FADE IN
INT: GIL’S COFFEE HOUSE, EAST DULWICH—SUNDAY, DECEMBER 2, UNGODLY HOUR (10 A.M.)
EVIE SUMMERS—late twenties, freckled, red curls down to her shoulders, a bright yellow 1950s-style tea dress, Doc Martens—stands in front of the counter, tapping her foot, clearly full of nervous energy.
The barista was taking his time with my order, and I silently thanked his dedication to the art of a well-squeezed orange. I glanced at his “Hello! My name is” badge. Xan. One of those names that announces the next generation is here, and they craft organic juice like it’s a meditative experience. As the queue grew longer behind me, my orange juice was achieving Zen.
For once, though, I didn’t mind holding anyone else up—today I needed Xan to take his sweet time so I could gear myself up for what I was about to do.
“Want me to add in a little something extra to make it special?”
Only if it’s vodka, Xan. “What did you have in mind?”
“The magic ingredient—perfect for hangovers.” Xan unfurled his fingers, revealing an egg. I waved at him to stick it in the blender—it wasn’t like I was planning to drink it.
By now, my hands were shaking, which would certainly help make what I was about to do look like an accident. I took a few deep breaths. You can do this, Evie Summers, I told myself sternly.
Though, if I was going to do this properly, I had to come away with the poor guy’s name, and, if it went really well, his number.
I checked my phone while Xan blended and saw the JEMS group chat was active.
JEREMY: is she doing it? Evie, Evie, Evie. Are you doing it? TELL ME YOU ARE DOING IT
SARAH: Mar, have you sorted out the table centers yet?
JEREMY: Sarah, you want the BRIDEZILLA chat thread. This one is for more important things
MARIA: GUYS. Evie, are you sure you want to do this? I mean, god, I hope you do it, but are you sure?
“Ta-da!” Xan said, brandishing my juice. My heart convulsed. It was time.
EVIE: I’m going in
Even this early on a Sunday, the Southeast London café was packed. Ahead of me lay an obstacle course. Crisply dressed teenagers straight out of tube ads for online fashion sites everyone is too old for. Laptop users pretending they hadn’t already finished the coffee they were still nursing. Yummy Mummies with perfect, doll-like kids. And him—Ramones Guy.
I’d chosen him as my mark from the table where I’d perched earlier with my laptop so that I could see everyone who entered the café. He’d sat near the big Christmas tree. Late twenties, cute, bearded, wearing a Ramones T-shirt under a checked shirt, and more student than adult (i.e., just my type).
He’d arrived on his own, he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, he didn’t have any children—basically, he’d achieved the bare-minimum requirements for a potential love interest. Lucky him.
Though, if I were being honest, he didn’t just tick some boxes—I genuinely found him attractive, which was making me even more nervous. Because these days, my approach to finding someone I liked was to imagine the life we might have together and then never speak to them. Not what I was about to do.
I emerged from the cluster of tables a few steps away from my target. He was leaning over his book—How Not to Grow Up! by Richard Herring—which gave me pause. Is that something my love interest would read? But I couldn’t afford to be choosy, so I started to close the gap between us.
Three more steps.
Two.
One.
I was right by him. He was even cuter close up.
Now or never.
I held the juice out as I approached, heart simultaneously in my throat and rapping so hard against my ribs it felt like it was trying to escape.
Come on, come on, NOW!
Ramones Guy laughed at something he’d just read . . . and I walked straight past him.
Damn it. I couldn’t do it. But I also couldn’t back out.
Because, just maybe, I was about to meet the man of my dreams. We’d lock eyes and, in that instant, we’d both know we were about to start the rest of our lives together, just like in a film. Though right now, holding an orange juice with an egg in it, I felt as far from the silver screen as it was possible to get.
I’d been walking as slowly as possible, but now I was back at my table. I’d sat at the communal one, and in my absence a man and his daughter had joined me. Him: midthirties, neat, dark hair, reading the Sunday paper, with the look of someone with IT in his job title. Her: cute, slightly wonky pigtails, red-rimmed glasses, about seven years old. Her legs were swinging as she read her book. I had a vague feeling I’d seen them in here before.
I got out my phone as I hovered by my laptop.
EVIE: I couldn’t do it. Why did I think I could? And isn’t it your responsibility as my friends to stop me from doing something that’s clearly bonkers?
SARAH: you can do whatever you put your mind to. Though, yes, it is absolutely bonkers
JEREMY: Evie, don’t you dare back out now. Go get your Hugh Grant
MARIA: you can do this, Evie! Take a deep breath and try again. We believe in you!
JEREMY: do it for love! At least, do it for us
For the most part, my best friends were sane, intelligent people, and it made me feel better to be reminded that even they had encouraged me to do this.
Besides, they were right. I could do it. Or, rather, I had to.
I’d delayed long enough. In that brief pause before I turned back, the man at my table looked up at me, as if wondering about my behavior. I tried to seem like I’d simply forgotten something and needed to go back for it. Which people do all the time, thank you very much.
This time I took a shorter route, which meant squeezing past the cabal of perfectly turned-out mothers.
Two neatly dressed, wide-eyed children were blocking my path, one white-blond, the other with straight dark hair, both looking like they’d answered a casting call for “children that could haunt your nightmares.”
“Sorry, I just need to get past. Thanks. So if you could . . .” My drink dribbled down my wrist and I hastily straightened the glass before any more escaped. Imagine a Notting Hill where, instead of spilling his drink on Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant simply flattened his empty cup against her chest.
“Please move,” I pleaded quietly. They smiled. “Please?” I said, a little louder, flicking my gaze toward Ramones Guy to check that he hadn’t left.
One of the mothers—blond, wearing ironic high-waisted “mom jeans” and box-fresh sneakers—leaned away from her conversation with her friend with the gleaming ponytail to appraise me. “Is everything okay?”
My cheeks immediately started to burn. “Everything is fine! Sorry. I just need to get past.”
People at nearby tables were starting to look up.
Ponytail shook her head. “Our children make their own decisions. Vendetta, Justice, what do you want to do?”
Good Lord. The children looked at me and then held hands.
The curse of having red hair, pale skin, and freckles is that your body turns traitor at the slightest provocation. I knew without looking that my chest and neck would be covered in red blotches. “You’re like a carrot! Look, Mummy, she’s a carrot!” the girl—Justice?—exclaimed.
The boy’s face crumpled as he wailed, “Does she have a rash? Is she contagious?”
“Clever word, Detty. No, the lady is just a little bit embarrassed!”
“I’m scared,” Justice said.
Now all five mothers were looking at me and I forced a smile, wishing I had the courage to tell them they were raising their children to one day become other children’s traumatic high-school experiences.
Instead, face and chest still glowing, I swiveled to edge around their table. The mothers all watched me struggle past, while Justice, Vendetta, and the other Children of the Café (I assumed their names were Regret, Huge Mistake, and Grave Error) burst into high giggles.
Ramones Guy was back in my line of sight. This time I was definitely going to do it. I’d walk straight toward him, eyes on my phone as if I wasn’t paying attention, and “accidentally” bump into him. Then we’d have a really cute “how we met” story. A meet-cute.
Of course, the thing about not looking where you’re going is that knocking into someone is fairly inevitable. You just can’t always choose who.
The next five seconds happened in excruciatingly slow motion.
Five. I kept my eyes on my screen, held my glass high, and picked up speed.
Four. At the last possible moment, I looked up.
Three. My smile was shy; his eyes were filled with horror.
Two. Because he had just been joined by his tiny granny, whom he was now clutching protectively to his chest.
One. I smacked into him, compressing her between our two bodies as the orange juice left the glass.
Everything came back into sharp focus. I pulled away, heart hammering, and was relieved to discover they were both dry. His sweet old granny was safe.
“I am so sorry. Are you both all right?”
“No thanks to you, you clumsy cow,” Granny said. Ramones Guy glared. I sighed. Something told me the two of us were not meant to be.
I was about to offer more help, but unfortunately, what goes up must come down. And the sudden outraged screams told me exactly where.
“Justice! Are you okay? Speak to Mummy!”
Oh, no. I turned around, still holding the empty glass.
Little Justice’s white-blond hair was now a bright orange as her mother frantically wiped at the sodden strands, her pointed face absolutely dripping. Detty was grinning as he watched his sobbing friend.
“I’m really, truly sor—” I tried to say.
“Is she okay?” Detty’s mother interrupted, from a safe distance.
“No, she is not okay. For sodding’s sake, Janet, pass me a moist towelette.”
Then something seemed to occur to Justice’s mother and she turned to where I stood, clutching the glass in both hands. She rubbed the juice between her fingers.
“What, exactly,” she said to me, “is in this?”
My voice came out strangled. “Oranges, that’s all.” She relaxed a little. “And an egg.”
She shrieked and began wiping at her daughter even more furiously, blond bob swinging.
Another mother called out, “Oh my God, Suze. Is she vegan?”
Every part of me was on fire. “Can I help at all? Here, I’ll get napkins.” I ran back to my table, feeling a little hysterical. Both the dad and the daughter had their heads down, reading, the only two people in the whole café who were oblivious to what was happening. Their napkins were at the edge of the table closest to me. I put down the glass and grabbed them. As I did, the daughter raised her eyes . . . and winked. I was too flustered to respond.
Suze snatched the napkins from me without comment, holding them in front of her daughter’s mouth.
“Out!”
Justice stuck out her tongue, and I swear she looked right at me as she did it. Suze started to wipe at it, her movements punctuating her words. “She. Is. Allergic. To. Egg. If she ingests even a tiny amount, she—” As if on cue, Justice went pale, then hiccuped.
“Justice, tell Mummy you didn’t swallow.”
The little girl burped once. Twice.
This wasn’t actually going to happen, was it? I held my breath and seriously considered running out of the café, leaving my laptop and bag behind.
“Mummy, is she contagious?” precious little Detty asked.
Justice looked like she was about to cough, only . . . she didn’t.
What can only be described as a gleaming fountain of sick shot out of her mouth with such force that when it hit Detty’s face he was knocked backward by a foot.
The whole café froze, silent but for the deafening sound of dripping coming from Detty.
Even though it was awful—truly, inescapably awful—and I felt terrible as the little girl’s projectile vomit once again managed to target Detty’s upturned face, a very tiny, unforgivable part of me thought: And that’s why she’s called Justice.
I emerged from the restroom, where I’d been hiding only after the mothers and their children had finally left, thoroughly outraged and promising they wouldn’t be back. Xan had waved off my offer to help him clean up—apparently the mothers had been driving him and the rest of the staff crazy for weeks with their campaign against the gender-neutral bathrooms. He’d even made me a fresh coffee, which was waiting for me back at my table. I gave him a grateful wave.
The dad and his kid were still there—I’d been hoping they’d have gone so I didn’t have to face anyone. The only sensible thing to do was down the coffee, pack up my belongings, and never return.
As I sat back behind my laptop, using it as a shield, I risked a glance around the café. It had more or less settled back down.
It was almost like nothing had happened.
Except that I’d think about today every time I closed my eyes to sleep for the next ten years.
JEREMY: well??? How did it go? Did you land Hugh Grant?
SARAH: OMG Evie, tell me you didn’t actually go through with it, you weirdo
MARIA: I’m here if you need to talk
I flipped my phone over. It was too soon to relive the trauma.
Picking up the coffee, I faced my blank screen. Now all I had to do was write about what just happened in agonizing detail, which was, after all, why I’d done it in the first place.
As I started to type, I felt the peculiar itch of someone staring at me.
The little girl. She appeared to be waiting for me to say something. I pushed my hair over my shoulder and leaned toward my laptop, hoping she’d get bored. She inched closer.
“Well?” she said, impatiently. “How did we do?”
“I’m sorry?” I asked her, baffled.
“Anette,” the man cautioned distractedly, gently tugging his daughter to his side. “Leave the young lady alone.” Young lady! Something about the way he said this made me prickle. As if he were the only adult at the table.
She pulled away from him and he moved his hands in quick succession—sign language, I realized, spotting her hearing aids. His daughter ignored him. “We pretended we didn’t see what happened,” she told me. Adding, presumably for clarity, “With the vomiting.”
Her dad appeared riveted by the travel section.
“It was all his idea,” she continued. “He said you’d be embarrassed enough.” The man turned his page. “So? Did we do well?” It took me a moment to respond. I knew I should feel mortified—especially when her dad clearly thought I was an idiot—but her earnestness was touching.
“You did,” I assured her. “Thank you.” She beamed, though her dad remained focused on his paper. He was probably sympathetic toward the families I’d just traumatized. “But as bad as it was for me, it was worse for them. Those poor children, and their mothers—”
She was already shaking her head, the ends of her pigtails hitting her glasses. “They are literally our mortal enemies. We’ve been trying to think of ways to get them to stop coming here for weeks.”
“I bet you didn’t think of that one,” I said wryly.
She grinned. “I’m Anette,” she said. “This is my dad.” She elbowed him.
After a slight pause, he held out his hand. “Ben,” he said stiffly.
“Evie,” I replied, giving him my best “I’m completely normal” smile. My hand was briefly swallowed by his before he returned to his paper.
Anette leaned forward, peering at me as if I was the most interesting thing in the room.
“You’ve been the best thing to happen in here in ages,” she declared.
“That’s very sweet,” I replied, deciding to take this as a compliment. Somehow I didn’t think her dad agreed. “But today was a complete one-off, I promise. I never do things like that.”
For whatever reason, this earned me Ben’s full attention. He looked at me, hooded brown eyes flashing with something like amusement. “Really?” he said. “Then why was that the second time we’ve seen you spill your drink on someone in this café?”