Holly’s eyes falter a bit again. This time, Gemma’s heart is less hardened.

Holly continues, “But she goes into this strange-ass building in Regina, and she’s calling my phone, which is now ringing again, and she knocks on every single fucking door until this old woman opens her front door and gives my phone back! Like what were the fucking odds, right? She stammers that her grandson found it, she was gonna give it to the cops tomorrow morning, and we’re like, yeah, yeah whatever, thanks for giving it back, let’s go.” Holly takes all the fruit they’ve cut and piles it into bowls. “I just remember Ava was so determined, like she was on a mission. It, like, wasn’t a question. There’s a loyalty to her, I guess is what I’m trying to say,” concludes Holly. “At the time I would’ve said it was out of character for her, but now I realize it wasn’t. I don’t know if that makes any sense.”

“It does,” says Gemma, scooping the last of her apple slices into a bowl. (In no life would Gemma have gone on such an adventure over a fucking phone. But Gemma gets what Holly’s trying to say.)

“Well, anyway. Funny postscript to that story? I’d forgotten that as a joke I’d labelled Ava’s number in my phone as ‘Some Slut.’”

“Oh my God. So when she was blowing up your phone, and the old woman was seeing it ring—”

“Poor her.”

They serve the fruit and sit back down. Gemma has drunk much of the bottle of wine. She slouches her body into Ava’s, wrapping herself in the girl’s heat. Gemma’s satin blouse makes a scratchy sound against the heavy fabric of Ava’s dress. Gemma realizes her apple slices are mutilated to shit and look terrible, but who cares. Ava strokes Gemma’s hair, puts a long arm around her waist. Lets her fingers drift toward Gemma’s ass. From this angle, Gemma faces the night of the open window. There really is very little to the south of here. A few winking lights of houses. One hamlet over the border. Olive continues talking very fast, excitedly. She has one of those perfect stealth voices. Olive’s voice rolls over Gemma. If Gemma’d called her on the phone, she’d assume she was cis. Olive needs Ava to drive her to the hospital tomorrow for her appointment. Olive has repeated this fact a few times and Ava says calmly, “Of course, of course.” Olive keeps chattering about how her doctors are psychos, and could Ava please, please come with her, please. She sounds energetic and excited. Ava says, “Of course,” over and over, in that same robotic, calm voice. Gemma hopes this doesn’t disrupt Ava’s day too much tomorrow. Did Holly scream? Was that screaming, what Holly was doing? No, she is laughing—at what, Gemma cannot tell. If the old hospital were still open, it’d be a block away and Ava wouldn’t need to drive Olive at all, but ugh, when they built the new hospital, they just had to fucking share it with Winkler, so now it’s all the way out at the fucking midpoint on the highway. Funny that the old hospital is a massage centre now. And the back of it is a gym. Food has now somehow spilled and Holly is rising to clean it up. Gemma is more or less lying on Ava and can feel Ava’s clit hardening beneath her dress. Olive is speaking very, very fast and Gemma just cannot make out her words anymore; she is having enormous difficulty focusing. Her fingers are dry and her chest is so sweaty. There is a wall on the bathroom (how did she get into the bathroom?) and someone is yelling. The porcelain of the bathtub is cooler on her skin than the plastic of the toilet seat, and this makes no sense. A fluorescent light is buzzing and flickering and it is cooler now, it’s mustier. There is a voice from the music and it is a girl singing very high and she sounds very beautiful, but Gemma can’t make it out, though maybe it was gone now it was coming from—