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Larry turned to his phone. Still no reply from Sue. She must be pleased she's finally done with me. She's probably met someone else and is perfectly happy without me. Still, no harm in saying hi.
Sue put down her glass of wine and picked up on the first ring, "Hello, Larry, long time no talk, eh? How are you doing?"
"Doing alright. Listen, Sue, I never got a chance to say hello that night I saw you in the night club. You were gone before I had a chance."
"Don't worry about it, Larry. I was quite drunk that night, I ended up in some dark corner after I bumped into some old school friends. Anyway, you looked like you were busy. Did you have a good time?"
"It was ok, it wasn't as much fun as it looked I assure you. That girl I was with is a friend of a friend, she was in town for a few days and I was showing her around. She was hard work actually. She didn't like any of the places I took her to. Everywhere was either too dark, too loud or too unsophisticated. You know what I mean?"
Sue laughed, knowing how much Larry disliked having to entertain difficult people. "Sounds like hard work alright. So what else you been up to?"
Larry turned the TV off. "Working quite a lot, I got promoted so my work day is even longer than it used to be. And my dad died 2 months ago."
"Oh my God, I'm so sorry, Larry. I didn't know. He was always so kind to me. What happened? I didn't know he'd been sick."
Larry took a deep breath. "He had a major heart attack. None of us saw it coming. It was quite a shock. We're all doing fine now so nothing to worry about it. Life goes on as they say. Anyway, would you like to meet up for coffee this week? After work one day would be good."
Sue hesitated, she couldn't think of a good reason not to. "Yes, let's do it. It'd be good to catch up. It has been a while, hasn't it?"
* * *
Sue sipped her coffee and tried to appear casual as she looked over her cup at Larry. He looked great in his pin striped suit with a white shirt and burgundy tie. He looked better than she remembered, his brown hair was cut shorter and he'd lost some weight which caused his dimpled chin to be more prominent. When he took his jacket off, she pretended she didn't notice his muscular chest and broad shoulders bulging through his shirt.
Larry pointed and smiled at the way she held the cup with her fingers arced around the handle.
"Yes, I still do that," Sue smiled.
"Larry, let me say again how sorry I was to hear about your dad, I was in Paris working for a couple of months, I didn't hear a word about it."
"Don't worry, Sue, it's all water under the bridge now. We'll all be ok. So tell me, what's new in your life?"
"Well, I've been dating. Dating a lot actually." Sue stuttered and looked to see Larry's reaction.
Larry moved in his seat, adjusted his tie and sipped his green tea. "Oh really, meet anyone nice?"
Sue shook her head. "Not really, they all have a one track mind. Still, a girl's got to try. No point in giving up too easily."
"I've been dating too. I never realized there's so many head cases out there. I seem to be targeting all the crazy women in London single handedly, I'm taking the bullet so the other guys don't have to. I'm like a magnet for unstable desperate women," Larry laughed.
Sue nodded. "Tell me about it. Maybe I can send all the guys I meet over to you and you can introduce them to those girls you're trying to escape from."
"Good idea." Larry smiled and savored his tea.
"Or maybe it's a commitment issue, you ever think about that, Larry?"
"What? My commitment issue or theirs?" Larry raised his eyebrows.
"Theirs. Those girls are all over the place because they don't know what they want. We don't need to talk about your commitment issue. Let's keep it civil, shall we?"
All of a sudden Larry raised his voice. "What on earth are you talking about? And please, don't patroness me, I just wanted to meet so we can still be friends and the first thing you do is start criticizing me. No wonder I called off the wedding. This is ridiculous! I don't need to take this. I'm leaving." Larry stood up, grabbed his jacket and stormed out of the cafe.
Sue sank i
nto her chair. What had she said? Why did he react like that? Everything had been going so well and then this? She really didn't deserve this. She picked up her phone, selected Larry and hit dial.
Larry answered on the second ring, "What is it now?"
"Larry, I'm sorry I ever met you. I don't ever want to hear from you again. Got it?" Sue shouted.
