by Harper Bliss
Maybe she should fire up that Tinder app later on and give it a second chance. If women like Lou were to be found on there, Mia should give it another go.
Chapter Eleven
At first sight, Meredith was lovely, but it was hard to focus on what she was saying with Mia Miller’s eyes burning a hole into Lou’s back. As Lou sat there, she was hyperaware of Mia’s presence in the cinema. Even though she couldn’t see her from where she sat—she had spotted her a few rows farther up when she and Meredith were searching for their seats—she could feel her. Lou was of half a mind to suggest skipping the movie and moving on to the dinner portion of this date, but when they had been texting earlier today, Meredith had been very enthusiastic about it and had emphasized that the movie would soon go out of circulation and this afternoon was the only chance they had of getting their minds blown by it on the big screen.
Lou had switched on her phone that morning with more urgency than usual. And she knew the reason for her eagerness: the possibility of something. As soon as her phone had booted up and she’d switched on the Tinder app, there it had been: a message from Meredith. Lou had immediately come clean and told her about knowing Robin, upon which Meredith had answered she knew very well who Lou was.
Your recent, refreshing, and utterly beguiling presence in and around the Pink Bean has not gone unnoticed, Meredith had messaged back.
Lou figured it must be the poet in her. She couldn’t remember seeing Meredith at the Pink Bean, but perhaps she had been at the only other open mic night Lou had attended. Then, she had still been in restoration mood and hadn’t taken much notice of anyone around her; instead she had listened to Phil and Jared as they tried to cheer her up.
Meredith talked fast and laughed raucously at the witticisms that kept spouting from her own mouth. She seemed to Lou a woman who was used to hanging with the high-testosterone boys at work, smart-talking her way out of everything. After only five minutes of initial, rather awkward conversation, it was clear that, on the surface at least, they were very different people. Which Lou considered a good thing. She needed someone with opposite character traits. Someone brash and bold and willing to coax her out of her shell. And if that someone had a poetic heart, all the better for it.
But, damn it, first she’d bumped into Mia at Annie’s bookshop, and then again at the movie theatre. Would she never get a break from Mia Miller? Not even on a Sunday?
Annie had told her that Mia lived close by and had been coming to her bookshop for years, buying a book every single week—“Even when she looked as if she’d be much better off putting her money toward a good meal instead of more reading material,” Annie had said. “Such a nice girl,” Annie had continued, “who couldn’t wait to get out of here as soon as you walked in. Have you been busy since you got back from Brisbane?”
Lou had shrugged off her mother’s old friend’s comments and had bought a book herself, even though she had a big to-be-read pile on her nightstand and was just in the middle of one. But for some insane reason she felt she couldn’t leave the shop without buying something if that was what Mia had done. She had merely popped in to say hello to Annie. She hadn’t been in this neighborhood for a while and she’d been curious as to how the shop was doing. Her reason for buying a book she was pretty sure she had spotted on her parents’ bookshelves was utterly ludicrous. Now it burned a hole in her bag, along with Mia Miller’s eyes in the back of her head.
But Lou was glad she was here with Meredith. That Mia could see she was a fully functioning adult who had no problem getting a date if she wanted to. Because ever since that conversation at Glow, that harrowing confrontation that had left her feeling a mixture of relief and inexplicable dread afterward, she had started thinking about Mia in a slightly different way.
Now that the shock of seeing her again had died down, along with the slew of bad memories Lou hadn’t allowed herself to dredge up for the past decade, she could see Mia in another light. She was the kind of person most people reacted to in a positive manner because of the kindness she projected. Last night at Martha’s, when they’d been scrolling through profile pictures on Tinder, Lou’s gut reaction, before the one induced by trauma even had a chance to set in—before her brain realized it was a picture of Mia she was looking at—had been, if only for a fraction of a second, what an attractive woman.
More forceful sentiments had quickly taken over from that initial impression, but when she’d seen a woman with a charismatic smile and an easy manner—Mia again—talk to Annie in her shop earlier, she had remembered the thought from the night before. It had jolted her. And revolted her. Either you couldn’t tell by looking at her that she was a bully, or Mia truly had transformed herself.
Then later, for someone like Lou who simply didn’t enjoy going to a movie on her own, seeing Mia wait to go in by herself had struck another chord with her. Mia had been far from the only person waiting in solitude, but there had been something about her as she stood there with her shoulder leaning against the wall, trying to conceal that she knew Lou was there as well. Something so vulnerable, Lou would never have associated it with Mia. And for a split second, the thought had popped into her brain: maybe Mia was a victim too.
A thought she’d quickly shaken off, not only because she had a date to impress, but also because it was a thought she wasn’t willing to entertain. Because it didn’t matter.
Once the movie had started Meredith had gone silent and she’d sat stock still, completely entranced by what was happening on the screen. But Lou couldn’t focus all her attention on the shenanigans of the lovesick protagonist. Instead, she moved around in her seat and glanced behind her.
It was hard to make out Mia’s face in the feeble light, yet Lou found it easily. She was staring straight at the screen—which was really all Lou wanted to find out with this maneuver. But then, just before Lou turned back, Mia must have felt Lou looking at her and their gazes connected across the darkened room. Lou quickly turned around. Meredith’s attention had been drawn away from the screen and she sent Lou a quick smile, then refocused on the movie.
“I know her too,” Meredith whispered in Lou’s ear as they made their way out of the theatre. “Lesbian Tinder is like a small village.”
“Who?” Lou didn’t immediately know who Meredith was talking about.
“The woman you were looking at earlier and who just turned the corner.” She gave a chuckle. “I’ll be honest. I swiped right, but she obviously didn’t feel the need to do so in response to my picture.”
“I don’t know her from Tinder. She works at the Pink Bean,” Lou said.
“Really? She must be new then.”
“She is.” Lou confirmed, taken aback by the fact that she and her date were actually talking about Mia. Everywhere she went, no matter what she did: Mia. And of course Meredith had swiped right. And Lou had swiped right on Meredith and this was the world they lived in now. Swiping left or right could have a lasting effect on your future.
It was strange to go back to dating after being in a relationship for seven years. The way dating in itself had changed, Lou might as well have started dating Angie in another lifetime. They had met the old-fashioned way. At a party thrown by mutual friends. Not that Lou wanted to pass judgment on one way being better than the other, but things had changed so much. In a way, the internet and online dating was a blessing for her, because at parties she didn’t always have the repartee and quick-wittedness to stun her conversation partners. She was the quiet, observing type. Definitely never the life of any party—in fact, after she’d met Angie and they had moved in together, Lou would have been fine with giving most parties a miss. At least the noisy, boisterous ones with too many people crammed into too small a space. Lou would take a small, civilized dinner party over that kind of set-up every day of the week.
“We’re not our parents just yet,” Angie used to say. “Put your glad rags on, babe. We’re going dancing.” And Lou did go dancing and enjoyed it most of the time, but not alway
s, not like Angie who came alive under a spotlight and under the gaze of her friends.
They took an Uber to a restaurant not far from Meredith’s apartment near the CBD. Lou had suggested the restaurant as a compromise: close to where Meredith lived, but serving excellent vegetarian food for her, according to the reviews.
“So I’m your first date, huh?” Meredith asked as they sat across from each other in the restaurant. “That doesn’t bode well for me.” She followed up with a chuckle.
“Why not?”
“What are the odds of you finding love again on the first date after your relationship ended?”
“I’d say those odds are not greater or smaller than on any other date. But maybe you know more about odds than I do because of your profession.”
“Not when it comes to this, so I’ll go with your view on things. And, by the way, do tell what kind of dirt Robin dished on me?”
This made Lou laugh. “Nothing too salacious. But I do know you write poetry and can often be found reading it at Pink Bean open mic nights.”
“True enough. Did she review my poetry for you?”
Lou shook her head. “Nope. I guess I’ll have to come to your next reading to find out what it’s like for myself.”
“You should.” Meredith picked up her glass of wine and peered at Lou over the rim with her intense brown eyes.
She really was quite attractive. A completely different kind of woman than Angie, who had short-cropped hair and a half-dozen rings in her ear. That was the most astounding thing about Angie becoming such a slave to the corporation she worked for. She had always looked like the kind of person who would be out protesting the might of big business, not working for it.
Lou raised her glass as well. She clinked it gently against Meredith’s and said, “I think I will.”
The food arrived and, scoring many points in her favor, Meredith didn’t ask Lou why she was a vegetarian. She just accepted it, and had ordered a meat-free dish as well. Lou had just picked up her knife and fork when Meredith’s phone started ringing.
Meredith snapped to attention immediately. “I’m sorry. That’s my work phone. I need to take this.”
Lou had noticed that Meredith had two phones. Lou was the kind of person who would often, and gladly, leave her phone at home if she could. Going on a date with two devices in her bag was just unfathomable to her.
Meredith got up and went outside. Lou watched her gesticulate wildly through the window and wondered what could possibly be so important on a Sunday evening that it warranted such an agitated phone call from someone at work. She didn’t have to wonder very long, because she knew if you were that kind of person, it was so easy to come up with a valid enough reason to interrupt dinner with a loved one—or in this case a prospective romantic interest. Angie had done it to her numerous times in the past few years and whereas Lou could understand that some things couldn’t wait—although she couldn’t possibly conjure up what those things could actually be, no matter how hard she tried, or how many times Angie explained it to her—she always felt for the person who had to take the call and had their life interrupted for no good reason.
What would happen if Meredith hadn’t taken this call? Would the Australian economy go bust? Would the world stop turning? Would anyone truly think any less of her and if they did for that very reason, did it matter?
Lou shuffled uneasily in her seat as the memories of fights with Angie she had tried to forget made their way to the front of her mind once more.
”You’re different,” Angie used to say. “You’re not made for high-powered corporate environments, and I love that about you. I need to be with someone like you. Someone calm and quiet and balanced.”
Angie hadn’t noticed how out of balance her change of pace had thrown Lou. Of course she hadn’t. She was too busy to notice. Because Lou definitely believed that idle hands were the devil’s play thing, and that while work could have a lot of value in a person’s life, it should never come at the cost of a relationship. It shouldn’t continuously make your partner feel second best.
Meredith walked back into the restaurant with the kind of apologetic smile on her face Lou found hard to resist. She was already smiling back, when Meredith said, “I’m so very sorry, but I’m going to have to go.”
“What?” Lou scoffed incredulously.
“That was the big boss. I would explain to you exactly what is going on right now, but I’m going to save you from that.” Another smirk. Great. She was being condescending as well. “Sadly, I need to go to the office.”
“It’s Sunday evening.”
“Don’t I know it. But one of our analysts just discovered that—” She stopped herself. “Can I take a rain check on dinner?” She grabbed her purse and took out her wallet. “I’ll pay for this, of course.”
“I’ll take care of it and no, you can’t take a rain check.” Lou was not interested in dating an even worse workaholic than Angie.
“Really? I thought things were going well.” Meredith tried to grab the waiter’s attention.
“Emphasis on were,” Lou said with all the coldness in her voice she could muster.
“I’m really not blowing you off, if that’s what you think. There is a genuine emergency at work. In fact, I really need to go now. I’m very sorry. I’ll call you.” Meredith stood shuffling around for a few more seconds, her face contorted with doubts and the realization that she had blown it.
“Don’t bother,” Lou said. She asked the waiter if she could take her meal home, paid, and left the restaurant feeling silly and sad.
Her parents were just stacking the dishes in the dishwasher when Lou walked into the kitchen.
“I wasn’t expecting you home so early,” her father said.
“Have you eaten? I have leftovers,” her mother asked.
Lou held up the plastic bag with the take-out container. “The date was rudely interrupted.”
“What happened?” her dad asked.
Lou scoffed. “She got called away by work. On a Sunday evening. Can you believe that?”
“I’m so sorry, honey,” her mother said. “Did you like her?”
“I kind of did.” Lou sank into a chair and lifted the lid of a pot that was standing in the middle of the table. She got a whiff of what was inside and her stomach started growling. She’d barely had the time to have a single bite of food before Meredith’s phone had started ringing. “But I have no desire to see her again.”
Her father sat at the table next to her. “Better luck next time,” he said.
It was kind of funny to hear her dad say these words to her with such conviction in his tone. She knew he meant it, that all he wanted was for Lou to be the happiest she could possibly be, but it was just the way he said it. Like he was her best buddy instead of her father.
“Let’s talk about something else,” Lou said. “I stopped by Annie’s shop this afternoon. It’s not doing well.”
“I know.” Her mother sat as well. “I was talking about it with Beryl this afternoon. Her son overheard us and he said we should set up a crowdfunding campaign to save the shop.”
Lou nodded. Her mother put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you sure you’re all right, honey?” She’d been asking that question more than usual ever since Lou had told her parents that she had run into Mia Miller.
“I’m fine. I’d just like to do something for Annie, but I don’t know what. She’s had that shop for almost twenty years.” She pursed her lips together. “Let me think about the crowdfunding idea for a bit.” She delved into her bag and dug up the book she’d bought. “I couldn’t help myself. Couldn’t leave her shop without buying something.”
Her dad picked up the book. “My copy was beginning to fall apart. We can do with a new one.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Lou was grateful that her father was not the kind of guy who would make her feel bad about buying a book they already owned. He would probably have bought it himself if he’d been in Annie’s shop and just heard abou
t her plight.
A silence fell and she caught a passing glance between her parents.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Angie called again,” her mother said on a sigh.
“Oh Christ. What did she say now?”
“The usual things. She’s sorry. Could I talk to you on her behalf. She’s going to change. On and on,” her mother said.
“I’m sorry you had to listen to that.” Lou rubbed her palms against her eyes. “What did you say to her?”
“I mostly listened. Then I told her you had made your decision.”
“I made my decision six months ago. It’s about time she starts accepting it.”
“She’s upset because she realizes she made a big mistake,” her father chimed in.
“And I’m upset because I saw her change in front of my very eyes. She turned into someone else entirely. Someone I had no desire to be with anymore.”
“I know, Lou. I know.” Her father grinned awkwardly. “It’s a difficult situation.” Her father was the sensitive kind of person who had trouble holding back his own tears when Lou cried. After things had gone awry with Angie, there had been no doubt in Lou’s mind about where to go: home. Her sanctuary. The place where she’d always been able to blot out what happened outside the four walls of the house. The house where her parents lived, the people who would always be her mother and father but to whom Lou could speak as though they were friends. A fact Angie was well aware of, and was now putting to her own use.
“I’ll call her. Tell her to stop harassing you,” Lou said.
Her mother nodded, then looked her in the eye. “You’re absolutely, one hundred percent certain you don’t want to give her another chance?” Her mother had always been fond of Angie. But Lou had yet to introduce her mother to a person she didn’t instantly take to. She was the gregarious one of the Hamiltons. The woman with a dozen hobbies and a circle of friends and acquaintances so big, Lou could never remember all their names. Her mother was also the sort of woman who would always give everyone a second and then a third chance.