Lina 2
I ran myself a bubble bath in the girls’ bathroom. We had two bathrooms on the second floor, one with a giant old-fashioned clawfoot tub with a retractable showerhead from the ceiling, a double vanity with two sinks, and a giant stained glass window depicting a woman reaching for her lover, their hands inches apart. The former owners had decorated it beautifully in an early nineteen hundreds style. Gavin's more modern bathroom sported a frosted-glass stand-up shower with black marble covering the counter and walls. Simple and masculine.
After adding some of Jilsey's chamomile and lavender bubbles to the bath, I sank to my chin in the tub. As the hot water relaxed my muscles, I leaned my head against the lip of the tub, trying to clear my mind. I focused on Enya playing in the background, willing her voice to take over my thoughts. It wasn't happening. All I could think about was work and Gavin.
Before we’d started the catacombs, we had just received an exhibit on loan from the Smithsonian. THE SMITHSONIAN! It was an Abraham Lincoln exhibit featuring artifacts from his childhood home, the time he was in the White House, and possessions of Mary Todd Lincoln’s. I had studied this subject thoroughly. Early American History was my focus in college. If I could find enough time I knew, knew I could put the exhibit together flawlessly. That was the defining moment for any curator—which I planned to one day be—for your work to be on display for everyone to view, learn from, and to be consumed by.
The front door slammed, jolting me from my daydream. Examining my fingers, I saw that they were indeed prunes, and my body was well relaxed. I got up from the tub, wrapping myself in a plush red robe, and headed to my room. I sat on the edge of my bed and lay straight back, my feet still almost hitting the floor, and blew out a deep breath.
I couldn’t remember the last time that I’d had the whole house to myself for any length of time. Usually, it was a couple of hours. Tops. Definitely never a whole day.
A soft knock rapped against my door, before Jilsey, without waiting for an answer, walked in. The bed dipped as she lay down, dressed in her blue scrubs, her badge and stethoscope hanging from her neck. We lay there in comfortable silence for some time, before Jilsey finally spoke.
"What are you going to do about Gavin?" she asked, turning her head my direction.
"When did he tell you?" I was avoiding her question and silently thankful that she couldn’t see the nervous twisting of my stomach. It would figure that Gavin had asked her opinion before doing it. She was his only “dude” friend who wasn't also a co-worker.
"About four months ago," she said, laughing. “I can’t believe it took him this long to say something to you.”
"What should I do, Jils?" I asked. Despite my feelings for Gavin, I was nervous about changing things. Maybe he had been right, stuff could get messy if it didn’t work out. I didn’t want to lose his friendship.
“I thought you wanted this?” she asked gently.
“I did. Do. I do want this. I just wish I knew why he had a change of heart.” At no point had he given me any indication that he wanted more. If anything, it had felt like he was pulling away.
“He’s twenty-five, Lina.” She laughed. “It’s about time he at least considers a relationship that doesn’t involve the walk of shame by one or both parties the next morning.”
“I’ve never taken the walk of shame,” I grumbled. “You can’t make the walk of shame in your own house.”
“Right…” She patted my leg and got up to leave. “What is really gonna be different? “
“Everything,” I whined. “Nothing. I don’t know.”
She gave me a look and left. The conversation with her had actually helped ease my nerves a little. Nothing was going to change with us, only our title. I wanted this and had expressed as much to Jilsey on several occasions. She’d better have kept her mouth shut, too.
After I was assured that I was alone, I got dressed and headed downstairs in search of something to occupy my time. I wandered around the living room, folding our blankets and resetting the coffee table. The kitchen was spotless, thanks to Jils. Turning to leave, I noticed the grocery list on the refrigerator. Grocery shopping was relaxing, right? Jilsey and Gavin usually did it, since they did the cooking. But I could follow a list as well as the next person.
I followed the walkway path around the house to our backyard garage and punched in our code. The garage door rose to reveal Gavin's Charger. He drove his cruiser when he worked, and he left his keys in case we needed his car while he was gone. Jilsey had her own car, so really he left the keys for me, though I rarely used it. I adjusted the comfortable leather seat to fit my five-zip legs. Gavin was well over six-feet tall and had the seat pushed almost all the way back.
After carefully maneuvering my way out of our driveway, I headed to Kroger. Saebo was a pretty easy town to navigate, given a lot of our roads were one-way. Most of the main streets led to the center of our city, which was where the museum was located, the roads fanning out like a pinwheel. Shopping list at the ready, I parked the car and headed into the fluorescent-lit supermarket.
On my way to check out, I stopped at the flower station, eyeing the bouquets of poinsettias and holly branches. Grabbing two, I headed to the register, tossing a couple candy bars on the belt as I stood in line. After checking out, I loaded Gavin's trunk with the groceries, keeping the flowers and candy in the front seat with me.
Though I knew I shouldn’t, I took a detour down Main Street to check on the museum. I was just going to look. Just to make sure it was okay. I knew Seline said to take the day off, but I had also seen this woman six days a week for the past three years and knew that she didn't take time off. Even when she had strep throat, she made me set up Skype in the museum so she could monitor visitor activity.
Sure enough, her car was there, parked in one of the reserved spots. Naturally, I wanted to park the car and run to help her with whatever it was that she was doing. But with groceries in the trunk, that proved problematic. I had also promised Gavin and Jilsey that I would enjoy my day and relax. I chewed my bottom lip as I thought of a way to rationalize this. Maybe if I took some work home…would that count? Working in sweat pants wasn't really working, right? Or...I could go into work for a little while and just make sure I got home before them. Gavin was out until midnight, and Jilsey would be gone until two a.m. It was only after four; I could run in and stay until just around ten.
I’d make it nine, since I was supposed to be relaxing.
Arriving home, I pulled the car neatly into the garage and unloaded the groceries. I arranged each bouquet in a vase and set the candy bars in front of them on the counter. I grabbed the pack of sticky notes off the counter and wrote a quick note for each of them.
My mind went back to Gavin’s request. Could I really do this with him? I felt like it had bad idea written all over it. There were so many things that could go wrong. But, on the other hand, what would really change? We were, in fact, already dating, sort of. Gavin was nice, generous, funny, and attractive—all the things that girls looked for. If I thought about this much longer, I was going to give myself a nosebleed. Throwing caution to the wind, I checked Gavin’s schedule on the fridge for his next evening off and quickly wrote Oasis, Wednesday, 6:30 on a sticky note. There. I liked this spontaneity thing. If I didn't give myself time to think about things, I couldn't change my mind. Look at me, first day of the New Year, and I was already making changes. If I had any rhythm in my body, I would dance. Instead, I settled with raising the roof on my way out.
After locking the door behind me, I headed toward the museum. We lived about four blocks away, and I enjoyed the walk. After spending hours indoors, it was nice to get some fresh air in your system. The sidewalks were just as slick as they were last night, and it had started snowing. By the time I climbed the stairs of the old courthouse that the museum inhabited, there was a fine dusting of white covering the lawn.
I unlocked the heavy glass doors and quickly turned off the entry alarm. My footsteps echoed through the empty halls as I headed to my desk. A door slammed somewhere around the corner and I almost hit the ceiling.
"Oh, Jesus Christ, Seline, you scared the hell out of me," I said, as she rounded the corner, my heart still pounding in residual fear.
"I scared you? What are you even doing here? I thought I told you to take the day off?" She set her hands on her black-clad hips, giving me a stern look that could scare grown men.
"You said, 'I suppose we should take the day off as well'," I quoted. "You didn't tell me to take the day off. You also insinuated that we would both not be here. But there I was, simply on my way home from grocery shopping, and what do I see? Your car. I had to stop in."
“I have nothing to do today,” she countered. “Go spend some time with Jilsey and Gavin.”
“They’re both working today.” I frowned. “It was the trade-off for not working on Christmas.”
"Is there any chance of me convincing you to go home?" she asked.
"Nope."
"Well, then, I guess you can come help me finish the inventory in the office. We have been so preoccupied with the catacombs that we are extremely behind," she said, turning and striding down the hall.
On our way into our office, she scooted piles of archived records to the side and made a walkway for us to enter. Her desk sat in the far corner, and even though the rest of the office was in disarray, it was meticulously clean and orderly. My desk, on the other hand, was in the front as you walked in and looked as if a grenade had exploded on it—papers and sticky notes everywhere. I was pretty sure there was also a half a bag of Doritos somewhere.
Wordlessly, she handed me a pile of new inventory reports to enter into Past Perfect, our cataloging system, while she balanced our donations for the past few weeks. She was right, we were really behind. Exhibit room C was closed and filled with Abraham Lincoln memorabilia and artifacts, none of which had been entered into our system or properly documented as of yet. I internally cringed at what would happen if this place caught on fire and we had to make an insurance claim for a shit ton of priceless, unaccounted for artifacts. We sat in silence, each dedicated to our assigned task. I knew it was weird, but work was more calming than just relaxing was for me. I couldn’t sit still. I needed to do something, anything. My mind didn’t compute with idle hands.
I had all but lost track of time when I reached the bottom of my stack. Standing up, I stretched, my back popping. Seline was still diligently plugging away numbers into her computer. Checking the clock, I saw that it was a quarter to midnight. Son of a bitch, I had to get home. Gavin would be getting off work soon, and I needed to make myself appear good and relaxed before he got there.
"Hey, Seline, I'm gonna head out, okay?" I asked, tying the belt on my coat and slipping my gloves on.
"Okay, Lina. See you Monday?" she asked, taking a moment to look up at me.
"Of course. Goodnight," I said, heading out the door.