‘Breakfast number two with coffee, please,’ she ordered on the spur of the moment and impatiently waited for Rachel to make her order, trying to suppress pangs of guilt that she hadn’t gone for the low-cal option. She wasn’t trying to lose more weight, after all. She was only trying to maintain it.
When the waitress finally shuffled away, Rachel changed the subject.
‘How are things going in Maine, anyway? Is your art professor still crazy in love with your room-mate?’
Lauren rolled her eyes. ‘It’s ridiculous! The guy is at least fifty, and Vicky is our age; only twenty-three.’ Lauren shook her head. ‘The other day when I came home, he was standing in our room in his underpants! It was creepy! And I am supposed to listen to him in class after seeing that? Can’t do it, I tell you!’
Rachel chuckled. ‘At least there’s stuff going on in your life. Me, I have nothing interesting to report. My brother’s got a new girlfriend, again. She works at the gas station. And Mason – you know the good-looking dentist?’
The waitress returned with their breakfast, interrupting their conversion and, zombie-like, started putting down their two plates of pancakes with maple syrup, cups of coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice.
‘Doctor Mason Howell! He’s getting divorced from his wife as we speak. All I want is a date with him! I made an appointment at his dental practice, just so that I could see him,’ Rachel gushed. ‘He’s so fine! He’s tall and so . . . distinctive!’
Lauren raised the steaming cup to her lips and started slurping her coffee.
‘But that sounds great! And you were saying that nothing is going on around here.’
‘Yeah, but it’s much longer since I last saw a man in his underpants.’
‘Trust me, it was not a pleasant sight!’ Lauren spluttered, trying to rid her mind of the image of her half-naked teacher while pushing a forkful of delicious pancake into her mouth.
She loved the sweet stickiness of the maple syrup and the soft, fluffy consistency of the pancake, even though eating it meant that she would have to be mindful of what she ate for the rest of the day. Rachel, too, devoured her food greedily, and so they sat and ate in silence for a while, listening to the clatter of dishes inside the diner and the voice of Mariah Carey droning from the speakers above their heads.
‘How long are you going to be home for?’ Rachel picked up their conversation with her mouth still full.
‘Another four weeks. And then classes are starting again.’
‘Well, that gives us plenty of time to celebrate our birthdays. Any ideas yet?’
Lauren shook her head and smoothed back her curls. She and Rachel were born on the same day in the same hospital and – it seemed to them, at least – they had been friends ever since. When they were younger they would often joke that perhaps they had been switched at birth and actually belonged to the other’s family. Which, of course, wasn’t the case, because Lauren looked exactly like her mother, but whenever they would get into a fight with their parents they found the idea of it quite comforting. Maybe I’m not even related to that family of bores, Lauren would often wonder at the height of puberty. And, of course, when they were children they celebrated every single one of their birthdays together. Their twenty-third birthday was already a week old but wasn’t going to be an exception.
‘We should at least invite the dentist, and . . .’ Lauren turned around one last time. Blondie had disappeared, only Mr Blue-Eyes was still there, drinking his coffee. ‘. . . and my husband-to-be!’
‘No way! It would be super embarrassing to talk to a complete stranger!’ Rachel was dead set against it.
‘It’s not that embarrassing, really. Complete strangers chat us up in bars all the time!’ Lauren defended her suggestion.
‘Yeah, but at least they’re buying us drinks – and in the end we’re still telling them to buzz off! Which is exactly what would happen to me if I were to take your advice.’
Lauren had no response. As inconspicuously as possible, she once again turned around to look at the man of her dreams. Was he getting more handsome by the minute or was she only imaging it? She noticed a dimple on his chin as he was chatting and laughing with the waitress, who was suddenly anything but zombie-like, and holding his cup up for a refill. His magic worked on others, too, then.
‘How about we take some time to think about our party, and give each other a call. Or I stop by your house after work. I gotta go now; Mr Mathison’s tensed-up shoulders won’t straighten themselves.’
Lauren looked out the window and into the gray, cloud-covered sky and the thick rain that was still pelting down against the windowpanes.
‘You really want to go out there?’ she asked doubtfully, reaching for her cup of steaming coffee and glad that she got to stay inside a little while longer.
‘Want? No, but duty calls.’ Rachel got up and smiled. ‘Besides, you know me and my brilliant mind. I just happen to have brought an umbrella along – imagine that!’
She placed a banknote on the table and, triumphantly, held up the umbrella in question.
Lauren rolled her eyes but got up, too, and hugged her friend goodbye. She followed her with her eyes as she left the diner, grateful that her parents had made it possible for her to follow her passion and attend art college in Maine. They hadn’t forced her into a job that she didn’t enjoy. A job in which she had to touch the shoulders of men like Mr Mathison, she added to herself. To make up for it, she would help her dad in his law firm during term breaks. Peter Latham would have liked for Lauren to follow in his footsteps and become a lawyer. Instead, she filed documents and destroyed old, outdated case files.
Which was what was waiting for her over the next few days, and so she decided to enjoy her last day off. And just as she was wondering what could make a day better that had started with a great breakfast with Rachel, the stranger’s face popped up in her mind. She threw an inconspicuous glance over her shoulder. He was still there. A sign, surely!
Lauren tried to check out her reflection in the windowpane, but it was pointless. Looks-wise, she wasn’t at the top of her game today, but if that stopped a guy from talking to her then he wasn’t the right guy to begin with. Besides, she reminded herself silently, he couldn’t be the right guy anyway because he had a girlfriend. Still, she made herself get up and casually strolled over to his table. The weight she had recently lost gave her a little extra self-confidence, and she even seductively swayed her hips.
There was a moment, when she looked at him full of expectation and he at her, full of surprise and interest, when he raised his eyes and smiled . . . This moment seemed to last forever. Lauren breathed in and out again. Her heart was beating fast inside her chest and she was nervous, her fingers were trembling when she ran them through her hair.
‘Hi,’ he said, and the corners of his mouth twitched. Lauren’s head was suddenly full of thoughts. Except her reason for crossing the diner. It was the amused expression on his face that was to blame, because Lauren knew what it meant: women talked to this guy all the time. Flirted with him, too, probably. Women like her, who dared to approach him and then . . . what? Who wanted to marry him? Women who, like her, couldn’t take their eyes off his full upper lip with the tiny scar and who almost climaxed just because he said hi? Whatever the reason, women flirted with him and she didn’t want to get in line, didn’t want to be one of those stupid women who, more than likely, were far better looking than she.
‘Uh – excuse me . . .’ she muttered, desperately trying to find a reason, any reason at all, why she had crossed the diner and was standing in front of him. There had to be something!
Lauren desperately looked around. Saw the cup in his beautiful hands.
‘Your