CHAPTER 21
“Violet, go home!” Arlowe yelled.
“Are you hungover?” Violet asked when she sat down on the sofa next to her.
“Yes. Why are you here? I can’t handle a work meeting right now.”
“I asked her to come over,” Gabi said, walking in from the kitchen.
“Oh. Wait… Why?” Arlowe asked.
“I needed to talk to her about something.”
“So, we don’t have to work right now?”
“No, Arlowe,” Violet said, chuckling, and patted her on the knee before she stood back up. “Garage? Or are Sarai and Enya out there?”
“No. Sarai went out. I don’t know what for. Enya’s in her room.”
“What do you need to talk to Violet about and not the rest of us?” Arlowe asked.
“If I told you, wouldn’t that be construed as a work meeting?” Gabi replied.
“Point taken. Where is Sarai with my coffee?”
“Oh, that’s where she went?” she asked.
“She said she was going out to clear her head. I asked her to bring me coffee. She said no.”
Gabi shook her head and laughed.
“But she’ll bring me coffee.”
“I made coffee. It’s in the kitchen, if you want some,” Gabi told her. “We’ll be in the garage.”
Then, she and Violet walked through the kitchen and into the garage, where Gabi closed the door behind them and locked it.
“I don’t think that door has ever been locked before,” Violet noted.
“I just don’t want to risk anyone overhearing,” she replied. “Sit. Please.”
“What’s going on, Gabi? Your text had me worried.”
“It’s not a big deal. I just have a question for you that I don’t want the others to hear because they’ll ask me a million questions that I don’t want to answer yet.”
When Violet sat in her desk chair, Gabi rolled Sarai’s over and sat down next to her.
“Is it about the hardware design?”
“No, nothing to do with that. In fact, Enya and I are going to talk later today about what I’ve been mocking up so far. I’ve been having a lot of fun with it.”
“Okay… Then, I don’t understand why I’m here on a Sunday morning.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I thought you’d reply to my text that we could talk tomorrow, but then, you said you’d just come over.”
“Stella wanted to sleep in, and I was restless. This way, we both win. What’s going on?”
“I know the lease to this place is actually in your name, and the landlord lets the rest of us sublet through you because you’re a longtime tenant.”
“Yeah, that’s true. What about it?” Violet asked.
“I know I signed a yearlong lease, but I was wondering if you would let me out of it.”
“What? Why?” Violet asked, looking concerned now.
“I think I’d rather live alone. I haven’t started looking yet, and I had a hard time when I did before, but I’m hoping that I can find something if I keep looking.”
“And what’s the real reason?” Violet asked her.
“That is the real reason.”
“Come on, Gabi. I know the whole having roommates thing is an adjustment, but you love living here. I can tell. So, what’s really going on? I know Arlowe can be annoying, and Enya is there one second, gone the next, but–”
“It’s not their fault at all. I just think it would be better if I lived somewhere else. That’s all. I’ll still work for the company and come by and stuff to do that.”
Violet squinted at her and said, “It’s Sarai, isn’t it?”
“What? No, I told you, they haven’t–”
“What happened between you two?” Violet interrupted, leaning back in the chair.
“How do you all know?”
“Because it’s obvious. I see how you look at her. Everyone does. Well, everyone except Sarai, because she’s… Well, she’s Sarai.”
“We talked last night.”
“You did? That’s great.”
“No, it’s not, because she doesn’t want to risk it.”
“Risk what?”
“Honestly, I don’t know for sure.” Gabi sighed.
“I think she’s a little scared about this whole thing, but I also know that part of the reason she’s worried is that I live and work here, and if something goes wrong, she’s worried that it will mess with the status quo.
I don’t want to do that, obviously, but I also love what I’m working on, and I think I can build the thing you all need, so I don’t want to quit working on it.
I was hoping, if we at least didn’t live together, that it might convince her that we’re worth giving it a shot. ”
“Gabi, no.”
“No? I can’t get out of the lease?”
“No, not that. If you really want out of the lease, that’s fine with me, but you’ll need to get their approval because I don’t pay rent here anymore.
They all do. And they’d have to pay more if you leave or decide to find another roommate, and they all love you, so I don’t think they want to do that. ”
“They do?”
“Are you kidding me? Arlowe won’t stop talking about how cool it is to have you here, and Enya sung your praises about the design and the fact that you helped her figure out the exact amount of salt to add to her chocolate chip cookies.”
“I literally just told her that there was enough salt in the thing.”
“That’s sometimes all it takes with her. Arlowe is harder to impress, but you code and understand why she loves it so much, so you’ve won her over. Now, I think we both know that you’ve won Sarai over.”
“I really like her, Violet.”
“And you think moving out is going to make dating her easier? You live a door away right now.”
“It’s the one complication that I can remove. I’m only a contractor, and right now, I’m not really working with Sarai very much. I don’t need to be around when the marketing decisions get made. So, that’s less of a concern.”
“Gabi, this is just Sarai; she’s always been like this.”
“Like what?”
“She gets in her head a lot. It’s why she’s spent most of the week on her own.
It’s why she struggles to see her ideas through.
She can come up with them, but she doubts herself all the time, so it’s difficult for her to make the big ideas she has happen.
She second-guesses things. Then, the campaign or whatever she comes up with doesn’t perform as well as she hoped, and she goes into the zone.
That’s what we all call it. She ends up on the swing in the backyard or just stares at her dry-erase board, or she’s in her room, looking up at her ceiling or out the front window until she’s ready to come out of it. ”
“The zone?”
“Yeah.”
“But this isn’t work-related. This is us maybe dating.”
“Same thing,” Violet told her.
“No, it’s not.”
“I meant that it’s the same thing to Sarai. Not that you’re like work to her. I mean that she’s stuck in her head, getting into her own way.”
“Did you know that I liked her in Amsterdam?” Gabi asked.
“Yes.”
“So, I was obvious then, too?”
“Yes,” Violet said with a laugh. “Honestly, I thought it was just a crush. You were a little younger than us, and it felt like you were crushing on the older, hot girl.”
“You think Sarai is hot?”
“No, but you did.”
“Still do,” she confessed with a little laugh.
“And I like that she gets in her head sometimes. She cares so much about things, and I do, too. I couldn’t market whatever I build, but I love working on it, and I know she’ll love marketing it.
She loves all of you and tends to put everyone else first over herself, which is why she never takes the breaks she should. ”
“She’s like that, yes,” Violet agreed.
“And she scrunches up her nose when she’s deep in her thoughts. She’ll stare out at nothing, and I don’t get it, but I kind of want to sit next to her and stare out at nothing with her.”
“You know what I think?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t think you’re the one to sit and stare with her,” Violet pointed out.
“From what I’ve noticed, you’re the one who helps pull her out of it.
I think that’s more important because it’s something that most of the time, none of us can do.
Look, when she was in college, she had this vision of her life.
We all did. We had these plans for ourselves.
Mine had been made for me, but I was supposed to join my family’s company.
For Sarai, it was going into marketing.”
“She told me.”
“She was going to get some entry-level job and work her way up to CMO at a big tech company. Her goal was to be a VP by the time she was thirty, and she wanted the C-Suite by thirty-two. Then, we were all sitting around one night, Enya spoke up, and we decided to go for this thing that has taken years and years to pick up. She’s already thirty-three, and while she is technically a CMO, that doesn’t count in her mind because, outside of an intern, she doesn’t have anyone to manage or a team to grow. She blames herself. We all do.”
“For what?”
“For the slow progression of the business,” Violet explained.
“I blame myself because I’m the CEO, and the buck stops with me.
Enya blames herself because she worries her idea wasn’t unique enough to make any real money.
Arlowe blames herself because she can’t code it all any faster.
Sarai blames herself because she doesn’t think that she’s had good enough ideas to market and sell the thing.
Yes, we’re about to move into a real office soon, and that’s a massive step for us, but we all think that it should’ve happened, like, eight years ago or something.
I’m telling you this not to make this conversation about work, but to explain that I think Sarai needs someone like you in her life.
You make her stand up from that swing and come in for the meeting where she can share her ideas.
You got her to trust herself a little bit more. ”
“I’m glad,” Gabi replied. “But I asked her out, and she said no, so I don’t know what else to do. I thought of moving out because it would give us a little space if something does go wrong, which I don’t think it will. I just have this feeling that…”
“It’s supposed to be the two of you?”
Violet smiled at her.
“Yeah,” she said wistfully. “Is that crazy?”
“No. You feel what you feel. And, for what it’s worth, she liked you back then, too. She just kept telling us that you were too young for her as a way to get us to stop making fun of her.”
Gabi chuckled and replied, “We talked about that, too. I just want us to try.”
“Well, how about this… I’ll let you out of the lease if you give Sarai a little time to do what she needs to do.”
“How long will that be?”
“We never know, but it won’t be forever. You give her a little time to figure it out, and if you still want to move out, you just check with the three of them. If they’re good with it, I won’t stop you.”
“I’d have to ask Sarai if I could break my lease?”
“You planned on fleeing in the middle of the night and not telling her that you were moving out?”
“No, my plan was to ask you, and if you said yes, I’d tell her that I’m moving out, so we could try this thing we both want to try.”
“Sorry, I can’t help you there. Arlowe, Enya, and Sarai are the ones who live here, so they would have to cover your portion of the rent.”
“Yeah, I should’ve thought about that. I’m sorry I had you come over. Sounds like you could’ve just stayed home and slept in with your girlfriend.”
“No, I would’ve jumped her bones and woken her up, and she needs her sleep.
We were up late last night, arguing about what color to paint the living room, and, well, you can probably guess what happened after that, since I know they all make fun of me, but Stella and I have the best chemistry in the bedroom, so I am not apologizing for it. ”
“I want that,” Gabi replied.
“Chemistry in the bedroom?”
“Yes. I’ve had good sex, but not exactly great.”
“Think it will be great with Sarai?”
“I have no idea,” she replied, laughing. “And it’s not a given. She has to agree to go out with me first because I’m not someone who just sleeps with someone else. No offense.”
“None taken,” Violet said. “I wasn’t either until I met Stella, and look how that worked out.”
“I just mean that, even if I were like that, and even if she were, I couldn’t just do that with her. It’s already more than that for me.”
“Good. She wants more.”
“But is she willing to risk whatever she’s worried about to have it with me?”
“I don’t know the answer to that, but my guess is that, if you give her some time, she’ll let you know.”
The garage door opened then, and Enya stood there.
“The door was locked,” Gabi noted.
“I used my key,” Enya replied and held up a key ring.
“We have keys to that lock?” Gabi asked.
“We have one, which is on my key ring. What are you two doing out here? I thought you might have accidentally closed the door and got locked in or something.”
“No, just talking. But we’re done, so if you want to talk about the mock-up now, we can,” Gabi said.
“Sarai just pulled in. She’s got coffee for everyone, so maybe after that.”
“Sure,” Gabi replied.
They left the garage and walked into the kitchen just as Arlowe and Sarai walked in carrying coffees for all of them and a bag of something.
“Oh. Vi, I didn’t know you were here, so I didn’t get you anything,” Sarai said.
“That’s fine. I’ve got a girlfriend to go wake up. Maybe I’ll make her breakfast in bed.”
“And then, get laid?” Arlowe teased.
“Hopefully,” Violet said and looked over at Gabi. “Are we good?”
Gabi nodded.
“All right. I’ll see you all tomorrow,” Violet added and left the kitchen.
“What was that all about?” Arlowe asked.
“Just a question about the contract I signed, but it’s all straightened out now.”
“Good. I want to see what you’ve been working on,” Enya said. “I’m excited about it.”
“Me too,” she replied and smiled at Enya as the woman grabbed a bagel from the bag.
“Hey,” Sarai greeted.
“Hey. Good morning.”
“Yeah,” Sarai said before she grabbed her own coffee and walked out the back door, which meant that she headed for the swing.