“It’s like a devilled egg for your mouth,” says one.

“Devilled eggs are also for your mouth,” says the other.

“You homos!” says Ava. Everyone laughs. She whispers to Gemma as they walk out, “They might be microdosing?”

Gemma replies, “Hey, you know what they say on Sense8: ‘Drugs are like shoes.’”

Ava chimes back with perfect timing, “‘Everyone needs them, but they don’t always fit.’”

A girl passes covered in navy blue sequins, peacock feathers sticking out from her back. In line at the bar, Gemma sees a girl with poofed-out eighties hair, wearing a big blue skirt decorated with clouds and a retro-style T-shirt that says, I JUST WANT TO BE GAY IN SPACE WITH YOU.

“Uh, babe,” Gemma says to Ava, “is this, like—a costume party?”

Ava instantly laughs. “I’m so sorry!” she says. “I kept meaning to tell you, and then I just didn’t … “

She looks bashful, she does, that tall drink of water in red lip and a grey dress. Gemma smirks. “So you’re cute when you’re embarrassed. That’s nice.”

Ava puts a hand to her mouth and squeaks, “I hate costumes.”

Gemma laughs and lifts her chin, her hands in the pockets of her black felt coat. “Hey,” she says. “Do I look mad?” She swivels around. “Quite the co-workers you have here. This is the Big Tech lifestyle I’m missing, eh?”

“Shut uuuup!”

They get wine, and then a woman in a floofy grey wig pulls Ava aside. “One sec,” Ava says apologetically. Gemma idly folds her coat by the firepit. The sun is lowering on a horizon that is miles and miles away. You can see the whole damn Pembina Valley from up here, and it’s one of the most beautiful, unearthly sights Gemma has ever seen.

The girl with the eighties hair and the I JUST WANT TO BE GAY IN SPACE WITH YOU T-shirt taps her on the shoulder. “Hello friend, might you have a lighter?” The girl exudes delight. Gemma shakes her head, the wine spreading warm-cool through her system. The girl gets a lighter from a man in cat ears, and then she says, “You came with Ava, right?”

Gemma gets a little glow from hearing this as her eyes stray back to the horizon. (She had forgotten this, too, what that glow felt like.) “Yes,” Gemma says. “I came with her.”

“I’m Holly,” says the girl. “Ava and I grew up together in St. Vital.”

Gemma smiles. “No kiddin’.”

Holly exhales smoke. “Here to help, not to hurt! I love that woman.” She speaks with a sassy joyousness, like a bubbly kid who’ll charm the adults but give them the gears the whole time.

“And you two ended up out here, eh?”

“Oh! Dude! Please!” Holly lifts a finger in glee. “I got her this job. Very proud, by the way, thank you tons, don’t mention it.”

What did Ava do before this? Gemma wonders. They are the same age: thirty-four. She knows Ava hasn’t been here long. This causes a thought to kernel in her, honey warm and hopeful and exciting: There is so much I don’t know about her.