Page 66 of Stella is Starting Over

‘I doubt any of it will be as good as anything you cook,’ he says, taking my hands. ‘That’s one of the things I love about you – you’re such a woman.’

I’m slightly bemused by this. ‘Thank you?’ I reply. ‘I think?’

He laughs. ‘I just mean, I’ve been out with quite a few girls who haven’t got the first idea how to cook, or run a home, and I think it’s wonderful that you’re so adept.’

‘Thanks,’ I say, once again very much unsure how to respond. I order a cocktail and he has a glass of wine, then we order our food and make small talk about the hotel and how our weeks have been. ‘Did you get up to anything interesting while I was away?’ he asks.

I swallow, deciding that this is probably the moment. ‘I’d meant to tell you, actually. I ended up seeing a friend.’

Richard’s head jerks slightly. ‘Who?’

‘Dominic.’

Dominic

I consider carefully before I message Orla. The things Stella said when we last had dinner had stung, and they stung because they came with a side order of truth along with a much bigger main course of being really unpleasant. But she’s not wrong. I have been a coward, and I’ve let people like Orla take the brunt of that, and that’s really not the kind of person I want to be. So when I message her, as I get on the plane, I’m careful. I tell her that I’m in town for an interview and that I’d love to catch up. No suggestion of anything else. Then I turn my phone off, and when we land at Dublin Airport I turn my phone on and wait to see whether she’s replied. She has, with the name of a restaurant and a time – 8 p.m.

The hotel I’m staying at is basic, but fine. I chuck my bag into the corner of the room, then realise that I’ve got a job interview tomorrow morning so I should probably do the right thing and hang some stuff up. I take a long shower to get the plane off me, then I walk slowly over to the restaurant Orla picked. It’s a sweet, romantic sort of French place with pleasingly rude waiters. I order a beer and a glass of Pinot Grigio for her, and then I wait.

When she arrives, she’s undeniably gorgeous. Her hair is dark and shiny, her skin is pale with a sort of luminous quality like whipped cream. She’s wonderful.

‘This is a surprise,’ she says as she sits down without saying hello.

‘Do you like surprises?’

‘No.’ She smiles.

We order various specials to share and a bottle of red, and she tells me about her promotion, her new flat and her impending girls’ trip to Zante. And once she’s told me about all the brilliant, exciting, challenging things that she’s doing with her life, she draws breath, sips her wine and asks, ‘And how about you?’

‘I’m here for a job interview,’ I say.

‘So you’re moving to Dublin?’

I shrug. ‘Only if I get the job.’

‘Do you want to move?’

It’s a great question, but not one that I feel like answering. ‘I think it’d be a bit of a sticky commute.’

We finish our food, and then we order a chocolate mousse to share, and then coffee, and by the time we’ve finished those the waiter is practically putting the chairs on the tables. I can’t bear the idea of going back to my hotel room, alone, and spending the night trying to guess what questions they’re going to ask me at the interview and wondering what Stella is doing right now. Her Instagram stories suggested that she’d gone to the countryside to some swanky hotel with Richard. I muted her account after I saw a smug video of a boating lake.

‘What now?’ Orla asks, as she finishes her coffee.

I don’t want to be alone. I can’t be alone. And I doubt she ordered a double espresso at 11 p.m. because she thinks she’s about to go home for a nice long sleep.

Her flat is beautiful. It’s up at the top of an old Victorian building and she’s painted it in pale pinks and dusty blues. She’s collected all these things, clearly from her travels all over the world. It’s like walking into a scrapbook of who she is.

‘This is beautiful,’ I say, earnest in my assessment. ‘Really.’

‘I know,’ she says. ‘I’ve got great taste.’

She pours us another drink and we sit on the sofa, legs touching.

‘So,’ she says. ‘You’ve come a long way to hear me talk about the hen dos I’ve been on and the prospect of making partner.’

I laugh. ‘I’d have gone twice the distance to hear any of it.’

She puts her hand a little higher on my leg. ‘Liar,’ she whispers. Then she leans in to kiss me. She tastes like the chocolate mousse and the coffee. I kiss her back. We kiss, and I wait for the rest of my body to get the memo about the kissing. But it doesn’t happen. She runs her hands along my body, and nothing. I put my hands under her top and find her nipple, hard under the lace of her bra, some of the nicest nipples I’ve ever had the fortune to look at, and still, nothing. She straddles me, one thigh either side of my lap, grinding against me in a motion that would, the last time I saw her, have sent me seeing stars, and still absolutely fucking nothing.