Nope. No way. He might be strong, fit and easy on the eye, but she simply can’t sit there. That man’s insidious words have been echoing in her head for weeks. And he groped her backside in her daughter’s university kitchen. She’s pretty sure she’s goingto get emotional over her manifestation exercise tonight, and if he notices even a slight sniff from her direction, he’ll instantly jump to conclusions about her inability to cope with a life as an empty nester. It's something she’s not entirely certain of herself, so the last thing she needs is him pointing it out to her, or coming up with a damn statistic about it.
She turns her back on her nemesis parent and petitions the restaurateur to find her another table. She can’t speak the words, obviously, so she uses a swiping motion to indicate she’d prefer any table in the entire restaurant to this one. The restaurateur, however, doesn’t seem able to interpret her subtle throat slash motion. He cocks his head.
‘Uh … hmmm … is there another table?’ she whispers. ‘I’d really rather not sit there.’ She gestures subtly towards Scott, who continues to type studiously on his laptop, his chiselled brow pulled into a furrow of concentration.
The restaurateur finally understands Heather’s plight and leavesher standing beside Scott’s tableso he can check the seating allocations at the welcome board twenty metres away. Heather uses the time to study her new red pumps, the view, the cornicing, the carpet, anything to avoid eye contact with Scott.
The restaurateur returns, his face a mask of diplomacy.
‘I’m so sorry, madam. This is the only table for one we have available this evening.’
‘There’s nowhere else?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
Accepting defeat, Heather slinks into the chair, determined not to be fazed. She and Scott don’t know one another – there's no reason for any interaction. She twists her body towards the wall and the window view.
‘A glass of Riesling and a carafe of tap water, please,’ she says as she settles.
A few minutes later, her wine arrives. Scott Reynolds’ powerful fingers continue to type as though oblivious to her existence, so Heather gets out the tiny manifestation book from her purse, along with some colouring pens and the folded square of paper from Claire and begins to read. She refuses to change her plans for any man, even an arrogant know-it-all like Scott with supremely supple fingers.
By the time she’s finished her meal (roasted king scallops to start, sea bass to follow), Heather has achieved three things:
1) she has steadfastly (mostly) ignored Scott on the neighbouring table
2) she has single-handedly drunk almost a full bottle of Riesling (she should have known a single glass would not cut it tonight)
3) she has produced her first ever attempt at a vision board. Well, it’s rudimentary and scribbled on a piece of A3 paper, but that isn’t the point.
She’s included little diagrams of places she wants to visit, relationships she wants to rekindle, savings goals she means to accomplish, and professional targets she aims to fulfil. She’s even completed the extension task and colour-coded the different sections. Heather leans back and takes a sip of water, feeling rather proud of herself. Possibly too proud, because when the server comes to remove her dirty plates and Heather feels her masterpiece is in danger of getting crumpled, she jerks her hand to the right, knocking her glass of water down the leg of Scott Reynold’s beige chinos – and over his keyboard.
‘Shit, shit, shit.’ Heather forgets her work, leaps to her feet, grabs her rather fishy napkin and uses it to daub repetitively at Scott’s clothing and computer.
When she thinks about it later, Heather will remember Scott repeatedly saying, ‘It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine.’ But her maternal urge to right all wrongs and revert all mishaps to their pre-accident state and, let’s face it – her intoxication because of the rather large amounts of alcohol consumed – mean that she completely ignores his protestations until Scott’s trousers are smeared with fish scales, and tiny fish bones are lodged between the keys of his lap-top. Not ideal.
‘Sorry,’ she says in a small voice when she processes just how badly her attempts at reparations have gone.
Scott’s bronzed face is impossible to read. It is a weird combination of frustrated (the reason for the crinkle on his forehead) and perplexed (the slight twitch at the corner of his lips). He closes his laptop screen. ‘Not sure they were ever going to go for that quote anyway,’ he says with a sardonic glint in his blue eyes. (Does he find this amusing?). ‘What have you been doing over there?’
So, he had noticed her!
Heather snatches the spoiled paper away from his line of vision, as if it’s a prized piece of artwork or a specimen from Georgia’s first day at nursery. It may as well be. The ink has run across the page, and the colours spread like an eight-year-old’s first attempt at chromatography.
‘Nothing.’ She folds the paper up. ‘I’m just working through a few things, I guess.’
And here, with no warning at all, come the tears.
‘What’s up?’ Scott Reynolds might be a handsome, pompous ass, but he can feign concern as well as the rest of them.
‘It’s stupid,’ she says.
‘Try me.’
Heather grabs a clean tissue from her purse (why hadn’t it occurred to her to use that to wipe Scott’s laptop down?) dabs her eyes and blows her nose. There’s no point in pretending to be chic and in control any longer. She might as well just let it all out. Even if it’s to a man who, if she is honest, Heather knows scrubs up better than many his age.
‘I guess I’m just … I guess I’m just …’
The sobs are coming out so forcibly that Heather can’t even string a coherent sentence together. Eventually, after a few deep inhalations and an unattractive blubbery sneeze, she says, ‘I guess I just can’t imagine how it’s going to be from now on. For Georgia. Or for me.’
