Page 28 of Derivation

“I will. And thank you.”

The reality was that she didn’t need to stop by the house tonight. She had two small boxes in her trunk that she’d forgotten to unload the previous night, but that could’ve waited until tomorrow. She just wanted to stop by the house tonight. Gabi had been surprised to discover that she’d been feeling a little lonely lately. Because she was an engineer and worked from home sometimes, she hadn’t made many new friends at work, and she didn’t get out much to begin with. It had been one of the reasons, which she was only realizing now, that she’d decided to take the job at Chase’s company: she’d have a friend and someone to maybe make some plans with occasionally. Having roommates might actually be good for her, but having these particular roommates might be great for her.

Gabi Durand: Not yet, no. I’ve been a little busy, and you loaned the book to me two days ago.

She set her phone down in the cup holder, started her car, but before she could back out of her parking spot, she had a reply, and she couldn’t wait to check it.

Sarai Kaplan: So, not a speed reader, huh? Are you coming over tonight to move in more stuff?

Gabi Durand: On my way now. And, no, I’m not a speed reader. I read at a normal pace to actually enjoy the story. Is that offensive to speed readers? I don’t know.

Gabi stared down at the phone for a few seconds, but when a response didn’t come right away, she put her phone back down and pulled out of her spot. She’d told Sarai that she was on her way over, so that was probably why she hadn’t replied. They hadn’t texted a lot, but that was because Gabi had been over at the house every night this week, dropping things off and hanging out a little. A few texts a day at most, but it had been nice for Gabi to have someone to text that wasn’t her gay male best friend, who didn’t exactly share any of her interests or hobbies outside of engineering.

Arlowe had been texting her, too. Fewer texts, and not at all about lesbian romance; her texts were more about coding languages or something new that she had added to their company website or the browser version of their software. Gabi liked that as well because she wanted them to be friends, but she had to admit that she was enjoying Sarai’s texts a little more. Enya hadn’t texted her at all, but they didn’t have much in common or to talk about – at least, not yet – so that made sense.

“Hey,” Arlowe greeted her when she walked into the house using her new key.

“Oh, hi,” she replied. “I’m just stopping by to drop off some stuff.”

“You don’t have to explain why you’re here. You live here, Gabi.”

“Not officially until tomorrow, when my lease starts.”

“Sure. Whatever. I was about to go out to the bar. Want to come? I can wait for you.”

“Oh, no. I need to unpack some stuff. I have all my coat hangers here now, so I want to get everything hung up that I brought over yesterday, and I need to go through whatever is in the two boxes I have in my trunk because I don’t remember what I packed in them. I only labeled the box as belonging in the bedroom, which was clearly a mistake.”

“Well, if you change your mind, just text me, and I’ll let you know how much longer I’m hanging out.”

“Will do,” she said. “Is… Sarai here? Or Enya?”

“Enya went out already. She said she wanted to go immerse herself in a language; whatever that means.”

Arlowe grabbed her phone off the coffee table before stuffing it into her jacket pocket.

“It means she went to the French restaurant in the city. Then, she’ll go to the Italian gelato place for dessert because it’s owned by actual Italians,” Violet explained as she walked into the living room from the kitchen. “She does that sometimes. It gives her a chance to speak different languages with people who understand them. Whenever a new restaurant in town opens, she looks it up to see if it’s owned by people who are actually from wherever the food is from, too. We’re not allowed to order Indian for delivery anymore because she goes and picks it up since the owners just moved to the US five years ago and speak fluent Hindi.”

“She’s a little quirky, yeah?” Gabi guessed.

“A little. Comes with the genius,” Violet said. “And I was about to head home. Stella and I are cooking dinner together tonight.”

“Fine. Fine. Brag about how great it is to have a live-in girlfriend to the rest of us every chance you get,” Arlowe teased.

“I will. Maybe you should try looking for one, since you seem to be jealous of mine, and stop meeting random women at bars, Arlowe.”

They walked toward the door together, so Gabi moved out of the way to let them by.

“Everyone seems random until they’re not. How else am I supposed to meet a woman and fall in love if she’s not a stranger first?” Arlowe suggested.

When the two of them left the house, Gabi wondered if that was what it was like, having best friends whom they’d known forever. It was like they never really finished a conversation but somehow still managed to finish it at the same time. She waited for them to back out of the driveway before she went outside and carried in her boxes one by one, and as she was dropping them off in her bedroom, she had a thought. Earlier, she’d asked about Sarai and Enya, not expecting Violet to still be there, but she’d gotten distracted, so she didn’t know if Sarai was there or if she was alone in the house. Then, she heard something from the kitchen.

“Shit!”

“Yeah, that’s her,” she said to herself with a little smile.

Gabi walked down the hall, turned left, and saw Sarai staring down at what looked to be a TV dinner on the kitchen table.

“Hey,” she said.