I wanted this to be a date and so it feels like a date, although Hera certainly didn’t dress the part. She looks every inch the builder I met at the Pink Bean a few weeks ago. A woman who is here to assess my kitchen first, and eat my food second. Most likely a woman for whom getting to know me better is the least of her priorities. It looks like I will have to deploy all the tricks in my charm toolbox tonight.
As I pour us each a glass of wine, I remind myself that this is not a paid-for appointment. This is my home and I’ve invited Hera for a meal because I’m so intrigued by her—although that may just be code for finding her butch and rather blunt ways a challenge as well as quite a turn-on.
“I’m glad you came,” I say after I’ve sat down next to her, angling my body toward her. I send her a wide smile that, again, makes me feel self-conscious. I haven’t been on a proper date for far too long—if tonight is even that.
“Just a heads-up,” Hera says. “I have an early start tomorrow.”
I can’t help but burst into a chuckle. “No problem. Dinner will be served pronto.” I take a drink from the wine she brought. It’s a good choice.
Hera looks into her glass, then up at me for a fraction of a second, before her glance skitters away again. “I’m… quite direct in my ways and I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea about me.”
“What idea would that be?”
“I don’t know what Rocco has told you about me, but I’m not… looking for anything just because I’m single.”
“Wow. You really are quite direct.” I hear Hera’s words but I have trouble believing them fully. Next to me sits a woman with her guard fully up, no doubt about that, but there’s something else going on. Something even someone as direct as Hera can’t put into words.
“I wouldn’t want there to be any misunderstandings between us.” Hera drinks again.
“Great way to kill the flirty vibe I was trying to nurture here.” I tilt my head. “And I haven’t even served you my wooing dish yet.”
Hera chuckles. “You have certainly succeeded in making me very curious about it now.” She holds out her glass of wine. “Friends?” she asks.
I bring my glass to hers. “A small miracle in its own right,” I joke.
Hera doesn’t say anything, so I decide I can play it naughty for a little longer.
“Is that why you’re here then?” I ask. “To atone for your initial bigotry?”
Hera swallows hard. “And I thought I was direct.”
“Two can play that game.” I draw up my knee and it almost touches her hip.
“I’ve apologized for that so I thought that was behind us.”
“Is it really, though?” I ask even though it’s a futile question. It’s a question Hera doesn’t even need to answer because I can read her reply in her body.
“If it’s not, then I would certainly like to put it behind us once and for all,” she says.
“Does that mean you don’t want to talk about it anymore or that you’ve fully accepted my past as a call girl?” I wouldn’t have needled her so much if she hadn’t tried to thwart my intentions from the get-go. What else am I going to do throughout this evening?
“It’s not something for me to fully accept. In fact, it’s not really any of my business.”
“Would it help you if we did talk about it? If you knew more about it instead of getting hung up on all the images in your head? Most of which are, I dare suspect, based on false beliefs.”
“Oh, so you can read my mind now? Very impressive.” Hera shuffles in her seat and when she sits still again her hip is a few inches farther removed from my pulled-up knee.
“You’re the one who toasted to us being friends earlier. I’d say, so far, the beginning of our friendship is rather shaky. I also have no intention of befriending someone who’s always judging me.”
Hera shakes her head. “I’m not judging you, Katherine. I’m here, aren’t I? All the things you’re saying to me, that you’re projecting onto me, they’re all in your head.” She pauses but doesn’t give me a chance to reply. “Yes, I was a bigot and judged you on what you used to do instead of how you were with me, which was always very pleasant. As I said before, and meant, I apologize for that. So why the need to drag it up again? Seems to me that you’re the one who has a problem with it. Not me.”
I have to put my glass down because my hand has started shaking too much. I can’t remember when I last got a dressing-down like this. The hardest fact for me to grasp is that Hera is probably right. I’m the one with the chip on my shoulder tonight.
“Okay.” I rise from the sofa. “Do you mind if I take a minute before I reply? Meanwhile, I’ll get dinner ready.”
Hera looks up at me, her gaze not flinching this time. “Take all the time you need. I’m not going anywhere.”
“It has been harder than I thought,” I say, after we’ve sat down for our meal. “I’ve always been so headstrong about my profession and I’ve always been able to defend my choice but, now that I’ve quit, there seems to be this… I’m not sure how to articulate it. A vacuum of sorts. Like I’m no longer the person I used to be. And I still get very defensive when anyone tries to slag me off, or even hints at it.”
“I, um, talked about you with my therapist,” Hera says.
I nearly drop my fork. Not only at Hera’s candid admission that she has discussed me with another person, but that she’s in therapy. “Really?” I quickly compose myself.
“Sam and I were going through a bit of a rough spot when I started therapy. Anyway, that has nothing to do with what I’m trying to say.” She waves her fork about. “Jill, my therapist, said some things about your profession that made me think. Obviously, it’s very hard for me to imagine how you must feel, but I can definitely empathize with you feeling like you’ve lost the identity you’ve been clinging to for a big part of your life.”
Warmth blooms in my chest. “She must be really good. Your therapist.”
Hera nods almost reverently. “She’s helped me a lot. Especially after Sam passed away so suddenly. But also before, when she made me realize that every single one of us is always busy reinventing ourselves and that going through a rough patch comes with the territory of change.”
“You’re a very wise builder, Hera.” I grin at her. “You should put some of your words of wisdom on tiles like they used to do, and put them up in people’s houses.”
“I can do one for your kitchen, if you like.” She grins at me.
“I think I’d like that very much.” Hera can say what she wants about not being interested in anything romantic. Or maybe she’s the kind who doesn’t realize she’s flirting.
“I’ll have to consult Jill and see what I can come up with. No extra charge.” She gazes into my eyes ever so briefly then redirects her attention to her plate. “This lamb is delicious, by the way.”
“I’m glad you like it.” I decide to seize the moment. “Are you interested in art at all?” I ask.
“Not hugely,” Hera says matter-of-factly.
“Alyssa, the woman who was working at the Pink Bean opening, has a show in Liz and Jess’s gallery. It opens on Thursday night and I’ve been invited. I was wondering if you’d like to, perhaps, join me?” My insides coil into a tight ball. I feel like I may have overplayed my hand—if I had a hand at all.
“Is Rocco going?” Hera asks.
I purse my lips. “I’m not sure. Liz invited me.”
“Why don’t you take him instead of me? I think he would appreciate it more. Art openings are really not my scene.”
“What is your scene, if I may ask?”
“I don’t have much of one, I guess. I prefer a simple, quiet life.”
“Liz told me Alyssa is ‘mind-blowingly’ talented. Are you sure you want to miss that?” I quirk up an eyebrow in anticipation of her response.
“Please don’t see this as a rejection, but when I come home from work, I’m usually knackered. I love what I do, but I haven’t done heavy labor in quite some time and I turned fifty last year. What time does it even start?”
“Seven-ish, I guess.” She’s giving me an opening. “I can check right now. The invite’s in the kitchen.”
“If you can guarantee I’ll be in bed by ten, I might be swayed.”
“I hereby solemnly swear you’ll be tucked in at nine fifty-nine. I’ll drive you home myself.”
“You’re going to drive me?” Hera’s voice drips with disbelief. “Do you mean you won’t drink anything at all?”
“If I’m driving you, then that will be the case.”
“How about I drive you?” She tilts her head. “That suits me more.”
“Are you doubting my driving skills?”
“I doubt everyone’s driving skills.”
“Except your own?”
“I have nothing to doubt about my own.” Hera’s lips curve into a smile. If this isn’t flirting, I surely must have lost the hang of it years ago.
“Come on, Hera. I’ll pick you up and drive you home. Give me a chance to at least prove that I can negotiate a car through Sydney traffic.”
“All of that so I will redo your kitchen?”
“And perhaps give me the number of your therapist.” I reflect Hera’s smile right back at her.
“I’ll never give it to you. It would be a conflict of interest.”
“Why?” I put my cutlery down because I’m done with my lamb—the evening has taken that kind of turn.
“Because I’m already seeing her.”
“And that means none of your friends are allowed to see her?” I straighten my back.
“I think so. There must be some sort of code.”
I shake my head. “I’m sure there’s a code of ethics, but I’m also pretty sure there would be no mention of friends seeing the same therapist. How could there ever be enough of them if not?”
Hera leans back. “It would make me feel uncomfortable, I guess.”
I pause. Hera has polished off most of her dish. “I have to respect that, then.”
“I can ask Jill for a recommendation.”
I nod while I sink my teeth into my bottom lip. “So, can I pick you up on Thursday then?”
Hera doesn’t say anything, just nods her confirmation.
I refill our wine glasses—she hasn’t said anything about driving herself home tonight so she must trust certain taxi drivers’ abilities—and hold mine up to her the way she did at the beginning of the evening. “Friends,” I repeat her words, although, to me, at this stage of the night, they have a very different meaning.
“Friends,” Hera says, and clinks the rim of her glass against mine. “The kind you see on those silly TV shows, you know, who go to art galleries together.” Out of nowhere, she sends me a wink that, if I hadn’t been seated, would knock me to my knees.