Next Step
She was on a massive high after her date with Lapis. Everything seemed brighter, more vivid. A wave of euphoria washed over her, and Peridot could not help but to smile as she got out of her car. Had she ever felt this way before? Certainly not with any of her friends, though she could recall some memorable times. But this was different.
Lapis Lazuli and her bright smile had hypnotized her right there on the whale watching boat. The older girl, her age she found out, was both pretty and intelligent. A double whammy. Envisioning herself back on the boat, she imagined Lapis sitting right next to her, with her sweater covering both of their laps. Lapis’ leg barely brushing against her own. Peridot wanted to break the gap between them by holding hands, but restrained herself earlier. It was too early, and they had just met. How did she really know the blue haired girl truly liked her? She could have changed her mind after the end of the date, realizing how awkward Peridot was.
The drive home took a while, since traffic was heavier than usual. Usually to go thirty miles took a solid hour at least. The commute sure did suck, but it was worth it. While driving the blonde was resolute about not texting while driving, though she would use her phone’s GPS for directions when needed. Pulling her phone out from her back jeans pocket, she pushed the on button and the screen lit up. There was no new message from Lapis, though only forty minutes passed.
Was this normal? Should she be concerned? What was usually the protocol for communicating after a date?
An idea occurred to her that she should ask one of her roommates. Though asking Amethyst for this kind of advice was tempting, she could not help but play out scenarios where her roommate would relentlessly tease her. Pearl was much more serious and thoughtful, though like herself, she had never seen Pearl date anyone. Garnet was the last of her roommates, and somewhat stoic most of the time. Even so, she was a good listener, and counseled her other roommates. Garnet’s car was parked in their driveway, meaning she was home from work.
This was really one of the first times Peridot asked Garnet for personal advice, besides asking for directions or where the best takeout restaurant was. She did not know why she had not before, but now was as a good of time as ever.
Walking inside, Peridot could see Garnet relaxing in the living room on their love seat, simply scrolling through her phone. Peridot assumed since she was not busy reading or watching TV, Garnet would be more willing to provide her attention.
The older girl was the first to speak. “Did you have a good time Peridot?” A smile on her face indicated she was in a good mood.
Not wanting to jump straight to the question, she answered, “Yeah, the date went surprisingly well, considering we did meet at a lesbian club,” a hint of irony crept into her voice. Before leaving, her roommates pulled out from Peridot that she was going on a date. Amethyst was the first to notice and point out the blonde’s nervousness, more prominent than average. Her roommate had a remarkable talent of fishing out information from her, mainly because she would become flustered from the teasing and constant prodding questions.
“That’s good to hear, since you were so excited about it.”
That threw Peridot off, catching her by surprise. It was not exactly excitement, but she was not going to change Garnets memory either.
Playing it casual, the blonde said coolly, “It was pretty fun, we had a good time. Hey, by the way, when do you suppose would be a good time to follow up on a date?” She plopped down on the futon.
Garnet brought her hand to her chin, using her closed palm and thumb to support it. Furrowing her forehead, she replied, “I’m not too sure. It seems like that depends with each person. One gal I know firmly believes in texting within the first couple hours after the date. But I personally wouldn’t go over a day without following up.
“Well, she hasn’t texted me since we left.”
“Like I said, everyone’s different. Give a little time and space, don’t think about it too much. And if you don’t hear from her by tonight, you can always follow up with her.” Maybe that was it, maybe Lapis was waiting for her to initiate first. But the blue haired girl seemed like the type to make the first move.
“How can I not think about it? It’s only been an hour or two,” Peridot said incredulously.
“Hmm how about this. Why don’t we go see a movie, or rent one from GreenBox? Now that I’m off of work and have no plans later, I have the rest of the day to relax.”
Peridot took Garnet up on her offer, and they went out to the movie theatre. It was in an especially run down part of Beach City, and unlit neon lights streamed the area. This obviously led to the red-light district part of town. Why was Garnet even bringing her here?
“I’m taking you to my favorite movie theatre, one I used to go to with my parents when I was a kid.” So that was it. The place had some sort of sentimental nostalgia to the taller woman.
They walked into the average sized theatre along the street, after purchasing their tickets. The inside of the place was unexpectedly clean. It even smelled new inside. On both walls, there hung a line posters, indicating which movies the place was showing. The carpet was red, with some vintage scribble pattern. Working the popcorn machine behind the counter, was a pudgy, blond college guy with short dreadlocks.
He turned around and noticed the two girls walk in, “Long time no see,” as if he were speaking to an old friend.
“It’s good to see you too Ronaldo.”
“What’s new and happening with you these days?”
“Not too much. The usual with work. The county has proposed and approved several renovations around Beach City, which means more hours and longer days,” Peridot could detect a sigh from the dark skinned girl’s voice.
“Hopefully this area is targeted to be revamped?” He sounded hopeful. No idea why, but she found his voice annoying.
“Unfortunately no. The approved projects include many street repairs, which will create more traffic. You don’t want that here, not right now.”
Peridot knew Garnet worked as a contract construction worker. Even though her jobs were always temporary, they always led to a new gig. She studied architecture and graduated before her, though not wanting to go into that particular field. “There are too many of them,” she stated. Peridot did not know if that was true.
Her reasoning for choosing her major was that it would help with the design aspect of construction, which admittedly she lacked. Really, she wanted to go into management within the building industry. After graduating, she obtained her workers license, and found her first job a couple weeks later.
The two of them exchanged a few more words, mostly small talk. After getting a small popcorn, Peridot and Garnet went inside theatre three where their movie was playing. A horror film. The commercials were already playing as they grabbed seats at the top row, and munched on popcorn. So far she was not able to forget about her date earlier that day. But hopefully once the movie started, she could focus her mind on something else entirely. Peridot was not a huge fan of scary movies, and rarely watched them unless she was with her roommates. Garnet and Amethyst seemed to like them, while Pearl would sometimes be freaked out by the more jumpy parts and close her eyes. During those moments, Peridot would always distract herself with something else until the part passed.
Lapis Lazuli told her earlier that she liked thrillers, which were different than horror or gore films. Recalling her all-time favorite movie, it was titled “The Monstrosity of the Deep,” a movie made ten years ago but considered a classic. She would not have expected her to be the type of person to be into them. Peridot agreed with her, as a default response. In her free time, she did not watch movies or TV. Rather, she was always working on her next work assignment. That usually absorbed much of her time outside of school. Now that school was nearing, she would have to drill into her work and finish everything, before she would be swamped with monotonous homework assignments. And she would always choose to read a book rather than watch TV, but she now had an urge to check out Lapis’ favorite movie. Probably when she got back home and was in bed for the night.
The movie playing on the giant screen was not awful, but not the best movie known to man either. However, it did distract Peridot from her consistent worrying, and soon she was engrossed in the storyline. Even towards the end, she was somewhat jittery. Garnet next to her was totally still and fixated on the screen for the whole duration of the film, rarely moving.
Ultimately, she was just glad to be spending time with Garnet, though she would never say it to her face. It was a bit too embarrassing. But the shorter girl utterly and genuinely enjoyed her company. There were few friends she felt that way towards. She never felt as if she had to be anyone different or prove anything to the older woman. Garnet never expected her to either.
When the two arrived back home, Garnet pulled a glass bottle of beer from the fridge, offering Peridot one as well. She declined, suddenly feeling a bit sick, by the thought of their night out last weekend. They hung out in the living room for an hour more until Peridot had to complete some work. That was one of the beautiful factors about her work. It gave her some flexibility with which hours she worked.
Immediately after typing in a fifteen-word, memorized password, the login page on her laptop monitor lifted, and her desktop appeared. Her computer was built to process and work swiftly and efficiently, and held a whole terabyte of memory. She figured when purchasing it, she would use up at least a good chunk of that memory, and it may prove handy in the future.
Double clicking the open letter icon in the corner, her email popped up. Sixty new messages from that morning. It was mostly junk, with subject lines like “LOTTERY WINNER, CONTACT YOUR AGENT NOW” and “I found this picture of you??” She never gambled and rarely took pictures of herself, let alone share them with others. After deleting the spam, she sorted the messages which really mattered into their appropriate folders after highlighting and reading them over.
The first, and seemingly most important email was a follow up on her work progress.
Peridot replied, “Working on it right now, the material will be sent tonight.” Peridot refrained from using “I” in the sentence. Opening up a program she created herself, she ran the application and right away, information began to roll down the screen on its own. She continued to type for another good four hours until she obtained what she needed, and sent a short message to her client.
It’s in the bag.
Ten minutes later, her phone buzzed after receiving a notification, and saw that the transfer was made into her payment platform account.
That didn’t take too long.
Using a separate email account, and IP address, she sent over the information material to the client.
She stretched, then yawned. Garnet was asleep on the couch across from her, laying on her back with her phone resting on her chest. After today, she was sure to have no problem falling asleep.
Peridot put on a loose, black tank top, and her green and white alien head shorts which were vintage. During the whole time she was distracted working, she noticed two unread texts on her phone, as she hooked it up to its battery charger. Taking a wild guess to who it was, she opened up her messages which confirmed she was right.
One was a media attachment, the next one was text, both from Lapis Lazuli. The attachment was actually a picture Lapis took of them, with the sun making their faces glow, and the ocean blue and sparkling. They were both smiling. The message which followed said, “I had a great time today, thought you might like this picture as well.” She ended it with an open smile emoji.
Peridot smiled to herself, staring up at the screen while lying in bed. After a minute or two, she wrote back, “Love it! I had a great time as well, and we should go out again if you’re down.”
It took five minutes for Lapis to reply, “I would love to,” ending the sentence with a closed smile emoji.
Knowing well she should make the next move, she checked her calendar.
How does Friday sound?
A one worded response: Wonderful.