“I’ll message her tomorrow then,” Lou said. “First I need to know how I’ll feel about this after a good night’s sleep.” She put away her phone, still a bit perturbed by seeing Mia’s face out of the blue again, but grateful that Robin was too tipsy to inquire about it further, although Lou had seen Micky furrow her brow at her and Amber’s adamant no.

“Keep me posted. Just so I know what to say to Meredith on Monday,” Robin said. “Just for the record, she is a CrossFitting stockbroker, but impossible as it may seem, she has a heart of gold. A heart that’s been trampled on one too many times.”

“Hence the poetry, I presume,” Martha said drily.

Amber and Micky burst out laughing, while Lou wondered whether she’d be going on a date some time soon.

Chapter Ten

On Sunday morning Mia went about her regular slow wake up routine. A lot slower than before she had started working at the Pink Bean, although the annoying side-effect of having to set her alarm for five o’clock on weekdays was that her body woke up of its own accord at the same time on Sunday.

She took the Saturday edition of The Sydney Morning Herald—she preferred the feel of old-fashioned paper in her hands at the weekend over her tablet screen—and went to her favorite brunch spot around the corner from her small flat off King Street.

After she ordered and sat down, she realized, just like she had done the Sunday before, that soon she would be opening up an establishment that would be direct competition with this place where she’d had many a good breakfast and spent many a lovely hour perusing the newspaper or watching the world go by. But this was Newtown, and another coffee shop had just closed at the other end of this busy boulevard, and such, also, was life.

The Larder was right next to her favorite independent cinema and, as she always did on Sunday morning, she studied the movie review section, compared it to what was on offer next door, and then bought a ticket for the afternoon showing at three. This allowed her ample time to stop by to see Annie, who ran a women’s bookshop across the street, and who more often than not knew exactly what to recommend according to Mia’s tastes.