Page 36 of People Skills

‘Out where?’

‘Well, there’s the pub, which is okay—they did it up a few years ago, but it still has a bit of a grotty vibe. Or we can go to Simone’s.’

‘What’s Simone’s?’

‘It’s a wine bar. I know the owner.’

‘Let’s go there.’ You can take the city person out of the city, but you can’t remove their desire to go to a nice wine bar over a grotty small-town pub.

‘Okay,’ I say.

I know the owner is a bold statement that is true but also something of a stretch. The owner of Simone’s is Simone, Kat’s wife. It’s a small bar, and I think of it as the pub’s opposite. The pub regulars drink beer and play pool and watch whatever sports game is on the big TV. A lot of sunburned, dehydrated tourists go there over summer and get drunk very quickly, and it can get sloppy and raucous and loud.

Simone’s bar has a different energy. It has wooden floorboards, tables with tea lights in glasses, framed vintage movie posters. There are sometimes board-game nights, and Simone has partnered with the bookshop to hold book launches. There’s a piano in the corner that she plays, and she takes the wine and food menu very seriously.

I don’t like the pub much. Simone’s bar is definitely more my style. But, in truth, I haven’t been there more than a couple of times. Kat is sometimes there but I never know when she will be, and Jamila doesn’t drink, and I never quite worked up the courage to go on my own with a book, which is how I imagined I would be spending every Friday night.

After finishing our pizza, Xavier and I walk to Simone’s, without our phones, and I am feeling buoyant with the success so far of our first night of digital detox—look at us, out of the house on a warm summer night, interacting with the world, untethered to the internet!—but as we reach the bar and walk in, I realise the low lighting and the music and the fact that the places is mostly filled with couples give off a very date-like energy. Xavier seems to have the same thought because he hesitates and looks uncomfortable.

‘Let’s sit at the bar,’ I say. The bar venue itself is a long, narrow room, filled with small round tables and then at the back, the space widens, with the piano in one corner and a big communal table with books and board games on a shelf near it in the other. ‘Or the big table at the back,’ I say.

‘The bar is good,’ Xavier says.

We take a seat and I’m nervous that Simone won’t recognise me, a constant fear I have when I know someone through someone else. Especially when the other person is as naturally cool as Simone. She has cropped bleach-blonde hair and arm sleeves of floral tattoos. We’ve met about four times, but always within the context of Kat and our work. I am out of context tonight. But Simone looks up and her face breaks into a big grin.

‘Charlotte!’ she says, beaming at me. ‘Great to see you.’

‘You too,’ I say, and then I introduce her to Xavier.

‘What can I get you both?’ she asks.

‘A glass of white wine for me. Whatever you think is good,’ I say.

‘A negroni for me,’ Xavier says.

Simone pulls out a bottle from a local winery and extolls its virtues to me while I nod, and she pours me a glass. She makes Xavier’s negroni, and then serves other customers.

‘So,’ Xavier says, looking at me with an intensity that makes the night feel date-like again.

‘So,’ I say. ‘Why exactly did you stop writing?’

He bursts out laughing.

‘What?’ I say.

‘I don’t know. I thought we were going to ease into the process, get to know each other a little, before we got to my writing problems.’

‘I can get to know you through your writing problems.’

‘Okay. Well. I don’t know why I stopped writing. So you’re out of luck.’

‘You must have an inkling,’ I say.

He’s a writer. He can’t be so ignorant of his own life. He’s had plenty of time to self-examine.

He takes a deep breath like he’s going to tell me something but then he says nothing.

I wait.