah, so,” Sarai replied.
They were sitting in a booth at the bar. Sarai had asked both Enya and Arlowe to come with them, and when they’d turned her down, she’d texted Violet to see if she and Stella wanted to come out instead, but they’d still been busy with Haley and Jen, so they’d declined as well.
Gabi hadn’t expected Sarai to attempt to invite literally all of her friends with them when she’d intended it to be just them, so for a moment there, she’d thought about canceling the whole thing.
She’d been exhausted anyway and felt like moving made a pretty good excuse to tell Sarai that they’d have to do it another night, but when she’d gotten back from the grocery store, Sarai had helped her put things away in the kitchen, and they’d talked and laughed a little.
It had been so nice until Arlowe and Enya had interrupted them, checking in on dinner plans, and Gabi hadn’t wanted to stick around and have dinner with all of them then.
Another night? Sure. But she’d wanted to spend some time alone with Sarai, and having the two of them sitting at the table with Arlowe and Enya wouldn’t have given her that.
The previous night, she’d had so much fun, despite the fact that she’d just been unpacking stuff and hanging clothes.
Sarai made her laugh. She made her think.
They could talk for hours, and Gabi still wanted to talk to her.
Unfortunately, she’d been exhausted last night, too, and she’d needed to get back to the hotel to pack up what she had there in order to check out today.
Handing her room key over to the guy at the front desk had felt like something to celebrate after living there for two weeks, but moving hadn’t gone as planned, and she was tired of lugging her stuff from place to place.
Chase and Mark had taken some of the furniture out of the storage unit, but there had still been a table that she’d had to decide what to do with, so she’d taken a chance and asked the man working in the storage office if he wanted it.
He’d said he’d take it off her hands for twenty bucks.
She’d planned on just giving it to him anyway, but she’d taken the twenty and hadn’t felt bad about it because that table was only a year old, had no damage, and had cost over a hundred.
“So, how’s the moving progress?” Sarai asked.
“Same as it was when you asked me as we were leaving.”
“Right. We should order. Are you hungry?” Sarai asked and nodded to the bartender, who smiled back at her.
“You know her?” Gabi asked, scowling a bit.
“Yeah, she works here. We didn’t use to come here that much, but once Violet and Stella started dating, we ended up here, like, once a week. That’s Jo.”
“Jo?”
“As in Josephine, I imagine,” Sarai said.
“But she goes by Jo?”
“That’s what she told us to call her,” Sarai replied. “Why do you care about her name?”
“Just asking,” she said, thinking about how Jo was wearing a short-sleeved button-up flannel shirt, had short hair that was a little like Stella’s, and likely, also had some pretty short fingernails.
“Hey, Sarai,” Jo greeted.
“Hey. Have you met Gabi?”
“No, I don’t think I have,” Jo replied and looked down at Gabi.
“Nice to meet you,” Gabi said to be polite, even though it hadn’t felt nice at all.
“You too. So, are the rest of your friends joining you? I assumed they would be. That’s why I didn’t come over here right away.”
Gabi didn’t like how Jo had just assumed that she and Sarai were friends and nothing more. Yes, that was technically true, but Jo hadn’t known that when she’d made a comment about the rest of Sarai’s friends.
“No, just Gabi and me tonight. We’re going to order food, though, so can we get some menus? There aren’t any stuck behind the napkin holder like usual. I know what I’ll get, but Gabi has only been here once.”
“Sure. I’ll bring them over. What do you want to drink in the meantime?”
“Can I get a sparkling water? I’m driving,” Sarai said.
“Yeah. And you?” Jo asked Gabi.
“You can have a beer or something, Sarai.”
“I’m fine with water tonight.”
“We were coming out for drinks,” Gabi reminded.
“Right,” Sarai replied and looked up at Jo. “Can I get a rum and Coke, then? I’ll just drink it slowly and eat.”
“No problem.”
“Can I get a whiskey neat?” Gabi asked.
Jo seemed surprised but nodded and said, “I’ll be right back.”
“You drink whiskey?” Sarai asked.
“I’m not a connoisseur or anything, but I drink it from time to time.”
“I don’t even know if I’ve ever had whiskey.”
“My dad liked it,” Gabi explained. “He and I shared a drink of the stuff for the first time the night he died.”
“What happened? You never said.”
“He was in the den when I went to bed. My mom was already asleep. Then, I woke up to my mom’s scream when she found him. They said he’d had a pretty bad heart attack and couldn’t get to the phone to dial emergency services.”
“Oh, my God. I’m so sorry, Gabi.”
“Me too. Mostly, for my mom, because she had to see him like that. She managed to turn me around right before I did and told me to stay in my room until they took him away. I’m glad, in a way, but also sad because he had a closed casket, so the last time I saw him, he had an empty glass in his hand, and that was it. ”
“It sounds like she made it so you could preserve that pretty good memory with your dad as the last time you saw him,” Sarai suggested.
“She did. I told him that I loved him. He said it back, and I went to bed. I’m glad that’s the last memory I have of him, but it felt like I never got a chance to say goodbye for a while, even though I know that’s not how it really works.
I’m okay now, and I’m grateful to her for doing that for me. ”
“I wish I could’ve met him. You spoke so highly of him when you visited.”
“He was the best. My mom wanted me to go straight to college, but he insisted that I could have a little fun and travel first.” Gabi smiled at the memory. “He gave me the money to be able to do it, too.”
“I wish I had done that.”
“A gap year?”
“Yeah. Here, you go straight from high school to college, and it’s a lot. I grew up in upstate New York, but I went to college at NYU. It’s a world of difference, even though it’s not really all that far away. I never got to travel or anything like that.”
“You had a semester in Amsterdam.”
“Yeah, and I never really left the Netherlands. I took a couple of day trips to a few other places there, but I always felt so busy with school and my friends there that I didn’t see anything else.
I thought I’d have the time later. I had all those offers, so I thought I’d get a job, work for a while, and be able to afford to take nice vacations.
My plan also involved having a girlfriend to go on those vacations with, but then, we started the business, and none of us could afford a vacation, period, let alone a nice one. ”
“You wouldn’t go on a trip by yourself, like I did?” she asked.
“I couldn’t have afforded it even if I’d wanted to, but probably not. I’d rather go with someone, you know?”
“I was okay on my own. Some of my trips were made with friends, but most of them, I was by myself, and it was great. It gave me time to really figure out what I wanted to do; on the trip, with my life, whatever,” Gabi shared.
“Here you go,” Jo said and set the drinks down before sliding two menus out from under her arm. “And menus. I’ll be right back to take your order, Sarai.”
Gabi noticed that Jo hadn’t bothered to tell her that she would be back to take her order.
“Hey, random question for you. Jo and you… Did you ever…”
“What?” Sarai laughed. “No. We never.”
“She’s just looking at you and kind of forgetting that I’m sitting here.”
“She knows me, I guess.”
“Sure,” Gabi said and looked down at the menu in her hands.
“Hey, there’s a housewarming party tomorrow night for Violet and Stella. They told us about it a few days ago. I guess they really want to celebrate Violet moving in or something. You’re invited if you want to go.”
“Violet invited me?” Gabi asked.
“Well, I did. That’s just kind of how it works with us. Violet could invite anyone to a party I was hosting. I don’t host parties, so I doubt that will ever come up, but it’s fine.”
“Can I ask you something else?”
“Sure.”
“Have any of you ever dated? You and your friends?”
“Weirdly, no.” Sarai shook her head. “You’d think that because we’re four lesbians who are oddly close, but I think we all just kind of fit as best friends right away and later co-workers, too, and it had always been just that.
I’ve never even had so much as a crush on any of them.
It’s weird how it all worked out. I’m the one who got the marketing degree.
Violet got the MBA. Arlowe was in computer science, so she could code like no one else.
And, well, Enya was the polyglot who gave us the idea for the business to begin with.
We were sitting around and just hanging out one minute, contemplating our futures, and Enya suggested it. We all agreed, and now, here we are.”
“I think that’s cool.”
“Yeah, but we still need hardware,” Sarai said. “And you know hardware.”
“Did you talk to them? Is that why you’re mentioning it now? I didn’t want to bring it up again and look pushy.”
“I talked to Arlowe and Enya earlier. I’ll have to talk to Vi to get her thoughts on Monday, but Arlowe and Enya were fine with it. They said Vi will probably make you sign some stuff, which makes sense, and I think you should get paid, Gabi.”
“I’m not really concerned with that.”
“But if you make us something that works, you should get a percentage of the profits, at least. I’m going to suggest that to Violet and see what she thinks.”
“If you feel like that’s best, I won’t argue, but I really do just want to help. The story you told me about your grandmother and wanting to be able to talk to her more easily really resonated with me. I want to help other people do that.”
Sarai smiled at her just as Jo walked back over to take their order.
“So, what can I get for you?”
“Can I get the nachos?” Sarai said. “No sour cream.”
“Sure,” Jo replied and was about to walk away again.
“Um… Hi,” Gabi spoke up.
“Oh, sorry. Did you want to order something, too?”
Gabi glared at her, knowing exactly what was going on here, and replied, “Yeah. Can I get the burger, medium-well, with no onions?”
“Garlic fries?” Jo asked.
“No, just plain old fries. I hate what garlic and onions do to my breath, so…”
“No problem,” Jo said, looking a little less happy than she’d been a minute ago, and walked off.
“What the hell was that all about?” Sarai chuckled.
“Nothing,” Gabi lied.
“O-k-a-y. So, Violet’s party?”
“Oh, yeah. I don’t want to just invite myself. Can you make sure it’s really okay that I go? I know you said that the four of you have a thing where it’s okay, but I’d rather she knows if I’m going to be there.”
“Sure. One sec,” Sarai replied and pulled out her phone.
“I didn’t mean right now,” she said, laughing a little.
“It’s fine. I just texted her,” Sarai told her and looked down again. “Oh, she just texted back. She said it’s fine, but she spelled it…”
“What?”
Sarai held up the phone, and Gabi saw the word ‘fine’ with, like, six Is and nine Ns.
“What the hell?” Gabi asked before another message came through.
Violet Russell: Sorry. Stella was kissing my neck, and I hit send before I could fix the typo. Don’t message again tonight. I’ll be busy.
Gabi laughed, so Sarai turned the phone back toward her own face and rolled her eyes.
“Jealous?” Gabi teased.
“Obviously.”
Gabi pushed her glasses up higher on her nose and said, “Well, I think Jo likes you. If you ask her out, she’ll say yes.”
“She’s not my type,” Sarai replied as she put her phone away.
“What is your type?” she asked, suddenly interested.
“Not Jo.”
“So, not Jo specifically, or not a Jo-like type?”
“This is a weird conversation.” Sarai laughed. “And Jo’s nice, but not my type physically. Is that what you’re asking?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“What’s your type?” Sarai asked and picked up her glass to take a drink.
“I don’t know that I have one,” she replied and thought back to seeing Sarai in the train station for the first time.
Her dad had given her Sarai’s information, so Gabi had looked her up before she had left Paris for Amsterdam.
She remembered thinking about how beautiful Sarai was in her social media pictures, but seeing her in person had been a whole other experience.
Sarai was still just as beautiful, if not more so now, and Gabi really wished that Sarai had accepted her offer to come to Paris for a visit.
She’d actually planned the whole weekend without Sarai knowing.
They would’ve hit up all the usual tourist spots so that Sarai could see them, but she’d picked a few things that only the locals knew about, too.
She had been planning on making a reservation at a nice restaurant, impressing Sarai with her fluent French, and even telling Sarai that she liked her before Sarai would have to go back.
That last thing would have taken a lot of courage, but Gabi had planned to do it, at least.
That trip hadn’t happened, and when Sarai had basically said no to her coming back to Amsterdam, Gabi had given up on the idea of telling her, and their texting had grown more and more infrequent until it had ceased altogether.
Then, her dad had died shortly after, and her whole life had changed.
Gabi still couldn’t believe that she was sitting in front of the woman she’d had a crush on all those years ago and that she was now going to be living with her, too.
“Nachos with no sour cream. I had them add extra guac since you usually order that. I’m guessing you just forgot tonight.
” Jo set the plate of nachos down and added, “Our guacamole has extra onions in it.” She nodded to Gabi.
“And a burger with onions on the side, just in case you change your mind.”
“Thanks, Jo,” Sarai said.
“No problem.”
When Jo walked away, Gabi laughed hard. Sarai joined in and scooped off all the extra guacamole, which Gabi kind of loved.
“I only get guac when I’m with my friends because they like it. I’m not really a fan.”
“Oh, can I tell her to take it back and have them make it again?” Gabi asked, not feeling petty in the slightest.
Sarai laughed again.