Few Hearts Survive

by Harper Bliss

  “I take it you and Amber Gilroy will be going on a second date?”

  “We haven’t set it up yet, but I think there’s a very strong possibility.” As exciting as meeting someone new was, Martha wasn’t up to speed on dating protocols. “How long should I wait to call?” As the words left her mouth, she realized how silly they were—especially uttered to her daughter.

  “You’re asking me for dating advice?” The grin on Stella’s face was hard to decipher. Luckily, the microwave pinged and Martha busied herself with stirring the sauce before putting it in for a second round and switching on the hob to boil the water.

  They had exchanged text messages the day before, both of them declaring how much they had enjoyed the date. Maybe Martha should just text and ask. But no, that felt so juvenile, so unworthy of the beginnings of a proper romance. Amber had called her for the first date; she would call for the second.

  “I wouldn’t dare, darling. Come on, set the table and grate some cheese.”

  As she watched her daughter spring into action, Martha wondered what it would be like to introduce Amber to Stella and the rest of her family. She couldn’t think of any reason why anyone would ever disapprove of meeting Amber, but still, she was getting way ahead of herself.

  Chapter Nine

  Amber sat nursing a cup of green tea in the Pink Bean. “She called me last night,” she said. “We’re going out again next weekend.”

  Micky waggled her eyebrows. “No private yoga lesson just yet?”

  Amber burst out into a chuckle. “No to both the literal meaning and what you’re actually trying to say.”

  “And no...” Micky glanced at her over the rim of her cup, looking as though she was weighing her words, “...nagging doubts yet?”

  Amber shook her head. “I really like her, which doesn’t mean I’m not a little bit scared, but I think that just comes with the territory of dating. Look at the mess you and Robin made of things in the beginning. If that has taught me one thing, it’s that nothing in life, and definitely not the most worthwhile things, follow a straight line to success.”

  “That yoga retreat really cleared the cobwebs from your brain. Perhaps I should book one.”

  Amber huffed out a chuckle. “I know you take your practice more serious than most, but I don’t see you doing it, Micky. Maybe if you go for only a weekend, but then it’s hardly worth the trip.”

  “Oh really. Now I’m just going to have to do it just to prove you wrong.”

  “I dare you.” Amber looked into her friend’s dark eyes. She had missed Micky most of all. Moments like these. The easy companionship Amber often took for granted. She doubted Micky realized what she had done for Amber over the years simply by just being there, by being her friend and piercing through the loneliness that sometimes crept up on her, even though Amber had chosen it for herself. Because she never felt ready to give it a go with another woman. Because she was always so scared of a second Holly coming along and not being able to resist, even though she was much stronger right now.

  “What’s all the commotion about?” Sheryl had sidled up to them, cup of coffee in hand. “Two grown women giggling like school girls. That can only be over a third woman.” She stood there grinning as if she knew all the secrets of the world.

  Would Martha have briefed her friend and colleague about last weekend’s date? Amber was keen to find out. “Martha and I are going on a second date.” Amber couldn’t keep a hint of pride from her voice.

  “Hallelujah!” Sheryl gave her a thumbs-up. “She waited and waited for you.”

  Amber looked at her expectantly, hoping to get some more information out of Sheryl. Nothing came.

  “I have to go to work. If I see Martha, I’ll tell her you said hi.” Sheryl shot Amber a wink and went on her way.

  Micky huddled over the table. “Between you and me, Sheryl looks so much better.”

  Amber nodded. “I go away for two months and it’s like meeting a whole new person. Or no, a better version of the Sheryl we knew. Sobriety is really agreeing with her. She’s been coming to a lot of my classes as well.”

  “Maybe you should go away more often. You’re about to go on a promising second date and our friend has taken the big step of joining AA.”

  “I don’t think I can. You would miss me too much.” Amber smiled widely at Micky.

  “Admittedly, two months was a bit long. Although it was more Chris and Liv who missed their godmother, of course.”

  “Of course.” Amber drank from her tea and felt blessed with the current good fortunes in her life. Martha wasn’t even fussy about vegan food—which counted for a lot in Amber’s book.

  Chapter Ten

  Amber had taken Martha to her favorite vegan restaurant, which happened to be very close to where Martha lived. Since they’d sat down, Amber seemed lost in thought.

  “You’re miles away,” Martha said. “It is the food or the company?” Second date nerves prevented her smile from stretching to its widest.

  “I’m sorry,” Amber said. “This week is killing me. The contrast with my time in India is too big. A retreat like the one I was on is so valuable. I felt fully recharged when I got back, but I’ve had a lot on my mind since then.”

  “I hope you’ve had some time left to think about me.” One look into Amber’s eyes, and Martha didn’t care that she was coming on a tad strong.

  “I think thoughts of you may have taken up most of my emotional bandwidth,” Amber said.

  Martha grinned. “Good. I think.”

  Amber glanced at Martha’s still half-full plate.

  “It’s not the food,” Martha quickly said. “I promise.” She was a really bad liar.

  “I should have taken you to a more transitional place. I realize now this one might be a bit too hardcore.”

  Martha shook her head. “When we were on our first date, I’d look at you and I’d sometimes think you were from another place and time.” She paused. “Don’t get me wrong. I think you are beautiful and kind and intelligent. Well, that was my first-date impression of you, anyway, but we’ve lead such different lives. I’m older, of course. Only by nine years, which at our age shouldn’t matter that much, I believe, but, god, Amber, I’m in awe of you when it comes to certain choices you’ve made. Especially the ones I was always afraid to make myself.”

  “You mean you should have become a vegan years ago?” Amber quipped while a small blush crept up her cheeks.

  “If you’re using the word vegan as a euphemism. Yes, then I guess that’s what I mean.” Martha chuckled. She didn’t care much about the food, because it simply felt good to sit here and talk about big and small things.

  “It was never a choice for me.” Amber no longer had any trouble staring deeply into Martha’s eyes. “I only came out to my parents when I was twenty-five, but by then I’d known for a decade that I would never be with men. There’s a big difference between knowing and making the choice to be open about it.”

  “Tell me about it.” Martha made another attempt at stabbing at her food, then put her cutlery down. “How did your parents take it?”

  “Really well. Because they’d known for such a long time already and they were happy that I’d finally told them. That it was all out in the open. That I could finally become my true self and be happy.”

  “And did you? Become happy?”

  “As happy as a twenty-something junior marketing manager working for a big corporation, who was about to have her heart severely broken for the first time, could be.”

  Martha nodded thoughtfully. “When I was twenty-five, I’d been a mother for a year. And Liam was already a twinkle in his father’s eyes.”

  “I can’t even imagine. Twenty-four is so young to be a mother.”

  “I know. Trevor and I married when he graduated and I was still at university. Looking back now, it was madness. I can’t imagine Stella, who just turned twenty, about to be married. It seems so ludicrous now.”

  “Plenty of people sti
ll do, though,” Amber said.

  “I know, but it’s just too young. What do you know about the world when you’re twenty-one? Especially when you’re still at uni.” Martha shook her head. “I certainly didn’t have much of a clue of what I was doing then.”

  “It didn’t stop you from getting your PhD and becoming a professor. That must not have been easy.”

  “I waited until they were old enough. And by that I mean old enough for me to leave them with a nanny or their grandparents without feeling too guilty. Trevor was pretty good about it as well. I can fault him for many things, but not for not having sufficiently feminist views in the nineties.” She gave a forced laugh. “I suppose that, for the longest time, I just didn’t give myself a spare second to even think about what I really wanted. All my life, I’ve been so incredibly busy. Children. Studying. My career. It literally took my husband leaving me to take a step in the right direction.”

  “And how did that first step go?”

  Martha took a sip from the organic wine she’d been served and found it very hard not to screw up her face in disgust. “I was fifty when I took my first steps. You can imagine how that went.”

  “Tell me,” Amber insisted.

  “At first, Trevor and I splitting up caused quite a ruckus at the university, what with him being Vice-Chancellor and me also working there. It wasn’t a student, by the way, whom he left me for. She’s twenty years younger than me, but fully graduated. Stella told me the other day that she’s been nagging Trevor for a child.” Martha huffed out the most disdainful of chuckles. “But I guess for men it’s not that uncommon to become a parent again at almost sixty. Still, he’s a grandfather. His grandchildren would be older than this child.” She couldn’t help but shake her head again. “Anyway, news about our break-up and the reasons for it spread quickly on campus. Gossip really thrives in a place like that. To this day I still have no idea how word broke about me being interested in women, but let me just say I was propositioned by a couple of students fairly quickly.” Martha arched her eyebrows. “Of course seeing a student is totally out of the question. At least, it is for me. I’ve been at the university long enough to know it does happen, but what would I do with a student, anyway? I’m not interested in youth that way. I wanted a woman. Someone mature. Someone who had lived a full life already, like me. Someone who didn’t need to be taught most of life’s lessons anymore.” She let her gaze linger on Amber, who had learned plenty of life’s harder lessons already— Martha knew that much. “But, right out of the gate, I didn’t fare so well.” Martha leaned back in her chair. “I’d known Sheryl for a while and I told her in the hopes that she could introduce me to like-minded women, which, ironically, she eventually did, though not for years later.” Martha threw in a dry chuckle. “I tried internet dating. I tried going to that bar just a few blocks from here that’s been around forever.” Martha twirled the stem of her wine glass between her fingers. “Reinventing yourself at fifty isn’t as easy as the myth of the midlife crisis would have you believe.”

  “But you, er, have been with a—” A sudden blush appeared on Amber’s cheeks again.

  “A woman before?” Martha completed the question for her. “Yes. Thank goodness, I have. I met someone, eventually. She was a professor in Melbourne. We met at a conference at her university. It was fun, but long distance. I guess in the end there wasn’t enough between us to keep the fire going. My life is here. If I want to, I can always be busy. I have classes. Research projects. Students to guide. Faculty meetings. And, despite being divorced, I have a family. I have children and grandchildren.” She pursed her lips together. “Long distance is not for me. In fact, the distance between Camperdown and Darlinghurst is far enough for me already.” Martha narrowed her eyes and watched Amber’s reaction.

  “Do you ever take a break?” Amber asked, sounding genuinely worried.

  “I’m taking the best possible break now, sitting across from a beautiful woman, drinking”—she cast a sideways glance at her wine glass—“frankly, rather questionable wine.” She broke out into a big smile. “I like you, Amber. And I will try to go slow with you, but well, at my age, I don’t have a lot of time to waste.” Had Martha really just said that?

  “It sounds so enticing when you put it like that.” The skin around Amber’s eyes crinkled when she smiled.

  They both burst into a mild bout of laughter and Martha concluded that if Amber was only feeling half of the promise of this that she was, there would be enough fire between them to bridge any distance—or anything else that could possibly stand between them.

  “What time do you teach tomorrow?” Martha asked.

  “My first class is at eleven.” Amber sighed with relief.

  “How about we get out of here and I take you somewhere a bit more... wild?” Martha took great joy in the possible innuendo her invitation held.

  “Take me there,” Amber said.

  Chapter Eleven

  “If you crane your neck like this,” Martha said, “you can see the front porch of my house.” She demonstrated by slanting her body forward and twisting her neck to look into the distance.

  “I’m sure you’ll show it to me up close and personal soon enough,” Amber replied. She slipped the straw of her cocktail between her lips and sipped happily. Upon arrival, Martha had given her a quick speech about how she respected Amber’s wishes to not overindulge in alcohol, and pointed her finger at the virgin cocktails they made—all massive sugar bombs, Amber thought, but didn’t say out loud. But Amber was on her second date with a gorgeous, accomplished woman and she could have a lie-in tomorrow. Moreover, she had plenty of milk thistle tablets at home to cleanse her liver with afterward. Besides, one cocktail wasn’t going to make her fall over. She was a lightweight, but she could handle one more drink on this date.

  “I just might,” Martha said, and the tone for the last part of the night was set. “I believe I hijacked your story with my own earlier,” she continued. “Care to tell me more about that silly woman who broke your heart? Name and address, please, so I can have a word with her.”

  Amber enjoyed Martha’s forwardness, but shook her head nonetheless. “No sad stories tonight,” she said.

  “No matter how sad at the time, it contributed to the woman you are today,” Martha said. “But sure, tell me a happy story then. What is the best thing that ever happened to you?”

  “Quitting my corporate job and retraining as a yoga instructor,” Amber said without thinking.

  Martha had her hand in the air and wiggled her first finger. “While very admirable, that’s not something that happened to you but something you made happen for yourself. There must have been something or... someone who made you ridiculously happy at some point.”

  “At some point, sure. Just not so much after.”

  “And the mysteries of Amber continue.” Martha held out her glass, as though Amber not wanting to talk about the woman who had hurt her the most was something worth toasting to. Of course, Martha didn’t know. Amber wondered why she was so reluctant to tell Martha about Holly. All of that drama happened so long ago. But maybe she just didn’t want to taint this perfectly fine date with the memory of her ex.

  “Maybe on the next date.” Amber followed up with a smile that couldn’t be misinterpreted.

  “Didn’t you say you’d have some more free time next week? I’d love to have you come to the university for lunch. Show you around a bit. It’s the place where I spend most of my time and I’d like you to see it.”

  “Sure, but only if you come to one of my classes in return.”

  “Nu-uh. That’s far from a fair deal. I’m not asking you to sit in on my classes. Besides, I’ll wait until I’ve had that private lesson.”

  “You sure know how to argue.” Their gazes locked again. The more Amber sipped from her mojito the longer she was able to look Martha in the eye without flinching away.

  “I know how to do many other things well, too.” Martha leaned forward, put a ha
nd on Amber’s knee, gave it the lightest of squeezes, and pressed her lips to Amber’s cheek, just next to the corner of her mouth.

  Because Martha lived so close by, and Amber wanted to extend the date as long as possible without taking it too far, she walked Martha home. On the way, she ordered an Uber, just in case things got too heated too quickly—especially after that chaste but incredibly hot kiss Martha had planted on her skin earlier. Amber hadn’t properly dated in so long, she didn’t know what the protocol was for kissing and more—how long she was supposed to wait. She decided to just follow her gut, and her gut told her the second date was too early for anything more than kissing.

  “This is me,” Martha said.

  “My taxi will be here soon.” Amber turned to Martha and took hold of her hands. “I had a really great time with you tonight.”

  “So did I.” Martha’s lips curved into a warm smile. “Will I see you soon?”

  “Try to stop me.” Amber leaned forward until their noses almost touched.

  “I won’t then.” Martha inched closer. They stood like that for a split second, frozen in a moment of absolute perfection. In that instant, Amber was sure this was right. That no matter how quickly she fell for Martha, she couldn’t screw this up. The stars were, finally, aligning for her. If this was meant to be, and Amber had a strong inkling that it was, it would happen. Amber had waited long enough—and so had Martha.

  Then, they bridged the final, tiny distance between their mouths, and their lips met. Amber kept her fingers firmly curled around Martha’s. It was just their lips touching, their mouths opening, tongues searching. Then a car rounded the corner and flashed its lights once. Amber’s Uber had arrived.

  “They can wait,” Martha said. She wrestled her hands free from Amber’s grip, and wrapped them around the back of her neck, pulling her close.