“Nothing raw,” she says. “If possible vegetarian—but only if it doesn’t?—“
“Stop right there,” I say harshly.
She closes her mouth, almost reproachfully.
Emiliano comes to take our orders personally, and I have him prepare something special for Mia, simply to teach her a lesson. I want her to understand that she is allowed to have people tend to her needs.
“You are important, dearest,” I tell her. “Let people take care of you.”
She says nothing and stares at her lap.
“So,” I begin. “Do you have any questions regarding me?”
She looks up at me with wide eyes, as if I'd told her to strip right here.
“You’re allowed to ask questions,” I say. “Be yourself. Be the person I witness coming to life reading Shakespeare to me.”
“I’m scared of the answers,” she says.
I stay with her words for a moment, because while so easily said, they carry a depth to get lost in.
I rest my hand on her forearm.
“Holding back the truth doesn’t make it less real,” I say. At my age, I have found the clarity I did not have at the mere age of twenty-seven. “What do you want from life?” I ask her.
She hesitates a moment. “I don’t know. I love teaching, my peace, and my cats. It is all I ever needed and wanted. And now?—“
She takes a deep breath in. “Now, there is you. And I believe I want more.”
“Define more.”
She is so careful with every word she speaks, except when she gets angry.
“More you.”
A giddy feeling rushes through my body, and I cannot keep my breath from quickening.
“Do you know what comes with me?” I ask.
She shakes her head, and her eyes wander back down to her fumbling fingers in her lap.
“I only know what I read online,” she says. “The part where you don’t believe in love.”
“I did say that,” I say, and add in a knowing tone, “But this is a public interview. They are given for performance purposes; what is said carries little meaning, and it is all very superficial. Also, I am generally open to life to teach me otherwise.”
She looks back up at me. I am still struck by how every emotion shows on her face so rawly and imminently.
“You are?” she asks.
“I am. But I’m also aware of the life I live. And as of this point, you know nothing about that life.”
Her eyes flicker, and she asks me with subtle humour in her voice, “Are you telling me you’re a disguised MI6 agent?”
I laugh out loud wholeheartedly.
“If I were, I could neither confirm nor deny,” I say. “But I am not. I simply have very peculiar tastes when it comes to sexual and life’s pleasures.”
She looks at me as if I were speaking in riddles, and her cheeks turn red the moment I use the word sexual.
