above and beyond

Chapter 8

Gloria leaves the romantic details out of her explanation to Sonia, but she explains things as best as she can without saying outright that she is here to get a kiss from Leon before the end of the month. Honestly, she isn't sure if Sonia is just being polite by pretending to ignore the holes in her explanation when she says that Leon can't know the truth, or that she has to find some sort of way to make the spell stick by the end of the month, or if she is so excited to potentially have some of her studies validated that she just goes along with it.

By the time she has gotten to the end of it, Sonia seems excited about being able to use her for further research, and says, "I really don't know the first thing about how your magic works, but if I can learn anything that might help you, I'll definitely do my best. It'll at least be nice to have some real direction for once."

I really appreciate it , Gloria says, though she isn't entirely sure that this woman will actually be able to do anything for her, at least not in that time. She seems intelligent, and definitely reliable, but she would be dealing with things that even Nessa struggled to understand. Hop's backup plan was thoughtful, but her real hope is that the first plan of action works out for her.

But since she can't talk about that with Sonia, she just goes along with things, and they have conversations about Gloria's lifestyle, and what little she knows about magic. By the end, Sonia sighs wistfully and says, "I wish there were some way to meet this Nessa character, but I suppose that's out of the question."

I don't know if there's any way for me to get back in contact with her, other than failing and ending up back underwater at the end of the month. If I think of anything, I'll be sure to let you know. Gloria had said goodbye to Nessa with the intention of never returning home, so she isn't sure if contact is even possible. How she is now, she would not be able to breathe underwater, and with how everyone tries to stay hidden, it would be difficult to get anyone to come to the surface.

When they finally leave, Hop tells her how much he appreciates her trusting one of his friends, before saying, "But not to worry! I'm going to have a master plan figured out soon enough, and then you and Sonia can talk out loud all you want, and she won't have to try and unveil some grand magical secrets."

Gloria can only hope that Hop is right.

~X~

"Do you know how to dance?" Hop asks her the next day. "Oh, I guess you probably don't, since you just got legs for the first time, huh?"

I've never tried it, no. I can kind of imagine how it works, though. Gloria wonders if he's just asking for the sake of asking, or if he has an actual reason for it.

"We're going to have to make sure you know at least the basics, so I hope I'm a good enough teacher," he says. "Because at the end of the month, if Leon hasn't kissed you by then, he definitely will after the two of you dance together!"

He declares the last bit proudly, but Gloria is still a little bit lost. Why are we going to dance together at the end of the month?

"It's part of my master plan, remember? I didn't want to tell you about it until I was for sure about some things, but it turns out, you're in luck! It's actually even more perfect than I could have imagined," he says, beaming.

When he doesn't say anything else, she writes, So, are you going to tell me what it is?

"You know what balls are, right?" When she nods, he says, "Well, we're having some fancy ball for something or another, and it just happens to be at the end of the month. The setting is going to be perfectly romantic, so if I haven't managed to get the two of you together by then, you'll take advantage of the romantic atmosphere! But either way, you're going to need to learn how to dance if you want to be able to dance with Lee there."

As he explains himself, Gloria can already feel her excitement building, and she imagines herself in the setting Hop has described. She imagines herself wearing a dress like nothing she has ever owned before, making eye contact with Leon from across the room. As soon as he sees her, he crosses the room to join her, taking her hand so that the two of them can dance, and then, not caring about the crowd that has begun to watch them, he pulls her into a kiss, and she is finally able to speak and tell him...

"Does that sound good to you, Gloria?" Hop asks, startling her out of her fantasy. He laughs and says, "I guess it does, since you were definitely getting all dreamy eyed just now. Don't worry, we will definitely make it happen! Well, actually, I'm hoping if I push you at Lee at every opportunity, he'll figure things out sooner, but even so, you'd still be able to enjoy the ball with him either way, right?"

She thinks about protesting his accusation, but there is no doubt about the fact that she was getting dreamy eyed, so instead she says, Thanks for thinking this all through for me, and offering to teach me to dance, too. Should we get started now?

"Oh, absolutely. It took a lot of lessons before I was able to actually dance during these parties, so we need as much time as we can get. I've got to cram my years of experience into a couple weeks of lessons, after all!"

So they get started right then and there. While it is determined that Gloria is not a completely hopeless case, she is not entirely able to translate what she can imagine into actual movements just yet. Hop tries to explain things to her as simply as impossible, counting for her so she can try basic steps, but matching his counts is something that takes a lot of work to figure out.

Even so, Hop does not give up on her or get frustrated with her, and even when she struggles, the two of them have a lot of fun together. She couldn't ask for anyone better to help her, or anyone more supportive than Hop is.