Another pause. Longer this time, and the hesitation on her part was apparent even to him.
He spun his chair back and forth, looking down at the phone and ready to rescind the suggestion.
“Okay,” she said finally. “It’ll be like a virtual slumber party. Don’t make fun of my bonnet. Or anything else.”
“Bonnet?” he asked, trying not to be offended that she would assume that his making fun of her was a possibility. “Are you Amish? Or is this like, maid cosplay?”
Reggie sighed.
“Many Black women sleep with . . . you know what, you’ll see it tomorrow.” She yawned. Gus immediately Googled Black women bonnet and was scrolling the images by the time she continued the conversation. “Can you talk for a little while longer tonight? About something else so I’m not getting all hyped up instead of going to sleep?”
“Sure.” He pulled an old design magazine out from the stack on his desk. “‘The Main Attraction—how to control customer flow in restricted retail space.’”
Retail design class had been one of his favorites at architecture school, and it came in surprisingly handy when planning an escape room. Thinking about how to draw a customer’s eye, how to make them move to certain locations without feeling herded.
“Yessss, this sounds boring as fuck. Give it to me.”
A tremor of awareness went up Gus’s spine. He shouldn’t be responding to her sleepy voice, to the sound of her nestling deeper into her pillows, or the fairly innocuous phrase “Give it to me.” He shouldn’t be wondering what she was wearing, if anything, besides a silk sleeping bonnet, chased by that urge to know what she looked like so strong that it lifted the hairs on his arms.
He was being weird, and he needed to be normal since she was going to help him out.
“Um, okay,” he said, and then commenced reading the article. When he finished ten minutes later, she was silent on the other end of the phone line.
“Reggie?” he whispered.
Her response was a light snore. Gus flipped the page and read another boring-to-Reggie article, his voice lower and calibrated to avoid accidentally awakening her, before disconnecting the call.
Chapter Three
The morning after their call, Reggie had awoken blinking against the shaft of bright summer sunlight streaming into her bedroom, highlighting the white posts of her canopy bed and Phil and Aurora sparring across the surface of her Reject Squad Ultra duvet.
She’d slept more deeply than she had in ages, and had actually felt energized when she’d gripped her bedpost and made the quick transfer from bed to chair. She’d imagined this was what Sunspot felt like after a summer day at the beach, or what Rogue felt like after absorbing some particularly useful powers. She’d been ready to kick the day’s ass and clear-headed enough to do it.
The entire day had been like that—she’d forgotten how good it felt to be on her game, to be able to think clearly, to not forget simple steps in promotion or trivia so that guys rolled up in her mentions to question her knowledge. Her team had seemed to pick up on her energy, their group virtual workspace hopping with ideas as they played off one another.
LaToya : The ideas are really flowing today!
Reggie: Hopefully the energy to follow through on them flows, too, lol.
Danni: I’m really excited about the new oral history of nerd-dom column. I’ll start trying to set up interviews with people who will be in NYC for Anime Con.
LaToya : Reggie, thank you for greenlighting the disability in geek culture podcast. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time but didn’t have the platform, or the spoons, to do it before. But now? Mybodyisready.gif!
Reggie: Talk to y’all later.
It’d been a great day, and not only because she’d slept.
There had been a . . . fizziness in her brain as she remembered Gus’s laugh, and his jokes, and his voice. Reggie’s brain often played random sound snippets in loops, and all day at the oddest moments “The band is back together” had popped into her head. She’d never known what it had meant to Gus—Kakuro Kendoku—when she’d become the one and only Puzzle Zone follower, but she knew what it’s meant to her.
He’d kept her company as she’d laid the groundwork of what was now her full-time job. He’d talked to her without condescension or superiority, and she’d felt some kind of connection between them. But then he’d left her a brief message on his page when he’d stopped streaming, with no way to stay in contact. That had been that.
But “the band” . . . that implied a certain closeness, familiarity. Had he seen her as integral to his nights, like she’d seen him?
No. She was reading too much into things. But he’d wanted to talk on the phone and now he wanted to video chat. And his voice was great and all, but him talking to her again . . . them speaking to each other? She hadn’t been prepared for how she would react to it. She hadn’t realized the depth of their existing connection because she’d downplayed it for so long. And she hadn’t expected how much she could possibly look forward to seeing someone’s face.
As she prepared for bed, and their video chat, her text alert chimed. She nearly swept everything off her low counter when swooping to reach for the phone, but it wasn’t Gus. It was her dad.
Dad: Hey, honey. Me and your mother were talking about how much we miss you at work and we just want you to know that we will be here no matter what happens with this venture. If the site doesn’t work out, we can support you. We’re so proud of you.
Reggie sighed. She felt ungrateful, but it was fucked how her parents had just spent months complaining about Portia taking an apprenticeship in Scotland—had spent years pointing out Portia’s mistakes—but were always quick to remind Reggie they’d be there no matter what. Before she’d gotten sick, they’d praised her, but with the underlying expectation that they thought she could always work a little bit harder. Since then . . .
They didn’t understand that their constant reassurance was just so damn condescending. She’d been their best analyst, but they’d been so overly effusive about her work that she’d felt like a kindergartener. She’d just left the proverbial nest, but they were already making sure she knew any fall would have a soft landing; meanwhile, they’d always chastised Portia for the various desperate flight patterns she undertook while trying to please them.
Reggie loved her parents, but she would never understand how or why they behaved as they did. Sending Portia to comportment lessons and debutant balls, telling her she needed a good husband, while focusing on Reggie’s good grades and always making sure everyone knew who the smart twin was, even if they never said it out loud.
Reggie realized her teeth were clenched hard, and took a deep breath, and focused on loosening her muscles.
Reggie: Thanks! You guys don’t have to worry about me, I’ve planned for possible failure and won’t need any assistance. Appreciate it, though! Good night!
She glanced at her father’s response.
Dad: That’s our girl. Always has a plan in place!
Reggie knew what was left unsaid. Unlike your sister.
Those unspoken words hurt. Sometimes she wondered if stuff like that was why Portia had grown so distant. Messed up as it was, that was preferential to her greater fear.