Gail pulled up to the small suburban ranch house at the address Holly had given her earlier that day. They'd decided it would be easier to take a single car to the bar rather than have to both fight traffic and find parking in downtown Toronto on a Friday night.

Turning the car off, Gail checked her phone. She was early, by about a half an hour. She'd built in extra "getting lost" time when she'd left her apartment, but Holly's directions were spot on. So now she had time to kill before she was due to knock on Holly's door.

She sat there for a few minutes, parked on the street, trying to decide whether she should go up to the door and apologize for being early, and hope that Holly was already ready, or wait out the next half an hour in her car, like a stalker. Or, Gail thought to herself, she could drive around for a bit, do a couple of laps around the neighborhood to burn some time off the clock. She'd just put the key back in the ignition when a sharp knock on passenger window startled her.

Holly was standing outside the car, a heavy flannel jacket wrapped around her shoulders, hair blowing in the wind.

"Hey," she said as Gail rolled down the window, "what are you doing out here, why didn't you come up to the door?"

"Oh," Gail responded, "I didn't want to disturb you if you were getting ready."

Holly gave her a crooked smile. "So," she said, "you figured you'd sit out here looking like a weirdo instead?"

It did seem rather silly once Gail thought it over.

"Come on," Holly told her, "come inside for a few. I'm sure that Grace would love to say hello."

Holly's home was warm, and the chill of the unseasonably chilly September evening soon disappeared. Gail shed her jacket and heels at the door, and followed Holly into the living room.

"Ma," Holly said to the small woman sitting in what looked to be an extremely comfortable recliner, "this is Gail Peck, a colleague from the school. Gail, this is my mother, Grace Isidro."

A small woman in her late-sixties or early-seventies sat in a comfortable-looking recliner in front of the television. The woman was thin, too thin, and her head was wrapped up in a soft-looking scarf. But Gail could tell from the deep-set laugh lines framing her mouth that illness was not something she'd let get her down for long.

A firecracker, that was the word that came to mind. This woman looked like the kind who, when healthy and hearty, was never standing still for too long. Feisty. The kind of person Gail would actually enjoy interacting with.

"Gail," Grace said, "it's nice to put a face to the name. Holly says you've become quite a fan of her cookies." She pulled down the afghan to free her hands and motion for Gail to come closer.

"Actually," Gail says and steps forward, shrugging her coat onto the corner of the couch, "from what I hear they're really your cookies. I told Holly I'd hang out with her tonight, but I'm really just here to weasel the recipe out of you."

Holly laughed dryly behind her, and her mother chuckled from her seat in front of the muted television.

"Holly," Grace said, "go get ready. I'll keep Gail occupied. If you don't keep us waiting too long, I promise I won't give away too many of your embarrassing stories."

"Go, Lunchbox, take your time, I want to get some dirt on you from your mother."

Holly's mother laughed louder.

"Lunchbox?" she asked.

"Oh, it's just something stupid. I didn't know Holly's name at first but she has this red lunchbox. I don't know, it was amusing at the time."

The older woman nodded, "Ahh, that lunchbox. Yes, it's the only thing she has left, you know, from her family. She carried it everywhere for years, like a shiny red security blanket."

Gail looked at her in horror.

"Is that … really?" Gail said, shame in her voice, "because I was just joking, I didn't mean to … really?"

Grace laughed loudly.

"No," she said, "of course not. But I've discovered that the cancer thing makes people take everything I say as seriously as if it came from God himself. So maybe I play around with that once and a while, just to break the ice."

Gail shook her head, trying not to laugh as her cheeks turned red with embarrassment. Her first impression had been spot on. The lady was a firecracker for sure.

"Now, Gail," she said, "I'd invite you to sit down but I can see that you're just itching to have a look around. So don't mind me, I can get to know you just as well while you snoop."

Gail smiled, she liked Holly's mother for sure.

"What I'm really looking for, Miss Isidro, are teenage photos. According to Holly she was quite the rebel." Gail grinned conspiratorially, "But I just don't believe it."

"Just Grace will do," the grey-haired woman said, "and if you're looking for embarrassing teenage photos, you should start over there on the bookshelf."

Gail snuck a look down the hallway, but Holly was nowhere in sight, and then made her way over to the shelves overflowing with books and the display of frames just at eye-level. She could pick out a teenaged Holly in a few of them, the child in the photos had the same sultry eyes and crooked mouth. Even if it was turned down sulkily in more than a few of the images.

"When was this taken," Gail asked in an amused voice, bringing the frame around to Grace in her chair.

"Oh, let me see," Grace said and motioned for Gail to sit on the couch beside her recliner, "that was just a few months after she came to live with me." She laughed warmly. "My, but I had forgotten about that hair."

Gail leans in closer to look at the picture again. Holly's about fifteen, tall and skinny. Close to gangly, even, with her long, coltish limbs stretched out in front of her as she sits in the grass on some sunny summer day. Her skin is dark against her pale jean shorts and thin camisole, and her hair is a mess, choppy and uneven, and with streaks of red dyed in almost randomly. She's got her arm around a girl with paler skin and dark black hair, whose dark black jeans and matching t-shirt are a startling contrast to the otherwise sunny atmosphere of the photo.

"Who's that with her," Gail asked curiously, peering closely at the photo.

The older woman takes the photo back to look. "I'm trying to remember her name, she was Holly's closest friend the first couple of years. A real different girl, always wearing black and dying her hair different colors. I wasn't too keen on Holly spending time with her; thought she was a bad influence. But that's what everyone thought back then. If you watched the wrong movies or wore the wrong colors or pierced the wrong things, everybody thought you were going to end up as a photo on the news. Truth is, I thought the same things. But Holly helped me to see past all that."

"Past all what, ma?" Holly entered the room wearing a pair of tight black jeans and a deep red top that shimmered in the light.

"Oh, Holly," Grace said, "help me remember. What was the name of that girl you were friends with in high school. You know, the one with all the black, the one everyone used to call a witch?"

The brunette came over to see what Gail and Grace were looking at. "That's Layla, ma. And she wasn't a witch. She just wore a lot of black."

Grace settled back in her chair. "That's right, Layla," she said. "I was afraid she was going to be a bad influence on you."

Gail watched as Holly smiled and laid her palm against the other woman's cheek. "You were worried about a lot of things, ma, and not without reasons." She leaned in and kissed Grace's forehead. "But hey, we're going to head out, do you need anything before we go?"

Holly's mother shook her head no. "I think I'll be fine," she said, "I've got my water, my pills, and my remote control. That'll keep me."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure, now go out and have fun, okay? You spend way too much time here with me. I'm starting to worry about you," Grace said.

Gail laughed.

"All right," Holly said and stood up straight, "I don't think I'll be back too late, but if you need anything you call me or you call Denise, okay?"

"Yes, doctor," Grace replied sarcastically as Holly stepped back into the hall to grab her coat and boots. "Now," she said, turning to Gail, "you keep her out until late, okay? I'm serious, she needs a night out of the house, some fun. You look like someone I can count on to make sure she has a good time."

The older woman gave Gail a sly smile.

"In fact," she said, "if Holly doesn't make it home until tomorrow morning that would be even better. She needs a night away. Something to take her mind off of everything."

Before Gail could respond, Holly was back in the room; "Ready, Gail?"

"Hey," Gail asked, thinking about what Grace had said to her, "are you hungry?"

She looked over at Holly in the passenger seat, where Holly was staring out the window, oblivious.

"Hey, Earth to nerd," she tried again.

"Hmmm," Holly asked.

"I asked if you were hungry," Gail repeated, and flipped her turn signal.

"I thought we were going downtown to the bar to meet up with Henry and everyone else," Holly replied, looking confused.

"We could," the blonde suggested, "or we could grab something to eat and not have to listen to Henry and Roxanne and everyone talk about which new freshman is going to blow away the competition at this year's auditions."

Holly smirked, "Tryouts, Gail, they're tryouts."

"It's not like there's a big difference," Gail grumbled to herself. "Anyway," she said, directing the conversation back to her question, "there's this new Indian restaurant a couple of blocks from my place and their korma is to die for. You up for it?"

"Actually that sounds really good, Gail," Holly responds and reaches between them to lay a hand over Gail's on the shift stick, giving the blonde's fingers a gentle squeeze.

"Plus," Gail added on, not sure what to do with the feelings that Holly's fingers tangling with her own brought up, "I have a bunch of booze back at my apartment. We can drink there if we want."

Holly was quiet for a moment.

"That actually sounds like a really great idea, Gail," she said, and for the first time all night the expression on her face was less worried than it was excited.

Gail smiled at her. "Awesome," she said, "because I am not in the mood for awkward pickup lines tonight. It's always big, sweaty, smelly guys who are way too confident or little skinny dudes with no game. I hate it."

"You should come hang out at the lesbian bars with me," Holly said, inhaling shakily, "the quality of the pickup lines is probably about the same, but the quality of the pickup artists? Much higher."

"Maybe I would," Gail said without missing a beat, "if it were a gender thing. But it's a people thing, Holly. I don't like people."

The brunette laughed as Gail pulled into a parking spot on a tree-lined street.

"We're here, Lunchbox," Gail said as she put the car in park, "prepare your taste buds for a journey they'll never forget."

They ended up getting their food to go, and Gail insisted on paying to make up for all the lunches she half-stole from Holly over the past few weeks. At her apartment, she found some sweatpants and a tshirt for Holly to change into. Soon they were each sitting on opposite ends of Gail's couch with a plate in one hand and a beer in the other as the theme music to Parks & Rec filled the silences in the room.

Gail was content. She didn't mind the bar that they had planned on going to, but she was being honest when she said she didn't feel like dealing with men, or pickup lines, or people tonight. It was enough to sit on her couch with Holly, licking curry sauce from her fingers while Holly used a piece of naan to sop up the rest of hers and laughed. It was companionable. Comfortable, even.

After Grace had told her to make sure that Holly had fun tonight, Gail had taken a good, hard look at her colleague. Past Holly's pleasant, smiling mask. She saw the tired curve of Holly's lips, the well-disguised bags under her eyes. She saw how nervous Holly had been about leaving her mother alone in the house. She could almost see the heavy burden this woman bore as she cared for her sick mother all by herself.

Holly didn't need a night out, Gail had realized.

Holly needed a night off.

It didn't take long for the tension to seep out of Holly's body. Five or six episodes in, Gail looked over at her friend. Holly's head was down, chin against her chest, beer bottle dangling precariously from her hand. Gail smiled and stood up to collect the empties and the plates, covering Holly up with a blanket when she came back into the room.

It wasn't exactly what she had in mind for tonight—she'd been planning on a lot more booze and maybe even some dancing—but it was what Holly needed.

They could do drinks and dancing another time.