Page 69 of The Late Bloomer’s Playlist

‘No, love,’ Nora interrupted me that time. ‘He’s here, with a woman.’

I turned to the doorway where their eyes were drawn. And there my husband was, black suit, bow tie and all, with a woman on his arm. Of course, it wasn’t just any woman…

* * *

For a full hour I managed to avoid my husband and his girlfriend. David and I had never outright discussed the possibility of either of us bringing a date to a shared event. But now that it had happened, I found I didn’t care as much as I perhaps should have done. After another two porn star martinis – ‘Honestly, it’s just juice,’ I’d said to Nora as she eyed me with my third glass – I found it easy enough to answer anyone’s concerns with, ‘Oh, David and I aren’t really married, you know?’ And though most people didn’t know for certain, they accepted the announcement with ease. Another perk of our age, I thought as I fished out the lump of passion fruit at the bottom of my glass. In the hour of drinking, I’d managed to say hello to Gerald’s wife – whose name I still couldn’t remember – as well as greeting Christopher and Ethan, Mary and Kris with a K, Olivia, Beatrice, Keith and his newest boyfriend – whose name he hadn’t even told me, introducing him simply as ‘my new chap’ – and Eve. I didn’t know whether it was the alcohol or the medley of kind faces – or a heady combination of both – but I felt a literal warmth moving through me as the evening wore on.

It’s probably the alcohol…

I propped my empty glass on the window ledge and ferreted in my pocket for a packet of cigarettes.

‘I’m sure those things are mostly juice, you know?’

I didn’t recognise the voice. But when I turned, I recognised the face – and my own fell.

‘Eudora.’ She held out a hand. ‘I don’t think we can really say we’ve been introduced.’

My mouth bobbed open, dumbstruck and fish-like and she laughed. It was a soft and sincere sound, and it reminded me of–

‘Don’t panic, Patti.’ I hadn’t managed to accept her handshake. She used her outstretched fingers to pinch a smoke from my open packet instead. ‘Do you mind?’

‘Please do.’ I managed to dig out a lighter. I flicked it alive and held it out for her to light her cigarette, then I fumbled to get my own balanced between my lips. As the first plume fell out of me and drifted towards the window I found I was laughing. ‘I hadn’t imagined how this would go.’

Eudora’s smile tucked up more at one side than the other. ‘Strange, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, just a tad.’ With my free hand I gestured for a handshake at last. ‘Hi, I’m David’s wife.’

A great and hearty laugh hiccupped out of her. ‘Hi, I’m David’s date.’

‘Where is the heartthrob, anyway?’

Eudora waved in the direction of the kitchen. ‘He said you’d need a drink.’

He does know me, that husband of mine. ‘What’s your poison?’

‘I’ll let him surprise me.’ She leaned back against the windowsill, lessening the distance between us. ‘He’s been quite good at that so far.’

I huffed a laugh. ‘So you believe our situation, then?’

She hesitated before answering. There was a long inhale from her cigarette where the silence between us was so thick that I thought I heard the crackle of paper. ‘Yes. I’m not sure I understand it.’ She paused to exhale a river of smoke. ‘But I do believe it.’

‘I’m glad one of you does.’

Again, another silence swelled. From my side-eye view of her, I could appreciate already what had drawn David to the woman – aside from the fact that the sly old dog loved a challenge. Her hair, a crisp blonde, was pulled into the wide mouth of a hair clip with small curls tumbling down around her face. She was wearing a black dress cut just below the knee and pockmarked with pale daises; age appropriate, not to say the same as aged, because nothing about Eudora was. Though it feels a vague description, there was something undeniably… young, about her energy. We leaned together and smoked, and surveyed the partygoers with a comfortable air between us – smoggy though it was – that suggested a relationship that was much easier, much more organic, than anything we should have had. It was a premature comfort in each other’s company, for the time we’d really known each other. And that ease went another step towards reminding me of–

‘You shouldn’t give up on her, you know.’

I coughed out a mouthful of smoke. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Sheila. You shouldn’t give up on her.’

I hadn’t realised how much hope I was still clutching close to my chest until Eudora said that, and something quickly sparked alive again. I may have redecorated the living room with designs for a romantic masterplan, but nothing had come of it, and I was comfortable – complacent more like it – with the thought that nothing would. But if there is a chance…

‘She won’t speak to me. I don’t know how I can explain, how I can even begin to… I don’t know how I can fix things without speaking to her.’

‘There are other ways.’

I glanced towards her and saw that she was looking across the room – at David. He had a tray with three drinks balanced on it, and he was chatting animatedly to Gerald and his wife who’d clearly waylaid him on his way to us. The look that Eudora gave him wasn’t love – how could it be, so soon? – but there was a beautiful, deep fondness there already, one that left me warm in the stomach and happy, both for David and for her. The luck of some people, I thought as I dubbed out my cigarette on the outside ledge of the window.

‘It wasn’t the story that David span me that made me warm to him,’ she said. ‘It was the fact that he cared enough to explain, that he kept trying.’ She let out a soft laugh. ‘That he keeps trying. Sometimes, knowing there’s someone in our lives who will keep trying for us, that can go a long way to fixing… perhaps not fixing’ – she paused and seemed to weigh her next words carefully – ‘it can go a long way, maybe that’s the end of that sentence. And I don’t know whether you’d like to go a long way with my friend…’

I’d like to go all the way with your friend. I sighed.

‘…but she misses you, Patti.’ She turned to face me, and I was oh so painfully aware of how I must have looked, all wide eyes and optimism. ‘She really misses you.’

‘I miss–’

‘Good God, I thought they’d never let me leave,’ David cut through our moment with his loud entrance. He handed me a gin and tonic, and passed Eudora what looked like an old-fashioned. ‘How are my two favourite women?’ David leaned forward to kiss my cheek, then Eudora’s. ‘What did I miss?’

I took a quick glance around the room, at the friendly faces, the warm glows; the people who had showed up for each other, for years. ‘We were talking about love,’ I answered.

David groaned. ‘Let’s not.’

‘No, David.’ I saw Eudora give his arm a quick squeeze. ‘Let’s.’