“Ah… no. She’s named after the Brontë sisters?” I posed it as a question, hoping she’d just forgotten the name of the dynamic literary sisters. But at her blank look, I knew I was mistaken.
“Mm,” she said in response, her chest rising and falling in a long sigh.
I tried to move the conversation to other subjects, but things I was interested in held no value to her, so I moved back to travel.
“So, have you gone to many exotic locations?” I asked, taking the last bite of my quiche and noticing she had finished off her salmon. Please let this be over soon.
She perked up again.
“Yes! Costa Rica, Bali, Bora Bora, the south of France, Tahiti, Belize…”
“Lots of warm areas then,” I said. “You must like a good tan.”
Her hopeful expression turned disappointed and a buzzer went off in my head. Wrong again, Mr. Forrester. You lose one hundred billion points. Turn in your dating badge and go home.
I wished I could.
“I don’t go for the tan lines, Graham,” she said, her voice bitter. “I go for yoga retreats and the holistic experience. To connect with myself and the earth.” She peered at me. “I really think you would benefit from the practice. You probably sit a lot for your job and your joints and tendons and muscles would thank you for it.”
She wasn’t wrong, but her holier than thou attitude, along with her disinterest in anything I liked or found fun had sealed the deal on any hope of this going any further. Now it was time to have a little fun. I mentally flexed my fingers and decided to put my storytelling skills to some use.
“The truth is,” I said. “Yoga scares me.”
“Scares you?” She gave me a confused smile.
“Yes.” I turned my eyes downward and took a long breath in before meeting her gaze again. “Yoga is what killed my mom.”
“What? Is that… that can’t be true.”
“It is. The doctor said she got so flexible that when she was walking down the stairs at her house, the muscles and tendons around her hip joint were too pliable and when the bone popped out, they couldn’t hold it in and she fell.”
The horror on her face was a delight.
“Oh my gosh. That’s terrible. I can’t— Is that really true?”
I nodded solemnly.
“I’m so sorry.”
It was hard not to laugh and I almost felt bad for lying, but I was bored and irritated and I’d just wasted valuable writing time on this woman.
“Yeah. So you can see why I haven’t wanted to practice it myself.”
As she tried to wrap her mind around it all, I signaled for the bill, downed the rest of my Bloody Mary, paid, and led the way to the door.
“Cara,” I said on the sidewalk. “It was lovely to meet you. Good luck with your practice. Maybe have your doctor check your hip flexors next time you see her or him.”
“Oh. I don’t see a medical doctor.”
“Of course you don’t,” I said, and turned and walked away.
As I headed home, I called Francesca.
“Hey buddy,” she said. “How was the date?”
“Fran, you are a brilliant agent. An incredible cook. Your taste in books and movies is impeccable.”
“Yessss?” I could hear the smile in her voice as she waited for what she probably assumed was my gratitude at being set up with her friend.
