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My smile felt weak, because the possibility of Finn not remembering me at all was no longer even remotely amusing.
We were three customers from the table. Close enough to hear Finn’s conversation as he scribbled the same words on the title page of each book.
Thank you for coming tonight. I really hope you enjoy the book.
Below the message was his signature, illegible enough to be at the bottom of a prescription.
As we inched closer to the table, the tiny hairs at the back of my neck tingled in anticipation. My palms felt damp, which was going to be really embarrassing if we shook hands.
‘If we could just hurry things along,’ said the publicist.
‘Sure,’ Finn replied with an easy smile, turning his head towards the next person in line.
Me.
Here it was. The moment I’d been waiting for. My legs felt like spaghetti, and I was sure that if I looked down, I’d be able to see my heart thumping through the soft wool of my dress.
‘Hello,’ Finn said pleasantly. He held out his hand and, sweaty palm or not, I went to place mine within it, before realising at the last moment he was waiting for me to pass him my book.
Like a well-oiled machine, the publicist plucked my Post-it from the front cover and stuck it on the desk where Finn could easily read it, while a shop assistant stood on his other side with a bookshop carrier bag at the ready. Finn glanced at the yellow square for less than a second before looking back up at me. Time seemed to stop, and I felt myself unconsciously holding my breath.
‘Thank you for coming out on such a filthy night. I do hope you’ll like the book,’ Finn said, his hand already reaching for the Sharpie.
I wanted to run from the queue, or, worse, to lean across the table and grab him by those ridiculously broad shoulders and force him to look at me.Really?I wanted to challenge him.It really meant so little to you, you’ve totally forgotten me?
He was writing now, his eyes bent to the title page. I caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of my eye as the publicist glanced down at the book and gave a small frown, but Finn had already snapped it shut, slipped it into a bag, and was passing it back to me, with a pleasant ‘Have a lovely evening’.
*
‘Can I call him a bastard now?’ Hannah said with uncharacteristic venom.
‘I thought you didn’t want me to have anything to do with him again,’ I argued, lifting my hand to get the attention of a passing waiter. ‘Is red okay?’ I asked, setting down the menu of the wine bar we’d ducked into after leaving the bookshop.
‘I care more about the quantity than the colour,’ Hannah said, so indignant on my behalf it was almost funny. Except that realising you’ve spent two and a half years with a memory so faulty it was practically broken wasn’t anything except incredibly sad. How was it possible that one night could end up meaning entirely different things to the two people who’d shared it?
‘Well, I don’t think I’m going to bother reading his pathetic little book now,’ Hannah said, drawing her own copy out of the bookshop carrier bag. She paused as the waiter arrived with our bottle of house red and a plate of olives, which didn’t look up to the job of soaking up the alcohol.
Hannah set the book on the table, moving it into a pool of light from the overhead lamp to see it better. Her lips pursed as she read Finn’s handwritten inscription. Absently, she flicked through the next few pages; two were blank, but when she reached the third, she paused. She tilted the book in order to read the printed words better, as though her twenty-twenty vision had chosen tonight to fail her.
There was an entirely different expression on her face when she set the book back down on the table and slowly inverted it.
‘Have you seen who he’s dedicated this book to?’
‘No,’ I said, pulling the copy closer. ‘There wasn’t a dedication on the proof copy I read.’
‘Well, there’s one now,’ Hannah said.
I read it to the accompaniment of my pounding heart, which was trying to see how many extra beats it could squeeze into a minute.
‘“To G”,’ I read out loud, my voice not quite as steady as I would have liked. ‘“For the best night ever.”’
‘Do you think he means you? Is he referring to your date?’
I reached for my wine glass, hoping it was dark enough in the bar for Hannah not to notice the slight tremble of my hand.
‘Of course not. He didn’t even recognise me, remember? That dedication is clearly for some other woman whose name coincidentally also begins with G. There’s a twenty-six-to-one chance of it happening to be the same letter as mine. Maybe Finn just likes dating people with the same initial. Probably makes it easier for him when he forgets their name.’
Hannah was shaking her head. ‘Firstly, that’s not how probability works, and secondly… I don’t know. Where’s your copy of his book?’
