Page 79 of The Love of My Afterlife
We are led to a table in the far left corner where the maître d’ wishes us a magical evening before melting away into the fray. He is replaced by a waitress in pink who asks us what we would like to drink. She’s wearing contact lenses that make her eyes look the same colour as her jumpsuit. I don’t realise I’m staring until Cooper clears his throat. “Delphie? Drink?”
“Hmm…” I say dazedly. “Do you do Liza cocktails?”
The waitress screws up her face.
I think back to The Orchestra Pit and the sequinned barman. “It’s vodka, I think with apple sours and something else that I can’t remember.”
“We don’t do that specifically, but I have something similar. It’s vodka and apple based.”
“Okay, yes. That would be lovely, thanks.”
“And you, my dude?” she asks Cooper, who I don’t believe has ever been referred to as “my dude” in his life.
“Bourbon, rocks,” he says.
“We do a bourbon-based hard seltzer with a chocolate and truffle foam top?” she suggests.
He shakes his head. “Just the bourbon, thank you.”
She nods, looking disappointed before handing us two menus and disappearing to the bar. I look around in astonishment, noticing that the couple at the next table appear to be licking some sort of sugary goo off each other’s fingers.
“I’m so sorry,” Cooper says in a strangled voice. “I googled ‘restaurants with an arty vibe,’ and this came at the top. When I saw it had Caramel in the name I just reserved because I know how much you like sugar.”
“It’s cool,” I say with a nonchalant shrug.
“It’s kind of terrible, though…”
“Yeah. Truly awful.” I laugh, which makes Cooper laugh until we’re both looking around us and laughing at how weird this all is.
The waitress brings our drinks, mine incredibly delicious,and we order a couple of starters—Cooper the miso cod and me the mushroom paté.
“So,” Cooper says when the waitress has disappeared again. “What was that outside?”
My cheeks turn pink. “Uh…I just saw this kid getting bullied and…you know. It sort of set me off. At school, I…”
He grimaces. “The woman from the gala.”
I meet his eyes. “Yeah. She made my life a misery. Her and her boyfriend. Husband now…”
“The idiot in the baseball kit?”
I nod.
“I’m sorry. Jesus. I got some ribbings at school but nothing so bad that I still remember it. I can’t begin to imagine…”
I knock back my drink and signal to the staff for another. “It’s taken up a lot of my life. Too much of it, to be honest.”
Cooper bunches his mouth to the side and sips at his drink.He looks brighter than usual—he’s not wearing black today, but instead a light blue linen shirt. He looks…All this time I was living so close to him. And now…No. Don’t think about that. Tonight is for fun only.
“Have you considered therapy?” he says. “I don’t want to be that guy, but Em swore by it and—”
I prickle, thinking about my GP. How she said she was convinced that I would benefit from counselling. How the very thought of telling a total stranger all of my feelings makes me want to throw up. “Haveyouconsidered therapy?” I shoot back.
He surprises me by nodding, a small laugh escaping him. “I…That was the appointment I just had. My first session. Figured it was about time to start dealing with Em and thinking how I might get back to writing at some point. I know she’d hate it that I’d stopped.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Oh. That’s great, Cooper. Wow. Had that been on the cards for a while then?”
He shakes his head. “I booked it after we went to see my parents.”
