Page 118 of Touch of Class

No one else in the world strode down a hallway like Gillian DeGarmo on a mission.

Daphne met her at the door and planted a kiss on her mouth before she even had a chance to open it. She kissed her as if they’d been apart for years instead of a day, and all the coiled stress in her body eased as it pressed into the one she’d sought.

“Wow,” Gillian said when Daphne finally stepped back. “If I knew to expect a welcome like that, I might call off work more often.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Daphne said softly.

“Maybe not, but I’d think about it a lot.”

Daphne shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For not saying earlier how much I wanted that. That I want it every time you walk into a room. That I’d like to keep doing it for a long time. That I want you for a long time. I know it doesn’t make sense, and you probably have better plans, so I wanted you to make the decision because I trust you to make a good one, but in case I failed to make it clear this morning, I like you a lot.”

Gillian smiled. “The message might not have come across this morning, but I do think you were pretty clear last night.”

Daphne laughed, relieved to see Gillian hadn’t slipped too far away to be a little cocky.

“However, you also made a serious request of me before we went our separate ways, and I took it with the gravity it deserved, the gravity you deserve. I’ve done a lot of thinking, and I had two enlightening conversations to bring things into better focus for me. The first was with Maura.”

“Oh good,” Daphne said sarcastically. “You went right to the problematic, workaholic, detached mother for advice.”

Gillian shrugged. “I have nothing to deny there. She is all those things and much more. In being reminded of that, I was also reminded every one of us is a lot of things at once.”

Daphne waited, not at all sure where this was headed.

“We’re all complex and complicated,” Gillian continued solemnly, “and I used to love that. I used to embrace it, and I don’t know exactly when I stopped, but somewhere along the way I made choices and learned lessons, probably for decent reasons at the time, but they got ingrained in ways that don’t serve me anymore. So today, I decided I’d like to make different choices and deliberately unlearn some of those things.”

“Like what?” she asked tentatively.

“Like you are not a problem to be fixed or a provocation to be handled,” Gillian said emphatically. “You’re challenging, yes, but I live for challenges. I chose this life seeking challenges. Humans fascinate me. I love humanity, and Daphne, you’re one of the most beautifully human people I’ve ever met.”

Tears sprang to her eyes, but she blinked them away as Gillian forged on.

“You are layers of chaos and comfort and wit and wonder. You’re sharp-tongued and a soft place to land. You are amazingly complex, and I love that, which I’m pretty sure is why I’ve fallen in love with you.”

Shock was dizzying and left her lightheaded. “I’m sorry, what’d you say?”

“I’ve fallen in love with you,” Gillian repeated calmly, “and I know that might feel fast, but weren’t you the one who said something about decades of foreplay?”

“Do you plan to remember everything I say and throw it back at me?”

“Why, are you into that? I’m kind of a pro at active listening.”

“Are you seriously joking with me right now? Like, this is the moment you decide you have a sense of humor? What happened to all the crises and provocations and grappling with the weight of your responsibility from, like, twelve hours ago? Did it all just vanish?”

“No,” Gillian said, with a slight smile, “all still very present, but I’m trying something new.”

“What’s that?”

“I had a fellow mental health professional, or rather someone who likes to think of herself as mental health adjacent, introduce me to a new theory, or maybe modality of crisis management, distress tolerance, and emotional regulation. I haven’t read the formal studies, but my initial experimentation has yielded a few promising results, at least anecdotally.”

Daphne folded her arms across her chest, not at all enjoying Gillian’s return to her overly formal speech patterns and business vernacular after all this time.

Then Gillian leaned forward almost conspiratorially, and added, “Have you heard of ‘just not doing that’?”

Daphne stared at her for a long moment before finally cracking up. “I’m familiar with the concept, but it sounds rather unserious and vague for you.”