“Maybe the universe is trying to tell you to avoid the doctor, Thanksgiving, and bathrooms?” she suggests with a challenging and teasing quirk of her brow. I smile, and I think her table mate snorts. Though, it’s hard to tell with the way she tucks her head, but honestly, she’s not the woman I’m concerned with. The only reaction I care about at this point is Lauren’s.
“True. I guess it could be. Seems like that might lead to some serious inconvenience in the future, though. So, if you don’t mind,” I say, and I flash a wink in her direction, “I’d rather experiment with my theory first.”
Lauren shrugs. “Suit yourself, then.”
“I’m…” I chuckle. “I’m trying. But you actually have to answer my question.”
She tilts her head to the side. “What was it again?”
I almost want to laugh, but I fight the urge and ask again. “Would you like to go on a date? It would be with me, by the way. Just so there’s no confusion.”
Her eyes go wide for the briefest of moments. She clears her throat. “I’m…uh…not entirely sure my dad would like that. In fact, I’m almost entirely sure he wouldn’t.”
“Probably not,” I agree with a shrug.
She searches my unwavering gaze. “But you’re asking anyway?”
“The universe, Lauren. I’m trying not to ignore the universe.”
She considers me closely for several painfully long moments while her lunch companion smiles into the middle of her chicken breast.
“You realize this probably isn’t a good idea, right?” she tosses out, and I take some comfort in the fact that she hasn’t said no yet. She hasn’t said yes either, but I’m trying.
“I do.”
My heart pounds in my chest as she stares me right in the eye, waiting for the answer to come. To come to her, to come out of her mouth, I don’t exactly know, but I don’t dare move for fear of ruining whatever progress has already been made.
“Okay,” she finally breathes, the tiniest shrug of her shoulders making the corners of my mouth curve upward.
“Okay, yes?”
She nods. “Okay, yes.”
“When?”
“You want me to decide?” she questions nearly hysterically, and surprisingly, it makes my smile grow.
“Tomorrow,” I say instead of putting either of us through another back-and-forth in front of a woman who appears to be her colleague. She’s amused, that’s evident, but I have no way of knowing how much shit she’s going to give Lauren about this whole scene when they’re in private. “How about you give me your phone?” I request. “I’ll put my number in. That way, when you feel like texting me to back out later, you’ll be able to.”
Her eyebrows draw together, and I chuckle. “Don’t worry, I’ll convince you to go through with it anyway.”
“Oh yeah?” She hums. “What are you? Psychic?”
I shake my head as I grab her phone from the table, hold it up in front of her face so that it unlocks, and type my number into the contacts. “Nope. Just have a feeling.”
“And if I don’t text you at all?” she asks. “What will you do then? You don’t have my number.”
“I guess I’ll take it as another sign from the universe.”
Her throat bobs slightly, and I force myself to turn and walk away. There’s something there, between us, I can feel it.
But I’m not going to force her into something this complicated against her will. I’m not going to pressure her, and I’m not going to put that kind of pressure on myself.
Lauren Carroll will either get in touch with me or she won’t.
I’ll just be hoping like hell that she will.
Lauren
After a long day in the office, I’m cozy in a sweater and my favorite pair of yoga pants and ready to eat some dinner and relax for the rest of the night.
Today was a doozy, to be honest. Once Rebecca and I got back from lunch, we worked our way through an insane number of patients and ended the evening with an emergent walk-in case of chest pain that we ended up rushing to the hospital.
To say I’m happy to be home would be a serious understatement.
I take my silverware out from the drawer and a dish down out of the cabinet before placing them on the cute wooden tray I got from World Market a few weeks ago. My wineglass is clean and waiting on the dish dryer next to the sink after being used last night, and the bottle of white I’ve been chipping away at this week is ready on the door of the fridge.
The timer on the oven sounds, and I spin on the ball of my foot in a move I like to kid myself looks like a pirouette by a New York ballerina.
It was one of my favorite things to do in New York—to go to the ballet once a year around Christmastime.
To be honest, now that I’ve moved away, I’m not sure why I didn’t do it more often.
One pull of the oven door reveals a perfect crisp on my roasted cauliflower and a bubble in the demi-glaze on top of my chicken.
Both are ready, so I grab a mitt from the counter beside the stove and pull my tray from the rack.
It’s taken me years to master the art of cooking for one—to cut down every recipe into existence into an amount meant for a single person. But I’m a snob when it comes to leftovers—I can’t stand them—and I’ve hardly ever met a recipe that doesn’t serve at least three to four people.
A quick glance at the clock makes me hustle up as I transfer the food from the tray on my stovetop to my waiting plate and grab the wine bottle from the fridge to fill my glass.
Plate arranged artfully, I walk on sock-covered feet into the living room and set up on my couch and waiting TV table, grab the remote from its spot in its stand, and turn the TV to TBS. Tonight, I’m taking a little trip down memory lane with The Wedding Planner.
J.Lo looks exactly the same, pretty much as though no time has passed, even though this movie came out ages ago, and I can’t wait for Matthew McConaughey. He’s kind of, sort of, a little bit scummy in this movie, really, since he’s engaged to Fran, but I know if he looked at me the way he looks at J.Lo, I’d get over that pretty quickly.
I pick up my fork and knife and cut into my chicken, putting a warm bite into my mouth just as the opening scene starts.
J.Lo is a total boss lady, kicking ass and taking names, and my cauliflower almost tastes like potatoes. All in all, it’s feeling like a pretty good night.
My smile is almost ornery as I look back up to the TV just as J.Lo sits down in front of her TV alone to a meal and Antiques Roadshow, the musical accompaniment of the scene clearly meant to paint a picture of loneliness or spinsterdom or something.
I glance down at my TV tray and my perfectly folded cloth napkin and my perfectly boring dish of single-serving healthy food. My wine is poured, and my remote is my only company.
J.Lo and her freakishly mirror image of me are my only company.
Not a boyfriend or a husband or even a girlfriend or a freaking dog. My wine and my movie, they’re the things I have to hold on to as I prepare to close the book on another workday.
But it doesn’t have to be this way, my mind taunts, my heart starting to race.
And instantly, memories of lunch rush inside my head.