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RING-A-DING-DING, the Holiday's are here! And nothing say "Give!" like the bounty of the Mother Herself, so come on by to GAIA's Natural Market! Treat your family to a home cooked meal with only the PUREST of ingredients - all Produce Organic, all Products non-GMO, and all Smiles Authentic and free of Toxins!
Under the weather? No problem! Stop by our Body Center where our Body Specialists will help you pick out treatments grown lovingly by the original Healer - the Earth!
Come on down to GAIA's Natural Market, where we Give to the Earth so she can keep Giving to you!
~*~
There was a freeze warning again.
So naturally, anyone staying in town with enough neurosis, dietary restrictions, or disposable income came flocking to GAIA’s Market the moment they were released from whatever corporate 9-5 they’d found themselves locked in. Harrow couldn’t say she necessarily blamed many of them; she’d had plenty of dietary restrictions herself, all of her life in fact. But she hadn’t planned for the sudden influx of hands rifling through meticulously staged produce or clientele asking to sample every variety of the multitude of apples she had on display. God forbid the quantity of garlic they had in stock didn’t last until tomorrow…
People were always so prepared to throw a fit over garlic.
This rush wasn’t meant to happen until the second half of the week, after the month of December had really and truly kicked off, but Thanksgiving leftovers were already diminishing, she supposed, and the holiday rush was well and truly here.
The unpleasant chime of the same 23 holiday songs was maddening, and constantly interrupted with the cacophony of her coworkers’ pleas for help at the registers, whether opening another lane or bagging up yet another insanely sized order. Harrow lost track of all the times she’d come up in the call rotation and found that she had to ignore it. When her break arrived, she’d almost missed it.
Harrow would take her meals in the back, squat in her aged rolling chair, away from the garish overhead incandescents of the official employee breakroom. A large jar of cold brew concentrate with some unidentifiable reptilian mascot sat on the computer table before her, and she herself crouched in a much similar position as the mascot did - like a gargoyle on the worn out seat. She cradled her head on her knees in some parody of what one who actually possessed the capability of relaxing may have consider ‘rest’.
She heard the approaching steps behind her and knew it would likely be one of two people; in this moment perhaps she could welcome one, but she was more than certain irritation would be the only outcome of welcoming the other.
It was a flood of relief, then, when the approacher made herself known. “Hey,” her manager said, the sound of something small and weighted being slid across the table before her. “How’re you holding up?”
Harrow groaned and did not move. “I am fine,” she said into the thin fabric of her tights, and something about her being in her unnaturally curved shape, frigid and unmoving, must have been unconvincing because the figure beside her simply said “uh huh” followed by the sound of a sliding crate and the plop of the figure briskly settling herself upon it.
“C’mon. Eat up,” she said, tapping Harrow on the arm. It took some convincing (in the form of insistent tapping) but Harow finally uncurled, the heat she’d worked so hard at trapping in her loose black sweater escaping through the hole of her collar. “Girddle, I have eaten.”
Gideon didn’t even take a full second to consider this. “Yeah, no. A bite of plain daikon and a half jar of… wow are you drinking that straight from the jar? Half a jar of poison does not count as a meal. Come on,” she said when Harrow immediately opened her mouth to object, “we go back on in ten minutes. Least you can do is finish your flavorless vegetable and eat the hummus I bought you.”
“It is not,” she contended, “flavorless.”
“Oh come on, it doesn’t even have a color! It’s water colored, and I don’t mean like those masterpieces Camilla makes. I mean like someone dipped their brush in water and thought the mere possibility of paint would have been too vibrant. Let’s go, Your Dicotenous Ladyship.”
Harrow stared at her companion in bewilderment. “Griddle, that must be the largest word I have ever heard you say.”
Gideon removed the brittle plastic lid from the hummus and said “I live to serve. Eat up, sweet cheeks.”
Harrow was about to protest further that ‘dicotenous’ wasn’t even an actual word, but the smell hit her and god she was hungry now that she thought of it and proceeded to scoop the offered bean-paste with her pale vegetable and cronch away.
Content, Gideon unwrapped her own snack she had on her lap – a leftover old sandwich from the looks of it – and the two proceeded to eat in companionable silence.
“What is this?” Harrow finally asked, rolling her food around in her mouth. “This… flavor.”
“It’s tahini – do you like it? New flavor – we may begin carrying it.”
“No,” Harrow replied plainly, “I do not.”
“Huh, seriously? Well, we’ll keep trying.”
Harrow sighed. “Must we?”
“If you continue to insist upon eating close to nothing, then yeah, we must.” She retorted. “Come on, you can’t hate every flavor, and you feel much better during the second half of your shift after you’ve eaten – don’t argue with me, it’s true.”
Even Harrow had to admit hummus was a convenient way of consuming nutrients (maybe she’d have to get a cheap blender to bring into work, toss a bunch of vegetables inside, and consume it all with a spoon that way). So, brow furrowed, she swallowed through her distaste and waited for the refreshing wash of radish to cleanse her pallet between bites.
“Oh good,” said another voice, “she’s eating.”
Ianthe ducked below a low hanging divider to make her way into what the staff at the market had come to refer to as The Cave that served as the Produce Department’s base of operations. “Hello, Gonad.”
“Again, not my name,” the apparent-Gonad protested between bites, though it did nothing to deter the giant of a woman from scruffling her hair with a boney hand.
“Harry,” she greeted, and then laughed breathlessly in her throat. “Is that… tahini? Goodness, you must be hungry… here.” She placed her own newly purchased container of hummus before Harrow after peeling back the lid. “This is more your speed- are you eating a radish? Little rabbit…”
“Hey – there’s nothing wrong with tahini – tahini’s great!”
“Tridentarius, I am perfectly capable of feeding myself-“
“No you aren’t.”
“You really aren’t.”
“-And I do not,” clipped Harrow, “need anyone to intervene for me and tell me what I do and do not like. Least of all, you,” she added, directly her final statement towards Ianthe.
Gideon, ever the more defensive over Harrow in their recent years, felt her heart beat with pride.
“Mmm, perhaps,” Ianthe drawled. “I am right, though.”
And as though God himself decided that yes, after a few thousand years now was finally paramount time to intercede, a voice calling Produce to the front echoed from the overhead speakers.
Harrow took a final bite of radish without any dip whatsoever. “I’ve got to go,” she said standing up, mouth half full of food. She washed it down with a few large gulps of concentrated cold brew, leaving only dregs in the jar.
“But you’ve still got five minute-“ Gideon protested, but Harrow darted past Ianthe like the so-called rabbit she was and was gone.
Ianthe followed Harrow with her gaze for a moment, pursed her lips, and reclined in Harrow’s previously occupied chair. Gideon felt an imminent sense of glee when the chair almost fell backwards from the momentum, but the glee was quickly followed by her immense disappointment when she’d righted her posture immediately. Damn.
“Was this full when you brought it to her?” The woman with the unfortunately unbroken neck inquired.
“Yup,” replied Gideon, back to working at her own meal.
“Hmm. Almost half gone. Poor thing; I wonder if she’d even had breakfast today.”
“She didn’t,” replied Gideon, almost nonchalantly. “she stayed up all night studying.”
“Goodness. And you forced her to eat… this? She hates this flavor…”
“Hey, tahini is hardly a flavor! Wait- wait wait wait,” Gideon said, as a horrifying realization occurred to her. “Don’t tell me you got her plain hummus… oh my god, you did!” She’d flipped over the cap and almost gagged. “We practically throw out an entire case of these every three weeks! That’s nasty, Ianthe. God, I’m going to be sick.”
“Almost the entire case… in point,” she said, pointedly pausing, allowing her words to linger between them like a fart in air. “I bring her the ones that we don’t. Oh of course she doesn’t love them, but Harrow doesn’t really love any food. She’s so uncultured. God, what did you both even eat on that farm?”
“Oatmeal? I don’t know, nothing, leave us alone.”
For some reason, Ianthe laughed at that, and picked up Harrow’s mostly eaten radish. After rotating it between her fingers for a moment, she dipped it in the tahini hummus, and took a bite. “Hmm,” she said. “Deplorable.”
As if in response (though if asked, she would have said that it absolutely wasn’t), Gideon dunked a sandwich half into the smooth surface of the plain hummus and scooped out an utterly disrespectful amount. She, too, took a bite. “Yup.”
Around them, the overhead speakers resounded with their coworkers’ cries.
“You know,” drawled Ianthe in that old-money accent Gideon had found so sickening, “I’d offered to pay for her housing. I’d told her that she could dedicate all of her time and energy toward studying, that her entire focus could be on getting into the doctorate program she’s so hung up on.”
“Huh, really? Amazing. Wow. I wonder what she said.”
With her head thrown back (and Gideon more than just a little bit hoping this time she would fall), Ianthe chose to ignore this and made a guttural sound of frustration. “Why would anyone willingly choose this?” she whined, her voice reverberating off of the concrete walls which enclosed them.
“Hey Tridentarius, here’s an idea for you: why don’t you try staying the fuck away from my girlfriend?”
Ianthe smiled at that, the dimples of her smile pulling her cheeks back toward her jaw in a predatory manner, like the gills of a shark.
Eyes closed as though utterly at peace, Ianthe sucked at her opalescently white teeth. “I think you mean our girlfriend, comrade.”
~*~
The roots were her favorite, if she’d stopped and thought about it. And the reasons were so simple.
Leaves were fickle, and their appearance was nothing short of the temperamental; how much sunlight they’d received while they were still growing, yes, but also the conditions they were kept in from the moment they were unpacked. Too much or too little water could wilt them, too many hands touching them would cause them to unbundle or tear. Their colors faded, no matter how many times you’d tried to reawaken them with a warm bath, and often after all of that hard work, they’d often become scraps for hens anyway.
But roots? Roots were patience. And they were willing to wait for the water Harrow would spray on them from her portable water tank. And when she watered them, they glistened in colors and shades that had remained hidden, unseen. The reds and greens of the watermelon radish, the golden hue of the celeriac, the gemstone variety of the fingerlings.
It was when she was in the process of watering the beat varieties, that a customer wearing a screen printed sweater approached her. The sparkling font on the front spelt out the words “Good Vibes Only,” though Harrow barely had the time to read it before the customer addressed her by pointing a stick of burdock at her with each hand. “Excuse me,” she said, and barely waited for a response. “the woman in the Body Department told me that these will make me immune to the black mold growing in my mother’s house. How many of these do I need?”
“Burdock cannot,” Harrow began, very carefully, her mind reeling while trying her best to maintain a semblance of professionalism “create an immunity to mold in the human body. Frankly, nothing can. And even more frankly – I would not suggest anyone so much as entering your mother’s house the mold is professionally removed.”
“Okay but how many do I need?” Harrow’s face must have been doing something akin to perplexity, because the woman huffed impatiently and her face contorted back at her. “For the mold.”
“You need one,” she said. “One phone call to someone who specializes in the removal of mold. Because try as it might, burdock cannot protect you.”
The woman tapped her foot impatiently. “That isn’t true. The lady in the Body Department told me it did.”
“The lady in the Body department,” Harrow continued, “is unfortunately misinformed.”
“The Lady in the Body Department,” the customer pressed, voice raising with each word, “is currently studying to be a Doctor.”
“If you would like to make tea – if you would like to add variety to a salad, if you would even like to soothe a sore throat, then yes, burdock is ideal. But the only solution for black mold is to not be around the black mold.”
“You are a very rude young lady. I’m going to send a very well worded e-mail about you to the CEO.” Again not waiting for Harrow to respond, the woman grabbed a bundle of burdock sticks from the display as though they were kindling. Smiling with all of her teeth, she turned back to Harrow to say “I hope you have a Happy Holiday” and walked back over to the Body department.
It was only during a mercifully peaceful lull, after Harrow was sure that the woman had gone, that Harrow made her way over to the Body department. Ianthe was there, in her pressed slacks and buttoned-down shirt, assisting a couple somewhere in the cold and flu section, gesturing to vials and pulling some bottles out of small boxes for them to examine. She must have been able to feel Harrow’s eyes upon her, because she glanced over her shoulder to flash her a grin before turning back to her clients who had apparently liked whatever it was that she had just presented to them. Thanking her, they passed down the aisle the rest of the way, smiling politely at Harrow as they brushed past her.
The moment they were gone and the isle was empty, Harrow rounded on her.
“What in God’s name, Ianthe?”
“Harrow! May I help you with something? Headache? Cramps? You know, we have a staff basket of pills for that. Some are made from duck though…”
“Burdock root? Really? Do you even know what burdock is?”
Ianthe contained a laugh, and turned her attention back to pulling small boxes forward on the shelves to fill in the holes. “According to her, yes. However you, apparently, haven’t the faintest idea.”
“Why would you do that?” Harrow demanded. “Ianthe she could become deathly ill.”
“Her brother is already clearing out the home as we speak, relax. You need to stop worrying so much, you’re always so stressed already…”
“Why would you give her false medical advice? Ianthe, you could hurt someone.”
“I am beginning to get the impression that you might be a bit cross with me.” Harrow turned on her heel to leave because quite honestly screw this – she had better things to do - when Ianthe continued. “Alright alright, fine. If you must know: I did not give her any medical advice, Harrowhark. I would never tell anyone to do anything so stupid as to come back to haunt me later in my career. What I did say was that nothing in this aisle could assist her on her ever so… ambitious quest for immunity. Whoever had told her about the existence of burdock root, I haven’t the faintest idea. I did, however, send her over to the Produce section because I knew she would get a rise out of you. And I miss you ever so dearly, my avenging angel. My dearest beloved.”
“You sent an absolute maniac my way because you missed me?”
“Well of course,” replied Ianthe as though delighted, as though relieved that Harrow finally understood and she was mercifully relieved from her moments in the dog house. “Well, that and it would be so much simpler to show her to you than describe her to you later.” Harrow started back at her incredulously. “That woman was an absolute crank.”
~*~
“She’s just trying to get a rise out of you; ignore her. I always do,” Gideon said, locking the backdoor to the market behind her with a heavy metal key.
“I am aware of that, Griddle,” Harrow huffed, and Gideon turned around to delicately place her large hands on Harrow’s tiny shoulders. She dug her knuckles into the hollow where Harrow’s shoulders met her neck and when Harrow sighed in appreciation, she could have sworn she felt a wave of warmth wash over her.
“Christ, you’ve been holding this all in all day,” she said, feeling the stiffness in her neck refusing to give under her fingers. “Let me worry about Tridentarius. She’s my employee – she’s my responsibility to handle. You just keep working whatever witchcraft you’ve been working in Produce; really, it’s been looking great.” Gideon paused, successfully unknitting a particularly stubborn knot. “Harrow, when was the last time you were able to relax and eat a meal?”
Harrow pulled away and retrieved her car keys from the dark wool of her coat pocket. “Not this again, Griddle.”
“Oh no you don’t,” she said. “What was the last meal you’ve eaten? And don’t say anything I’ve made you eat at work because that’s pitiful-“
“I do not,” snapped Harrow, “need you to determine the sufficiency of how much I do and do not consume.”
“Don’t make me put myself between you and your car, Nonagesimus. I weigh at least three of you and our entire lives I could easily palm your forehead. Trust me – your arms are short, and my reach is long.”
Harrow crossed her arms and huffed. “This morning,” she said, and received a raised eyebrow in response. “Really. I made a jar of oatmeal while I was going over project schematics for my mechanical vibrations final. If you don’t believe me, I spilled some on the corner, which you are more than welcome to look at as the schematics are currently occupying the passenger seat of my car.”
“Morning was more than twelve hours ago, Nonagesimus.”
Harrow responded with a frustrated half shrug. So what if morning was more than twelve hours ago? Harrow did enough and it was absurd to expect her to also handle the inevitable passage of time.
On the far side of the parking lot, one of their coworkers sat in her car. Dimly lit as everything was, they could only see her shadows by the deceptive flickering of the streetlight which stood on the sidewalk before her car, illuminating the puffs of spoke wafting from her car’s open windows.
Harrow could barely contain a shudder. “That,” she said, “explains so much regarding her mental state. Do you think she’s still aware that she’s subjecting her mind and body to war-criminal levels of torture?”
“Well, seeing how she’s dashed to everyone’s rescue more times than I can count this week alone, I’d say whatever hell she subjects herself to in order to wind down at the end of the day, she’s probably well aware of,” Gideon said, suddenly feeling quite defensive of the member of her staff.
Harrow on the other hand was not entirely convinced this girl wasn’t some test subject being stalked by a team of apathetic geneticists. “Sitting in one’s car with the windows rolled down in this weather is nothing short of madness.”
As though in response, the figure hung her hand out of her car window, the pulsating orange glow of what Harrow was certain was not by any means a cigarette illuminating the network of brass (copper) rings on her nearest fingers.
“She’s fine, Nonagesimus,” Gideon said. “And you’re trying – and failing – to change the subject.”
“I am doing no such thing,” Harrow countered, but Gideon cut in before she could proceed with what was sure to be a well worded yet pitiful defense.
“Okay, one: I’ll bet you whatever meager amount I have in my wallet that she is wearing the scarf and hat I’d knit for her as her Secret Santa. Because she’s nice and she likes to show others that she appreciates how much she’s cared for. And two: Harrow, I’ve known you since your creepy aunts had to burp you over their shoulders after every meal. So whatever defense you’re about to cough up, I’ve seen it before and already know how much I do not care for its value. Come on.”
Harrow huffed.
“Look, Harrow, take the day off tomorrow – no, I mean it. Take tomorrow off. You must have days worth of sick time used up – you never use it, and judging by the schedule you force yourself to stick to, I can’t say I exactly understand how that is.”
“I’m fi-“
“You will receive money. For calling out. And staying home. And working on, well, whatever genius thing you’ve been working on that I couldn’t even pretend to comprehend if anyone interested in how my girlfriend was doing asked me to explain it.”
You are beginning to sound just like your father, thought Harrowhark, though to say as such would be a depth of blow that Harrow was sure the current conversation did not warrant. Quite possibly, Gideon was right. Perhaps Harrow did need to take a day off. And to suggest it in the midst of their busiest month of the year was probably not something that Harrow should take lightly.
And yet Harrow couldn’t help but find herself saying “To work the land is to have abundance, but to fantasize is to lay depraved upon fallow earth.”
Gideon sighed. “Nonagesimus,” she said, and she pronounced her name with such pity that Harrow felt immediately that she wanted to shrivel away into her own bones. “Just… promise me you’ll think about it, okay? That you’ll use some of your sick time to prepare yourself for your finals. Not all of us are going to grand places, you know,” she said. And then added light heartedly “Doctor Nonagesimus.”
“Griddle,” Harrow said, unable to fully keep the blush from her cheeks. “I’m not even finished with my Masters.”
“Yeah,” replied Gideon, and she leaned forward and kissed that forehead that was always so, so much smaller than her own. “But you will be.”
~*~
The cardboard gave a satisfying give along its perforated lines as Gideon bent it back and forth over itself, collapsing it down into a slinkied mass. That was the final endcap to be restocked, at least for this hour. And just in time for break too; her ability to time herself had improved drastically since falling into management, and she had to say the skill had been applicable in other aspects of her life as well. Her workout routine? The absolute envy of everyone else on her apartment building floor alone, she had to say. Neighbors complimenting her arms whenever she squatted down to pet their dogs, asking her for workout advice when their dogs tugged their way over to her on their leashes, guys and girls shooting her finger guns when out for walks with their canine companions.
If there was anything Gideon had learned from her newfound talent in management, it was this – one: Gideon’s stunning personality has a knack for command. And two: Gideon was finally ready to get a dog. Someone to play rough in the fields with, who would be excited whenever she came home and walked through the door. A little pup with soft paws who would curl up on top of her and keep her warm in the winter. She could knit it little sweaters, a little beanie with holes for its floppy puppy ears. She could warm it up with towels, fresh and warm from the dryer, after it flounced into snow piles and came out shivering and wet.
A particularly cute toy, a squeaker in the shape of red rimmed aviator glasses like (James Dean) would wear, caught her eye and she couldn’t help it - her hand had grabbed it before she fully knew what she was doing. It wasn’t the first dog toy she’d prematurely purchased, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. Walking with her new purchase towards the back, she felt the chill of outside air brush the bare skin of her arms. The pale, malnourished figure of Ianthe walked in, her bulky coat partially unzipped (eyes unable to be drawn away from Ianthe’s coat and how it was the correct size – it had to be, the sleeves sat just at the ends of her wrists – and yet she looked like she was drowning in it.) , and Gideon ignored her before they could lock eyes. A foolish tactic, and she knew it, as the coat rack was right next to the employee lockers.
The sweet and scratchy scent of cigarette smoke wafted over her before she’d fully gotten her locker open, followed almost immediately by the sound of a zipper being undone.
“A dog toy?” The voice behind her asked dryly.
“Yup.”
“And since when have you become the proud owner of a dog? I’m sure I’d have heard about it at least ten times within the first week.”
“I’m not, it’s a gift” Gideon lied, hiding the toy away inside the safety of the locker’s metal frame before swiftly closing the door. Ianthe exhaled shortly, in some mockery of weird laughter, and as Gideon turned to leave she found herself trapped against the locker with Ianthe’s lanky frame towering above her. Gideon found herself halting in shock; Ianthe hadn’t been this close to Gideon in a few weeks, and it had only been that once, and it had certainly not at work.
“You lie horribly. God, you must be so lonely… have you been starved of a certain someone’s affections?” she snirked, and ruffled Gideon’s hair with her left hand.
Gideon pulled away on instinct between Ianthe’s fingers’ second or third pass. “Hey hey watch the do!”
Ianthe allowed her hand to be batted away unperturbed and used it to tuck the loose strands stuck to her forehead and nose with condensation behind her ear. “Two days without that nunlet and you’re already buying dog toys… I have to admit, it is quite boring here without her around. If I had known she was staying home today, I may not have come in.”
“You do realize you sound blatantly stalkerish right now, right? Like you’re not even hiding it this time, even a little bit. Also, I’m literally her girlfriend, also I’m literally your manager so maybe back off or I’ll make sure you don’t have to come in at all ever again.”
Ianthe, however, brushed this off. “It is unbearably boring without that nunlet around. Why don’t we do something to take our minds off of it…” Ianthe breathed, the cigarettes on her breath brushing the top of Gideon’s face, her left hand reaching down to playfully fiddle and tug at the end of Gideon’s belt.
Gideon balked and immediately tried to check the area around the bulk of Ianthe’s towering frame. “Really? You want us to do this right here, right now?”
“Whyever not? My break doesn’t end for about another fifteen minutes. And yours just started… And you so obviously miss little Harry so much…”
Gideon snorted. “I miss Harrow? Yeah sure okay I do miss Harrow, but we both know that isn’t what this is about. And if I ever have to hear you say ‘little,’ ‘Miss,’ and ‘Harry’ in the same sentence ever again…” A hand began to slide up the inside of Gideon’s thigh and the words died in her throat. She found her eyes had suddenly closed and she sighed, impatiently arching toward the hand, chasing the cool feeling of it against her jeans.
Ianthe leaned down as her hand continued its slow trail up and down the shorter girl’s leg. Lips barely brushing her ear, Gideon felt them smile as she breathed “Come on, Gonad, let me rub the bean…”
Gideon startled herself out of her trance by moaning and quickly grasped Ianthe’s wrist, halting it in her actions. “Okay. Fine. But not here.” She gently pushed Ianthe back and the girl pinning her took a generously voluntary step back in response as Gideon reached over to the coat rack to grab her own leather jacket. “In my truck.”
The blonde groaned. “Uhg, no please, not that trash heap. We could just use my Lexus.”
“I’m going to vomit.”
Later, after night had fallen and their shifts had ended, Gideon somehow found herself walking through the central plaza their market was situation in with Ianthe. They’d been walking in mostly companionable silence; Ianthe on yet another cigarette, Gideon occasionally accepting her offer of a puff. It was strange to Gideon when she realized Ianthe could have just offered her one of her own, but then she realized that Ianthe probably derived some strange pleasure from having Gideon accept each time she offered and stopped smoking immediately after her epiphany.
“It’s fascinating to me,” she said after rejecting another hit, “that you’ve dedicated the entirety of your life to becoming a doctor, and yet you waste your life on smoking a pack a day of this shit.”
“I’ll have you know,” the future-doctor said before taking another deep inhale, “that I smoke a pack every other day. Do not make the mistake of lumping me into the same category.”
“Big difference,” Gideon mumbled and didn’t push it because she was certain that somehow in some way she didn’t understand, Ianthe was absolutely fucking with her and flashing back to lunchbreak in her truck convinced her that she’d enabled Ianthe to clown around enough for that day.
Families and couples bundled in winter jackets and scarves passed by them, holding hands as they dashed in and out of the small shops around them. Significant others held each other’s bags, held closely onto one another’s arms, giggled and danced with each other in the streets under the street lamps. Gideon felt another tugging at her heart, suddenly chilly, suddenly missing Harrow again. She dug her hands into her jacket pockets.
A huff brought her out of her self pity. “I just don’t know what to get her for the holidays,” Ianthe said, and noticing the puzzlement upon Ianthe’s usually smooth brow, Gideon was going to stupidly ask who, Corona? But was shocked and then exasperated to realize that, no, Ianthe meant Harrow. Ianthe, for all of her undoubtable brilliance, was made absolutely stupid over Harrow.
Taking Gideon’s silence for an invitation, Ianthe continued. “She’s not materialistic,” she said. “And I’ve offered to take her with me to the spa, but she said she didn’t want ‘some strange creep’ touching her…”
“Weird,” Gideon said, “considering.”
Ianthe sniffed her incredibly pale nose and stubbed the remains of her cigarette out with her boot. “She needs to relax…” This at least, Gideon could agree with. “Even I wasn’t this bad when was applying for Ph.D. programs…”
Gideon released a defiant ha! in Ianthe’s general direction. “You’re finally learning that Nonagesimus does not, nor will she ever, relax. Even when it would make more sense for her to. Today, when I’d finally convinced her to call out from work? I have precisely zero doubt that she woke up and hour earlier than usual this morning thinking ‘Oh look, I have the entire afternoon off. Therefore-hereto I should start my morning earlier than I had initially planned to make extra sure I squeeze as much liquid torment out of my dry and brittle bones as possible because God forbid I accidentally leave even a drop of mercy in my body.’”
Ianthe peered through the nearest shop window. “A plant? No, she’d neglect and kill it. Uhg.”
“Yup. Tried that. Once, she even neglected a succulent to death. I found its corpse nearly a year later when I was helping her pack to move away for undergrad. I thought it was a rock. You know, one of those floating ones with the holes all over it.”
The pallid girl smirked, her eyes caught on a section of remarkably boring looking plants in the window titled ‘medicinal’. “So you are the one who boxed her up and shipped her off to me? I suppose I should thank you…”
Gideon rolled her eyes. “Nope, I’m out of here,” she said, and began to walk back towards the parking lot. Perhaps she could order some soup on the way home, pick it up, and leave it on Harrow’s doormat. The very last thing she wanted, after all, was to disturb Harrow’s progress on what was evidently the most important thing in her life thus far. She wanted it even less than she currently wanted to be without her. She continued walking down the square away from the girl who’s breath fogged up some nice person’s nicely cleaned window. A moment later, she felt the companionable frame of the other woman walking back alongside her. It occurred to Gideon, then, that Ianthe wanted to walk around the shops with Gideon for ideas, and was much too stalkerish and weird to just straight up ask Gideon for advice. And perhaps, Ianthe knew that if she’d blatantly asked Gideon for advice anyway, she’d simply laugh in her face and give away nothing.
“I gotta ask,” Gideons said, desperate to shift the conversation away from Harrow, “all of that stuff in the Body Department… Do you actually believe in it? Like. Do you really believe stuffing some duck’s enzymes into a sugar cube or whatever will really cure some old person’s cold?”
“Gideon, who cares if I do?” She asked, her mouth suddenly all teeth. “All that matters is that people believe I believe it and that I’m offering them some pill, some miracle directly from God to his children, just in time for the holiday season.” She stood on the stoop of a stationary shop and leaned down to place a gentle and dry kiss on Gideon’s cheek. Perhaps it was that she was too shocked by the candidness behind Ianthe’s answer, that she’d allowed it, without pulling away. “Happy holidays, doll,” she said and turned into the shop, the bell above dinging as the door opened and closed.
Gideon had thought all the doubt which previously laid within her had been replaced with proof and surety. But in that moment, she felt the last remainder of it wash away with the gentle snowflakes which melted upon the heat of the shop windows:
Ianthe was fucking mad. But mad or sane, treacherous or true, one thing was sure: Ianthe, without any ounce of uncertainty in the entirety of the universe, cared deeply for Harrow.
~*~
After a productive day that she had to admit she was quite proud of, Harrow allowed herself time to unwind in an Epsom soak (which had initially started as a shower; soup had spilled onto her sweater and one thing led to another and suddenly she found that now clean, she actually had the time to float in the tub if she’d wanted). Scrubbing the dark curls of dead skin away from her body felt heavenly and she left the tub with her skin feeling softer than it had in ages.
Stretching in bed that night, and feeling the crack of released pressure from her joints as something in her back slipped back into place, she thought of how admittedly correct Gideon had been to suggest she take the day off, and how apt an idea it had been for Ianthe to ‘forget’ the bath salts she had happened to have on her person under the sink in Harrow’s bathroom. She’d sworn she would take it back with her ‘next week.’ Next week had been three weeks ago. How fortunate it had been, then, for Harrow to use it before forcing Ianthe to take it back, or simply tossing it out.
The next day when Harrow had returned to work, she’d found the last leg of her Produce chair had finally given out, and there would be no squatting in the cave for her today. She’d brought the laptop into the employee breakroom, which with the exception of the one or two people on break, usually happened to be entirely empty, and answered emails and placed orders in there.
“How’re you feeling, short stuff?” Gideon asked as she walked in, and something on Harrow’s face must have answered for her because Gideon’s eyes unmistakably lit up. She pulled up the seat next to her and sat down, unwrapping the pre-made sandwich she’d purchased and beginning to eat in silence.
After a moment, Gideon felt Harrow’s gaze burning a hole into her head. Turning, she found the small girl’s two dark eyes staring intently at her. “I find that I have to admit that you were correct,” she said. “An extra day to myself is exactly what I had been requiring.”
“I take it you’re feeling better?” She asked around the bite that was still in her mouth.
“Yes,” Harrow said, barely feeling the usual disgust that would often claw for attention in the back of her mind. “Much better.”
Gideon swallowed her food and beamed.
This is how the season progressed. Harrow sitting in the breakroom between intervals of performing tasks on the floor. Gideon and Ianthe spending their respective breaks beside her. Finally, after many sleepless nights and much distress, the semester was over. And for a brief while, Harrow had what seemed to be the slightest breadth of space to breath.
One afternoon in late December, as with so many of the other afternoons they had both spent working, Gideon took her break and seat beside Harrow in the breakroom. They sat in mostly companionable silence as Gideon finished her meal. It was when she was considering licking the remaining droplets of sriracha off of her fingers (pro: Sriracha is very tasty. Con: Harrow is sitting right next to her and would be profoundly disgusted. Pro: She paid for this sandwich god damnit she is entitled to the last remaining drops of sriracha-) that Ianthe walked into the room, a large plastic bag containing an even larger brown paper bag hanging off the two longer fingers of her left hand.
She greeted them both, Harrow with a much warmer smile than the barely visible nod she gave Gideon, and sat on the other side of Harrow, who suddenly found herself sandwiched and squished between the two much larger women. Gideon decided on the win-win-win action to stand and lick her fingers clean as she walked her way over to the handwashing sink.
“Well, looks like I’m back on,” she said, excusing herself.
Ianthe raised an eyebrow at this – Gideon was not due to be back on the floor for some time yet – but blessedly did not comment as Gideon hurriedly walked as coolly as possible out the door. Harrow, lost in the blindness of her own task, did not seem to notice the discrepancy of time lost beside her significant other. She did, however, notice yet another simultaneous entrance and exit performed by the two women.
Not looking away from her laptop monitor, Harrow said “You are aware that there is no one forcing you to date or… to be intimate with her if you don’t like her.”
Ianthe snorted. “To be ‘intimate’ with her? Both of us know your mouth is fully capable of saying the word ‘fuck,’ Harrow.”
This last comment, Harrow chose to ignore. “My point stands. You are by no means obligated to pursue my girlfriend if you are not, in fact, fond of her yourself.”
“I’d never said I wasn’t fond of her – I am quite fond of her, actually. She has that… lost, dumb puppy quality going for her. Like if she will just keep bumbling around for a bit longer, she will finally find someone tender hearted enough to adopt her. Ever failing upwards and all that.”
“I find it suspect that not a month after Griddle and I officially got together, you both got together as well.”
Ianthe laughed at Harrow’s underlying remark; as though Harrow didn’t know that Ianthe was welcome to dating all of her girlfriends. And that, should she get tired of this one and find another, she’d perhaps date that one as well. It was more wholesome this way.
But instead of all that, Ianthe said instead “I do prefer you keep Gonad around for a while. She’s quite entertaining.”
“You know,” said Harrow, as though the thought had just occurred to her, “I don’t entirely remember ever stating that we were girlfriends. That we were dating.”
Harrow did not know what to expect from this; some rebuttal. Some logical proof Ianthe would present of the contrary. But what she certainly did not expect was the gentle and clumsy touch of Ianthe’s right hand resting on her own, the warmth of it subtle compared to that of the keyboard beneath it. It was enough for her to look over her shoulder, and she saw the ghostly face of Ianthe smiling down at her, gentle, barely guarded, and perhaps just a beat away from somehow seeming even vulnerable. It was an expression in all the years they had known one another that she had never seen on the other woman.
“But aren’t we, Harrowhark?” She asked in a rhetoric tone, and Harrow couldn’t be entirely sure, but she wondered if she heard a glimpse of a question beneath.
She said nothing, suddenly feeling a bit caught, a bit shy. Taking her silence for whatever answer it was, Ianthe raised her temperamental arm and wrapped it around the smaller girl’s shoulder. Harrow in response leaned in and allowed herself to be pulled close. Ianthe’s natural scent, mixed in with the essential oils that were sometimes sprayed in the Body Department isles, enveloped her. She tried to place a name to it – musk, yes, but something else. Summertime. Ianthe, she realized, smelled like a botanical garden in the summertime.
“Here,” Ianthe coaxed, “try this one.”
“What is it?”
“I have no idea.” Ianthe but half her piece of sashimi and offered the other half to Harrow, with her good hand. Harrow allowed herself to be fed, slightly surprised to find her comfortability with the action. She decided the flavor wasn’t the worst, though the softness of the texture beneath the initial resistance of the outer layer of muscle was strange and bordered on upsetting.
Ianthe had pulled a folder of papers out of her bag – another study she’d procured from her university’s library, from the looks of it. And if the quality of the paper she had photocopied gave any indication, the study was old.
Harrow found herself reading against Ianthe’s shoulder, surprised to find how much she didn’t understand from the study’s context, and was surprised to find herself asking questions about the subject and even more surprised to find Ianthe answer without her usual snark or archness.
“You know,” said Harrow after a while, as Ianthe finished off her last slice of raw fish, “I’m pretty sure you spend more money at this job than you make.”
Ianthe said no words to this and simply hummed her response.
~*~
It was Christmas Eve. And Christian or not, religious or not, GAIA’s was closing early and every member of staff was paid to take a shift and a half off and call it a holiday. Stretching out the tightness of her bones and laying on some blankets on the floor by her radiator was just what Harrow was looking forward to. Perhaps if Gideon found some spare time away from her newly found family or Ianthe’s boredom of corporate parties proved successful, one of them could join her. Though, she highly doubted either one of them would settle for the consistence and reliability of the firmness promised to her by the floor.
The three of them were the last to go, and though it was only five in the evening the sky was already dark and their breaths were barely visible as puffs of white smoke. Harrow never found solid reason to feel frightened of the area at night, but the vast darkness that blanketed the world between the brief pools of sharp lamplight set her on edge. She stayed huddled next to Gideon as she fiddled yet again with the old door’s lock, upwind from Ianthe who stood a little ways away smoking a cigarette in the parking lot.
When Gideon had finished, she offered a puff and Harrow was surprised to find Gideon accept the offer.
“I assume,” she said, “the both of you are going down to Daddy’s for the holiday.”
“Please don’t call him that,” Gideon all but whined, passing the smoke back to Ianthe who tutted and flicked some ash buildup off of the end.
“You know, I would give absolutely anything to be there. I heard the most salacious rumor about your father and the lady from HR…”
“Nope. Don’t want to hear it. I am absolutely not listening,” said Gideon clasping her ears, but this only seemed to encourage Ianthe further. She continued pressing for more details and Gideon tried every which way and how to sidestep her advances. Harrow rubbed her hands against the warmers in her pockets for some extra heat.
“I am not inviting you to the company party, Tridentarius.” Gideon said at last, and Ianthe hid her disappointment by blowing a wisp of hair out of her face.
“Oh, like I would even be able to make it. If I missed my own father’s holiday party, he would have my head. I could claim to be down with some stomach ailment from bad fish, but I’d already done that the last year…” At this, she turned her gaze to Harrow. “Harry, you know you would be more than welcome to join me. I’m sure we have something in the house that could fit you. These parties are always so boring…”
“I have already turned down one invitation to a party,” said Harrow, referring to the company party Gideon’s own father was throwing. “It would be highly uncouth of me to accept another. Particularly in front of the other party who had asked.”
Ianthe rubbed the butt of her cigarette out with the toe of her boot. “Well. I thought I’d ask. You could make connections there, you know.”
Gideon started cutting in about how Harrow doesn’t need to make connections, that she’s perfectly capable herself. To which Ianthe scathingly replied something along the lines of how Gideon doesn’t understand the worlds of biotech and pharmaceuticals. But the words and contexts were suddenly very lost on Harrow. She realized suddenly that this was the first year she’d be spending the holidays alone, that since becoming an adult either Ianthe or Gideon would invite themselves over or drag her out to whatever party they had been invited to. But as she and Ianthe were back in their home city now, Ianthe was unable to maneuver her way out of her family’s corporate party using distance as an excuse. And Gideon… well, within the past year, Gideon had found her biological father. And though the two of them had certainly grown closer in some ways, Gideon suddenly having a family away from Harrow made them farther in others.
Last that evening, Harrow found herself sitting on the cold wooden tiled floor next to the radiator, just as she’d imagined she would be throughout the hectic rush of the day. But the satisfaction she’d fantasized about feeling wasn’t there. She checked her phone – it was just after 10:30 PM. Snow had begun falling outside the window in large clumps. Every here and there, a car would drive by. And if the driver were feeling particularly malicious, they’d blast some song or another that had been blaring through the overhead speakers at GAIA’s for the past month.
Her phone buzzed, and she saw it was a text from Gideon.
I think the new marketing guy hooked up with Mercy from HR…
At this, Harrow raised her eyebrows. But before she could even begin to imagine a coherent response, her phone buzzed again. This time, a text from Ianthe.
I’m so bored… tell me, is it really true that Gonad’s father spent Thanksgiving in the same bed as the maniac lady with pink hair from HR?
And suddenly her phone buzzed again.
I’m leaving early… want to catch a movie if you’re still up?
Harrow sat in her pile of blankets and stared at her phone in thought, the chill of the outside radiating from the window to her left, the suddenly insufficient heat of the radiator warming her knees.
Flexing her fingers before her to warm them, she brought them back to the screen and began typing.
No. I have a better idea.
~*~
Harrow had been the first to arrive. Not surprising – she’d left pretty much immediately after she shot off the texts - and even plowed, the roads downtown were starting to get pretty bad. So Harrow sat in the driver’s seat of her car, curled up with a bottle of red wine, and parked at the very top of the GAIA parking garage.
When headlights shone through the car window, Harrow instinctively lowered the bottle to the ground, but as the vehicle turned to park in the spot beside her, Harrow could see that it was none other than the red of Gideon’s truck, and her relief was immediate. A moment later, Gideon hopped out, the pom pom at the end of her beanie bouncing as she did. When she opened the backseat door, she lifted out her new puppy clad in a small vest and matching beanie. It immediately began to run around in little circles around Gideon and kick up powdery clouds of snow.
Harrow’s car door squeaked as she opened it and stepped outside and approached Gideon and her new puppy.
“Couldn’t stay away from me, could you?” Asked Gideon, and her grin must have been contagious because Harrow couldn’t help but smile when she said “Griddle, you were the one who texted me.”
Gideon pulled her into a hug that was muffled by the fabric layers of coat and scarf and whatever else she was wearing beneath her clothing. Gripping her arms tightly around Harrow’s tiny frame, she squeezed her and picked her up off the ground, spinning her around joyously. When Harrow shrieked, she found herself gently lowered back down to the Earth.
“Oh! I have something for you,” she said and dashed back to her truck to procure whatever it was that she had brought with her. The puppy stayed at Harrow’s feet, rolling joyfully in the snow. She bent down and scritched the wet fur at its tummy, causing it to growl in delight.
Gideon returned with a medium-sized box in her hands, wrapped in a metallic wrapping paper. “Merry Christmas. Or, Happy Holidays or what-not,” she said, handing it to Harrow. This awkwardness around holidays was something the both of them had shared, having grown up together in a manner they’d grown to learn was quite unconventional, and while this time of year was admittedly a bit bittersweet for Harrow, the feeling was certainly amplified within Gideon.
“Griddle, you didn’t have to get me anything,” she said. And then “I didn’t know we were supposed to get each other anything.”
“Yeah well,” said Gideon, actually scratching the back of her head. “You’re my girlfriend. And I wanted you to have something special.”
Upon closer observation, Harrow noticed that within the metal shimmer of the wrapping paper, there were vague snowflake designs on it. “…Do I open it now?” She asked cautiously.
“Nah, I wanted you to wait until you got home. Just kidding – of course I want you to open it now!”
Harrow began to slowly tear away the paper, somehow feeling a bit sorry for it, and found a thin cardboard box beneath. Crumbling the paper, and then placing it into Gideon’s suddenly outstretched hands, she flipped open the lid and brushed aside a feet sheets of green tissue paper to reveal something… black and folded. Setting the box down on the trunk of her car, Harrow removed and unfolded the knit fabric to reveal a long black scarf. There were many textures under her fingers, different stitched juxtaposed to create an elegant crisscross design that followed along the edges. “Oh my god, did you knit this?”
“Sure did.”
“How long did this take you?”
“Not as long as you’d think,” Gideon laughed, coming over to stand beside her and admire her work. “Except this right here – check it out! Learned how to make little skulls, just for you. These were a bitch and a half to learn, but I’m overall proud of what I’ve done.”
Harrow found herself at a sudden loss for words. The unyielding labor of Gideon’s work for her, the process of each stitch that had fallen off her needles. The hours upon hours of love that she hadn’t even asked for.
Harrow swallowed. “I… don’t know what to say.”
“Well, thank you would be a start,” said Gideon, and she gently took the scarf from Harrow’s hands and wrapped it around her neck. “Wearing it would be good too. I’ll not have you catch a cold on my watch, Nonagesimus,” she said.
Harrow tilted her head up to see Gideon’s face, adjusting the fabric around the soft skin of Harrow’s neck, evening it this way or that. Reaching up, Harrow cupped the soft warmth of Gideon’s cheeks gently within the tips of her fingers and surveyed her face. The small scars from her teenage years spent plagued with acne, the prominence of her brow, the remarkable almond shape and color of her eyes. Gideon stared at Harrow, and Harrow stared back and decided that everything she saw, everything she felt was good, and she lifted herself up onto her toes to kiss Gideon on the suppleness of her mouth.
Gideon bent down a bit to help adjust for their difference in height, the breath from her nose tickling the sides of her cheeks. When they’d parted finally, both breathing slightly heavily, Gideon smiled and pressed her forehead gently against Harrow’s. “So… do you like it?” She asked, and Harrow closed her eyes and sighed.
“Yes. It is… quite an extraordinary work of craft. Thank you, Griddle,” she said.
When the lights of yet another car pulled up, they shone upon Gideon throwing handfuls of snow at her dog and Harrow pelting Gideon with snowballs in turn. It was two against one, and it seemed to those in the car that Gideon was not on the winning end.
The SUV parked a bit further down the lot than Harrow or Gideon had, and as the driver killed the engine and the absurdly loud club beats ceased, out of the passenger’s seat emerged Ianthe, followed shortly after by the more vivacious figure of Coronabeth emerging from the driver’s side. Ianthe was carrying a large carafe of… well, something Harrow was sure to find out about soon enough, and sipping from it. Corona approached the two first and immediately wrapped Gideon into a hug. “Harrow, Gideon, Merry Christmas!” She said. Her coat, unlike her sister’s, was open and the V cut of her dress left her skin open to the elements. She hugged Harrow shortly after, though much more carefully than she had hugged Gideon. Harrow could feel the radiating warmth of Ianthe’s twin’s collarbone against her cheek. Harrow wondered if Coronabeth was remotely bothered by the chill at all.
“We’ve brought party favors,” announced Ianthe, offered up the Tridentarius logoed carafe in her hand.
Gideon excitedly took it. “Oh hell yeah – Big Pharma’s finest!” She exclaimed, and took a hearty sip before passing the container to Harrow. From the steam, she could tell that whatever lay within was warm, but her trepidation was soothed when she recognized the scents of apples and clove.
The cider was warming and just what she needed to fight off the chill of the winter’s night.
“And who is this scrumptious little one?” Asked Coronabeth, and Gideon happily began introducing her to her new puppy, who took to the larger twin like a fly to a sugar cube. The three of them were running along the roof shortly after – though Corona quite carefully as she was wearing heeled boots, and Harrow was left standing alone beside Ianthe.
They’d both made their way over to the ledge and looked at the city lights stretched out before them, Ianthe leaning against the snow covered balustrade and Harrow standing beside her. The gloved fingers of Ianthe’s hand gentle brushed against Harrow’s and Harrow twined her fingers within in response, the leather of Ianthe’s gloves soft against her own skin.
“You know,” Ianthe finally said, “for a party with unlimited quantities of expensive wine, it’s amazing how incredibly dull our corporate parties can be. I can barely believe Corona used to beg to go when we were children. If only she’d known.”
“Yes, well. How did you manage to leave?”
“Oh, that was all Corona – it was her turn to suddenly fall ill from some nasty fish she’d eaten earlier that day. For all of her flaws, she’s always been an incredible actress you know. She even made herself start to look green around the gills.”
Harrow stared at her perplexed. “And he just… believed that? You happened to have been ill last year, and now it’s her suffering the same malady?”
“Oh, whether he believes her or not, he isn’t going to take any chances. Not in front of the larger clients.” Ianthe smiled and it was all teeth. Leaning in closer, she said “I suppose I should thank you. You did give me the final inspiration I needed to leave, after all…”
From the angle, Ianthe’s face was lower than Harrows and she’d have to tilt her head upwards to kiss her. When Harrow didn’t pull away, Ianthe kissed her, and her lips were warm in contrast to the bite of the cold raw breeze that blew against her face.
“I didn’t get you a present,” Harrow said suddenly, and Ianthe’s brows shot up in surprise, “if that was something that you were expecting.” She paused for a moment and then “I am… admittedly not used to this.”
“Well…” Ianthe said, leaving back against the railing, “that certainly makes things simpler. God, I wish I’d have known before hand. I had no idea what to get for you…”
“I was not expecting you to have gotten me anything,” replied Harrow and Ianthe brushed the tips of her fingers against the smaller woman’s lips.
“I’d settled on something less… materialistic,” she’d admitted, a smirk playing at her lips.
Against her fingers, Harrow said “I am all ears, Tridentarius.”
“Well…” Leaning back in to place her mouth against the sensitive skin of her ear, Ianthe told her just what exactly she’d had planned.