I nod hopefully.
Skylar looks at me carefully, as if she’s trying to work out the real reason I’m asking her to have dinner with me; as if I had some ulterior motive. What motive could I possibly have, other than trying not to piss her off? That seems like the only thing Iamcapable of doing at this point: I don’t think she’d ever let me close enough to do more. Not in this lifetime.
Jordan
Istep intoThe Harbouron Quay Street, one of the town’s only restaurants, and I shake off my rain-soaked jacket. It’s just a short walk from the bay.
“Welcome back, Ms Hill.” The owner – and father of one of my final-year students – ushers me warmly inside.
I feel at home here. I come here almost every week for dinner, either on Friday or Saturday, depending on my mood.
“Thank you so much for squeezing me in at the last minute.”
I only called half an hour ago. I still hadn’t decided yet whether or not to go out – in the end, I needed some fresh air and some good food, cooked by anyone but me. I wanted to chat with someone. It’s good for me to get out.
Anya doesn’t particularly like going out for dinner. She prefers bars and pubs with a dance floor; she begrudgingly lets me drag her out for lunch on a Saturday, if she’s not too hungover from the night before. So now, I don’t even bother to call her and see if she wants to join me. I just go out by myself.
At first, I was embarrassed to eat at a restaurant alone. I was married for ten years; it’s not easy to get used to single life again. But it’s been a year, now. I’ve signed the divorce papers, pushed Steven – and all men – out of my mind. I have a cat, I eat alone on Friday nights. I don’t really think I need to add anything else.
I sit at a table next to the wall, close to the door, and take off my jacket, hanging it on the back of my chair.
“The usual?” he asks, lighting the candle on my table.
“A large. Thank you.”
He smiles and hands me a menu before heading towards the bar. I open it up, but before I can look at the options, I glance quickly around the room to see who else I’ll be dining with. I love to watch people, especially when they’re eating. I think that everyone should be happy when they have a good meal – and if they’re not, it means that something’s wrong: something serious. If I could’ve seen myself through someone else’s eyes during those last few months with Steven, before I discovered his affair, I’m sure I’d have realised sooner. I’d have known how unhappy I was, how unhappy webothwere. I’d have sensed that we had run out of love – that we’d reached the end of the line. I thought we could salvage our marriage. I thought that ignoring what I wanted would have saved the small amount of love that was left.
I was so wrong. About everything.
One of the waiters brings me my usual glass of wine, almost full to the brim: just how I like it. I hate when they give you a half-filled glass. What’s the point? Etiquette? Good manners? So that people don’t assume you’re an alcoholic? Because wine is supposed to be sipped at? Maybe when you’re only on your first or second date, like the couple sitting to my left; or maybe when you can’t handle your alcohol, like the woman sitting at the table across from me, with a glass of water sitting next to her wine.
When you’re a thirty-eight-year-old woman and you’re alone, with only a cat for company – a female cat, at that – you don’t have much choice. You drink theentireglass of wine in one gulp, then you order another. And, come on, it’s wine! It’s not like it’s one of those colourful cocktails Anya makes me drink.
I take a sip of my wine – or ten sips – and pick up the menu. I could recite the whole thing by heart, but I like to flick through the options, take my time; delay the moment I have to go back home alone. I usually have a book with me, but the one I’m currently reading is…er…let’s say it’s a little toohotto read in public. There are some chapters that are better read in the solitary darkness of your bedroom. I would’ve brought another, but I don’t like to read more than one book at once. I prefer to finish the one I’ve got before throwing myself into a new story. Sometimes it takes me a few days to recover from a novel before I pick up another one – sometimes it takes me a whole week. That’s what happens when I find something that flips my heart upside-down; but it’s been a while now since that happened to me.
“Are you ready to order?” the waiter asks, reappearing at my table.
“Oh, yes. I’ll have the salmon with Guinness soda bread, then…the steak sandwich special.”
“Anything else?”
“No, I think that’ll be enough.”
I pass him the menu and he disappears towards the kitchen door. I relax into my seat and take another sip of my quickly-diminishing glass of wine.
I turn my gaze out the window and towards the door to the restaurant at the very moment it swings open. If I had a whole bottle of wine on my table, I’d have whacked myself over the head with it to knock myself out. Anything to drown out the scene playing out before my eyes.
Steven has just walked in, his arm wrapped around the shoulders of his fiancée, Terry. My eyes dart around, looking for another door – a way of escaping before he sees me, sitting in a restaurant on my own on a Friday night. But it’s too late: he notices me as he lovingly removes his girlfriend’s jacket from her shoulders.
A wave of bitterness and regret laps at my stomach, so strong that tears being to spring to my eyes. I try to resist, not to crumble in on myself. I won’t let myself cry in front of him, to unmask the betrayed, abandoned wife I am – but it’s too late. The pain has come back, and along with it an overwhelming disappointment; the knowledge that I could never be enough for any man.
Steven whispers into his fiancée’s ear and she turns towards me. He kisses her on the cheek, then weaves his way over to my table; but before I collapse in front of everyone, bursting into tears in front of the entire restaurant, two hands are on my shoulders, spinning me around. When his mouth presses delicately against mine, my tears and all my remorse miraculously disappear. I close my eyes and lose myself in his hot breath.
Niall
Ipark in the road and switch off the engine, ignoring my daughter’s protests.
“You promised,” I remind her.
