I stayed on FaceTime with Faith for as long as it took for me to get ready. When I left the flat, we swapped to voice call instead.
‘You look amazing, you are amazing, this will be amazing,’ she said, with the conviction of an experienced yogi master chanting an affirmation. ‘What do you need? Animal pictures? Wait, I must have something cute on my camera roll now … Oh, I’ve got a text from Lily.’ She let out a curt laugh. ‘She wants to know why you FaceTimed me and not her.’
‘Tell her it’s nothing personal.’
‘I’ll tell her it’s because she’s straight,’ she said, and I could already hear the taps of the message.
‘She’ll hate that.’
Another laugh. ‘I know.’ There was a long pause while Faith finished typing. ‘Sent. Now, do we have a code in place?’
‘For what?’
‘For if Fred the model isn’t all that good on a date and you want out.’
‘Faith, out of me and Fred, I find it hard to believe … Ah shit, shit I’m here and she’s inside. I can see her.’ I came to a stop outside the bistro where we’d agreed to meet. It was an early dinner after all, because of what turned out to be a lengthy work commitment for Fred, and Green’s dining area was a sparse enough landscape for her to stick out a mile. Her hair was styled into what I thought must be her trademark messy bun, and she was wearing a button-up shirt-dress in dark denim. I wondered whether that was a practical outfit, something easy to take off for later. Oh, Christ alive … I swallowed hard at the thought. ‘She looks amazing.’
‘You look amazing, Parcell. Take a belly breath for me, lemme hear you.’ I sucked in a greedy mouthful of air and pushed it out in a slow stream. ‘Yeah, that’s the shit. It sounded like a good one. Can I get another? I’ll do it with you.’ She matched my inhale and exhale down the phone. ‘Now, shit hits the fan, and you send me literally any emoji at all, and I will call you and cry about my period. Deal?’
I laughed. ‘Deal.’
‘Knock her dead.’
Inside the restaurant I found Fred laughing with a waiter who looked like he might have fallen in love with her. She stood to meet me when she saw me, though, and when she pressed a kiss against my cheek the young man’s face fell in disappointment.
‘Can I get you a drink?’ he asked me, his tone flat.
‘What are you having?’ I looked to Fred.
She made a questioning face. ‘Edi, drink whatever you fancy.’
I tried to make a show of thinking it over when really, I had my response ready and waiting: my go-to drink for stressful situations. ‘White wine, please, medium-dry, large glass.’ When the waiter was out of earshot, I said, ‘You look beautiful.’
She smiled. ‘Thank you, you gorgeous woman, you don’t look so bad yourself.’
Gorgeous. Christ, she thinks I’m gorgeous. I ignored the compliment. ‘You’ve been here before?’
‘Once or twice. How about you?’
‘Nope, first time,’ I admitted, ‘first time for everything tonight.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘I don’t think I follow … Oh, oh.’ Her eyes spread and she cupped a hand over her mouth. Faith had told me not to tell Fred that this was my first time dating a woman, but the honesty had slipped out, as though the confession had been stuck in my teeth this whole time. When she moved her hand away, though, I was showered with relief to see she was smiling. ‘Well, let me tell you, Edi, you are in for a treat.’ She winked and handed me a menu. ‘We’re going to have an amazing time …’
And it turned out Fred wasn’t a liar.
*
Another hot topic of conversation in the group chat titled ‘Let’s get Edi gay-ed’ – which consisted of me, Lily and Faith – was whether I would, firstly, wear my engagement ring on my date; secondly, whether I’d explain the situation. Faith and Lily had fallen on opposing sides of not telling and telling respectively. We’d all agreed on the middle ground of wearing the ring but waiting for Fred to initiate a conversation about what the ring meant – assuming I still knew. Over the course of the afternoon into early evening, though, I became more aware of my ring as a nervous tick. Whenever Fred asked something that made my cheeks flush – which seemed to be happening every ten to fifteen minutes – my right hand would reach for my left, and I’d spin the ring around one, two, three times as I answered. Worse or better still – I couldn’t quite decide – I thought she’d noticed. But not said anything.
She checked her watch. ‘We’d better ask for the bill.’ She turned and hollered the waiter who, having watched Fred from the corner of his eye for most of our dinner, came rushing over at speed. With what I thought was a forced smile she batted away his final push at flirting with her – I’m right here, chap, but okay – and then gave me her full attention again. I hadn’t realised I was back to spinning the ring until she reached over the table and grabbed my hand. It was our first skin-on-skin contact, and I felt like something was going to fall out the bottom of me – but in a very good way. She smiled. ‘Do we need to talk about the ring thing?’
I hesitated. ‘You’re not interested?’
‘In your potential spouse? No. In you? Very.’ Another smile, notably less forced than the one she’d flashed the waiter, though. ‘It’s not lack of interest. But I’m single, I’m allowed to be here.’
I pulled in a greedy amount of air and said, ‘I’m engaged. But my fiancé is worried that we rushed into the whole thing, maybe. We’re together, but we’re sort of seeing other people for a little while, to see what happens.’
‘Fiancé with one e, I assume?’
‘Yes.’
She half-laughed. ‘Of course.’
‘I don’t think I—’
She held up a hand to pause me. ‘So, just so everyone knows where they stand. I’m allowed to be here and you’re also allowed to be here.’ She said it with a questioning intonation at the end, so I nodded. She squeezed my hand then, before moving back to her own side of the table. I pushed down the rising want to reach out after her. ‘Whereabouts do you live?’
It felt like a rapid subject change. ‘Over in the Quarter.’
‘Okay, then.’ She stood up and grabbed her bag from under the table. ‘I’ll pay and then walk you back.’ I opened my mouth to object to the offer but she powered on. ‘Hey, if this is your first date with a woman, the least I can do is get the bill and get you home safe.’ She walked away, then, before I had time to object any more. But her absence did at least give me time to get my shit together into something that made me look less like a stuttering mess. Is this what dates with women are like? I wondered, while I pulled on my cardigan and grabbed my own bag. ‘Ready?’
‘As ever.’ I walked out ahead of her. When I reached for the door, though, I froze in my tracks as I felt what I thought was a light tap on my arse.
Fred cosied up behind me, then. ‘You’ll have to forgive that, Edi, it was more for the waiter than it was you.’ She stepped around me. ‘I’ll get the door.’
We fell out into the street like a pair of howling teenagers on WKD for the first time. Fred apologised several times over – ‘I’m a bit of a pain for things like that, Edi, I am sorry’ – and she explained that when it came to heteronormativity, she couldn’t help herself. And that’s exactly how she phrased it. For my sins, I wondered whether Rowan even knew what heteronormativity was. His assumption that I’m on a date with a man tonight, that’s what … and I laughed along with Fred as she continued to explain herself, only leaving me room to occasionally jump in and explain she really didn’t need to.
‘It was fun, being like that,’ I admitted.
‘Well, I’m glad. You’ll get it a lot.’
I swallowed my nerves. ‘Light taps on the arse?’
‘If that’s what you’re into.’
We came to a stop outside my building and I was sincerely grateful because I had well and truly maxed out on courage for one night. ‘This is where I get off.’ She laughed, and it took me a beat to understand why. ‘Oh! Oh, I didn’t—’
She leaned in and kissed me square on the mouth. ‘It’s the wine. It gives me a dirty mind.’ Then she put a healthier distance between us. My lips tingled – everything did – and I felt as though all the words had been drawn out of me. ‘Thanks for letting me buy you dinner, and for letting me walk you home. It’s been a genuine pleasure, Edi …’
‘Parcell,’ I filled in what I thought her blank was. Praise be to the gods that I still knew my last name. ‘Thank you for tonight. It’s been kind of amazing.’
She started to back away along the pavement. ‘Kind of? I’ll up my game for next time.’
I laughed – from nerves; from amusement; from wanting to fill the quiet. ‘Take care now.’
‘Text me some time if you’d like? Not in four days, though. I can’t wait that long.’
‘You’ll be first on my list after I’ve told my friends that I wasn’t murdered.’
Fred laughed and turned away, then, and quickened her pace along the walk back towards the main city streets. I wondered whether she’d be late for work, but she didn’t strike me as the sort of woman to worry about it. I pushed into my building and ran up the stairs like a teenager on a cross-country course. By the time my key was clunking in the front door lock, I’d already pulled up a fresh message to Faith and Lily: Home safe. She said NEXT TIME. xxx