by Harper Bliss
“God no. I fully agree with you. And I’ll raise you one. I once went on a quest to find the last ten movies Isabelle Huppert starred in, then watched them all in one week. With subtitles, of course.”
“I’m impressed.” Lou grinned. “And a little surprised.”
“Why surprised?” Mia grinned right back at her.
“People who look so objectively pleasing as you do usually like the more commercial films.” Was she flirting again? No wonder Mia had been blowing hot and cold at the Pink Bean earlier. Lou would too if she kept getting mixed messages like this.
“There we go with the objectivity again,” Mia said. “I’m not that interested in anyone’s objective opinion on how I look. I would like to know what you personally and totally subjectively think about how I look.” Mia fluttered her eyelashes and cocked her head.
Lou felt a flush rise from her neck to her cheeks. “I think you know.”
Mia sunk her teeth into her bottom lip and shook her head. “I don’t.”
“I asked you out, Mia. Under the influence, when my inhibitions were totally lowered and I allowed my instinct to take the reins.” She pursed her lips, as though saying it was hard, while it was actually pretty easy, especially when she was staring at Mia’s pretty face. “I think we both know I find you attractive.”
“You’re not so bad yourself.” Mia held up her hands. “But I do think we’ve just entered the realm of very conscious flirting. I won’t try to cast blame on who started it, but I think we should retreat. We are just hanging out, remember?” Mia followed up with the widest smile she could muster.
“Just find us a snobbish movie to watch already.” Lou detected a tingle in the pit of her stomach.
Mia pored over her newspaper again. Lou watched her and just the simple act of gazing at Mia as she read filled her with an inexplicable, perhaps even obscene given their past, amount of joy.
“Charming, but hardly a masterpiece,” Lou said when they exited the cinema.
“Give me your extended review later, we have to hurry.” Mia touched her shoulder and guided them through the small throng of people in front of them. “Annie’s will close soon and I haven’t stopped by yet. She’ll worry about me. And what message would it send if I didn’t go in and buy a book the Sunday before we’re about to go into business together?”
“I’ll forgive you the work talk,” Lou said.
“My work is so mixed up with my pleasure. We wouldn’t be able to talk about anything if I weren’t allowed to bring it up.”
Annie’s was just a few minutes’ walk away. Then Lou’s phone started ringing. She delved it out of her purse and examined the screen. “Oh, great.”
“What’s wrong?”
Lou showed Mia the phone screen while she let it ring, as if Mia should know what a phone call from Angie did to her, how much it irked her.
“Let me guess, your ex?” Mia asked.
Mercifully, Angie hung up and the phone stopped ringing. Only to start blaring again a few seconds later.
“Do you want me to pick up?” Mia asked.
“What?” Lou held the phone to her chest.
“I won’t be untoward, I promise.” She arched up her eyebrows. “Come on. That kind of insistence needs to be dealt with. Otherwise she’ll never leave you alone.”
Reluctantly, Lou handed Mia her phone.
“Lou’s phone. Mia speaking. How can I help you?” Mia said.
A brief silence.
“No, Lou’s in the shower right now. Should she call you back?”
Lou shook her head. Angie’s incessant calls had been irritating her, mostly because Lou didn’t have anything left to say to her, but this was perhaps a bit too much. Angie was not the kind of person, especially not in the state she was in now, to take a phone call like this in jest. Lou would probably pay for this later.
“Okay. I’ll let her know you called. Have a lovely Sunday.” Mia hung up and handed the phone back to Lou.
“She said she’ll call back herself. No need for me to give you a message.”
“Oh Christ. I can just imagine her right now, fuming, steam coming from her ears.”
“What’s her deal? Didn’t you break up months ago?” Mia asked while they started walking again.
“She keeps calling me. She even calls my mother. I tell her to stop. She does for a while. Then she has a bad weekend, one during which she misses me and sees the error of her ways, and starts calling again. As if a phone call is what it takes to get me back.” Lou shook her head.
“So it’s really over between you?”
“It couldn’t possibly be more over and done with. I gave Angie so many chances and, one by one, she screwed them all up.” Lou glanced at Mia from the corner of her eye. “I think I’ll just remain single like you for the foreseeable future.” They arrived at the bookshop and Lou regretted being there already, because it would halt their conversation and she suddenly found she had a lot of things to talk about with Mia.
“Mia and Lou.” There was a strange note in Annie’s voice. She emerged from behind the counter and kissed them both on the cheeks. “My saviors.”
“Does that mean I no longer have to pay for my books?” Mia asked.
“If I don’t have to pay for the five lattes you will serve me every day,” Annie retorted. She seemed more alive to Lou than when she’d last seen her. Like she’d found the spring in her step again. She turned to Lou. “Can you imagine Mia and me in this shop together? I have an inkling half of the Newtown lesbians will take up reading print books again just to impress the cute barista.”
Was that a pang of jealousy Lou detected coursing through her? It wouldn’t surprise her if Mia was the resident heartbreaker of Newtown. She knew very well a lot of lesbians hung out here, and she wasn’t liking the mental image of Mia being hit on by a slew of them.
“Please, Annie. I hope you’re not about to make this deal so you can parade me around for my looks. I can guarantee you’re setting yourself up for major disappointment,” Mia said.
Annie gave Lou a look that Lou deciphered as wanting to say: Can you believe that girl?
“What have you got for me today, Annie?” Mia asked, changing the subject. “Actually, I’ll take one of these as well.” She glanced around the shop. “Ah, there they are.” Mia walked to a shelf in the furthest corner of the shop that had a sticker on it with Lesbian Romance. “Oh yes, the sequel to the one Sheryl lent me.” She turned to Annie. “Now that I’ve started on Jane’s books, I’m not stopping until I’ve gone through them all.”
She brought the book she had picked to the counter. “You really shouldn’t hide those in the corner. You should make a big display of them.”
“You try telling Jane that,” Annie said.
“Maybe I will,” Mia replied.
“Sparks will fly in my old shop. I look forward to it already,” Annie said.
“I would very much like a front row seat when that conversation takes place,” Lou said.
They chatted with Annie a little longer until another customer came in—heading straight for the Lesbian Romance shelf, making all three of them follow the woman with their eyes until it became uncomfortable. They paid for their purchases and Mia and Lou stood on the sidewalk again.
Lou glanced at her watch.
“You have to go?”
“I have time for one drink, then I’ll Uber back to Darlinghurst. Traffic should be okay on a Sunday evening.”
“How about a glass of top notch vino at my place?” Mia asked.
“Not sure about the wine, but I would love to see your place.”
“Come along then.” Mia held out her arm in a way that suggested Lou hook hers through it. She did and she felt a distinct frisson of excitement as she walked the street like that on the way to Mia’s.
One wall of Mia’s small flat was covered in books, which prompted Lou to say, “Only last night you claimed you couldn’t read Jane’s books. Today you bought another.”
“It’s research now. For work.” Mia stood next to her fridge. “How about some organic lemonade?”
Lou nodded. “But you’re enjoying the one you’re reading?”
“I am. There’s something so escapist about it. I’m there with these characters falling in love. As you might have sussed, I’m usually too snobbish to read romance, but I’ll happily admit I’m enjoying Jane’s book greatly. Even the naughty bits. It only took a small amount of effort to actually get over myself, and think about the characters that she created, and who now also live in my head, as actual fictional characters. It’s not that hard when they’re about twenty years younger than Jane and Annie. It’s fiction.” She screwed the lids off two bottles of lemonade and brought them over to what was supposed to be the lounge area, but was really only a small two-seat couch, a tiny coffee table and a television.
“My mother has a few of them. I don’t know if she’s actually read them,” Lou said. “I’m sure I can find a few at home. I’ll need to give them another chance.”
“Sometimes we all judge too quickly and too harshly.” Mia sat down next to Lou. “Anyway, welcome to my humble abode.”
“It’s so small.” Perhaps it wasn’t polite to say, but it was all Lou could think when she glanced around.
“I know, but only this week there was another article in the newspaper about how Sydney real estate prices are still rising this year. This is the best it’s going to get for me until they go down again.”
“Maybe if you make a huge success of the Newtown Pink Bean, you’ll get a raise.”
“I’ve only just finished my trial period,” Mia said.
During the brief silence that fell, Lou’s phone started ringing again. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” She fished the phone out of her pocket. “It’s her again,” she said on a sigh.
“She did say she would call back.” Mia held out her hand. “Do you want me to have another go?”
“No. I’ll just turn it off.” Lou pressed the off button hard, as if the pressure she applied could be felt by Angie in Brisbane. “I don’t want to think about Angie for the rest of the day. It’s been such a nice one.” She smiled at Mia. “What was your last relationship like?”
Mia huffed out a chuckle. “Brief.”
“That’s not very descriptive.”
“Yet it says all there is to say about it.” Mia leaned back and brought the bottle of lemonade to her mouth. She even looked sexy when she drank. Lou wondered if the effects of a vicious hangover included increasing sexual thoughts about the woman she had drunkenly asked out the night before.
“I don’t mean to be coy.” Mia said after she finished swallowing. “I’m just not much of a relationship person. I’ve tried, but, I don’t know. I think I’m just not really made for them. I’m happy on my own. When I meet someone I like, I tend to ask them out. We have a good time for a while. Then it organically comes to a halt. That seems to be the pattern.”
“And you’ve never asked yourself why?” Lou sat up. She didn’t want to miss a breath of Mia’s answer.
“I have, but I stopped doing that after the umpteenth time things ground to a halt. I’m thirty-three. I figure this is how I am, how I’m wired.”
“But what happens? Do you lose interest?”
Mia filled her cheeks with air and shook her head as she slowly let the air puff out. “No, I think it’s safe to say it’s usually the other party who loses interest in me.”
“Somehow, I find that hard to believe.”
Mia just shrugged.
“I’m not going to push you, but I just want it noted that I’m absolutely convinced you’re not telling me something. You’re holding something back.”
Mia slanted her head. “Maybe that’s the whole problem.” She gave an unconvincing smile. “It’s not the first time I’ve heard someone say that to me. If you hold back long enough, people will eventually lose interest.”
Lou was glad this wasn’t a date. That they were just hanging out and getting to know each other better. When Lou went on a date, she looked for signs of the other woman being a suitable mother. Even though she knew she was getting way ahead of herself when she did, that was one of her criteria. If this had been an actual date with Mia, she would seriously need to consider the possibility of not going on a second one because of what Mia had just said. She was clearly afraid to commit, and therefore didn’t stand a chance against Lou’s scrutiny.
“Why do you hold back?” Lou had to ask.
“I may appear all confident and rid of my past and all of that, but that is exactly because I never disclose certain parts of me. You’d be surprised to find out how many women take it as a personal affront when you refuse to bare your entire soul to them. Complete honesty is a big thing in a relationship, or so it would appear.”
It looked as though Mia was deflating right in front of Lou’s eyes. “Are you referring to the bullying? To your father?”
“Bingo.” Mia’s voice was but a whisper.
“You’ve never told anyone?” Lou’s eyes grew wide.
“It’s not exactly a good sales pitch when you’re trying to seduce someone.”
“No, of course not, but afterward, when a relationship deepens, there’s time to disclose the more unsavory parts of the past. We all have them. None of us are perfect and we all need forgiveness for something. If not from someone else, then at least from ourselves.” The fact that Mia had never addressed her past with anyone made Lou believe she hadn’t forgiven herself at all, despite sometimes hinting at it—and appearing very together about it all most of the time.
“It’s how things are,” Mia said, then fell silent for a few seconds.
Lou kept quiet in order to let Mia gather her thoughts and perhaps talk about what she had never talked about with any of her exes.
“Micky is the only person I talked to about it in all these years, and that’s only because of you.” Mia’s voice broke. “I would never have confided in her if you hadn’t told me who you were.”
It was sounding as if Mia had needed Lou to turn up in her life. Even though Lou was convinced that, in the comparison of their suffering, she was and would always be the clear winner. The victim. The damaged party. The wronged one.
But now, she sat next to Mia in her tiny flat, and another layer of Mia’s bravado was stripped away. Mia had essentially told Lou how lonely she was—how lonely she made herself— and Lou wasn’t so sure about her superior level of suffering anymore.
“You’re the one who got the job at the Pink Bean. I was just going about my everyday business, teaching yoga, and spending too much of my hard-earned cash on coffee I could make myself.” The air was getting so dense in this flat, Lou needed to lighten up the atmosphere a little.
“Maybe it was an act of fate that brought us back into each other’s lives.” Mia mumbled. “The universe knew we had unfinished business. You left Brisbane. I started hunting for a new job after I got sick of working for the man. And boom, here we are. Talking about the very thing that has marked us both so much.”
“Do you believe in fate?” Lou couldn’t keep her eye on Mia’s face all the time, but she did notice that, after that short moment of extreme vulnerability, she was starting to put herself back together again.
Mia shrugged. “Not until now.” She followed up with a smile. “Don’t you have to go?” She pointed at the clock on the opposite wall.
“Oh, shoot. I’m going to be late.” Lou put down the bottle of lemonade that had been empty for a while but which she had been toying with. “Let me see how long it’ll take before I can get an Uber.” This meant having to switch her phone back on. Before she did, she glanced at Mia. “I really wish I could stay.”
“I’m sure I’ll see you around.” Mia rubbed her palms over her jeans. “Might even run into you tomorrow.”
“Will you come to my 6 p.m. class?”
“I might.”
Mia’s non-committal tone drove Lou slightly crazy. Perhaps she h
ad to take the initiative here. No, she knew she did. They’d spent a lovely, rather intense afternoon together. Lou had seen yet another side of Mia Miller. If she knew anything at all, she knew she wanted more.
“Would you still say yes if I asked you out now?” She wasn’t entirely sure it was a good idea, but Lou had learned to follow her gut, and she knew that if she didn’t ask, she would be kicking herself all the way back to Darlinghurst for not having the nerve.
“Try me.” Mia leaned back on her elbows. The hem of her t-shirt rose and a sliver of skin was exposed.
“Mia Miller, would you like to have dinner with me?”
“I would.” Mia’s voice was forceful now.
“Good. My house. Wednesday evening?”
“Whoa… I’m not sure I’m ready to meet your parents just yet.”
“They’re on holiday. I have the place to myself.”
“I’ll be there with bells on then.” Mia rose, while Lou switched her phone back on. A slew of messages came in alerting her to the missed calls from Angie. She could get an Uber in five minutes.
Lou stood awkwardly by the door, unsure of how to say goodbye, not only to Mia, but to the unexpected afternoon they had spent together.
“See you soon.” Mia took a step in her direction, put her hands on Lou’s shoulders, and kissed her on the cheek.
“You asked her out?” Phil said. “Twice?”
“It’s been an eventful weekend,” Lou said. She was glad she had this evening with her friends to gain some perspective on her date with Mia.
“I did not see that coming,” Jared said.
“To be perfectly honest,” Lou said, “neither did I.”
The twins were staying at their grandparents’ tonight, so Lou couldn’t count on them to distract the conversation. It was just her, her two friends, and all the questions they would surely have.