This made Lou laugh. “Nothing too salacious. But I do know you write poetry and can often be found reading it at Pink Bean open mic nights.”

“True enough. Did she review my poetry for you?”

Lou shook her head. “Nope. I guess I’ll have to come to your next reading to find out what it’s like for myself.”

“You should.” Meredith picked up her glass of wine and peered at Lou over the rim with her intense brown eyes.

She really was quite attractive. A completely different kind of woman than Angie, who had short-cropped hair and a half-dozen rings in her ear. That was the most astounding thing about Angie becoming such a slave to the corporation she worked for. She had always looked like the kind of person who would be out protesting the might of big business, not working for it.

Lou raised her glass as well. She clinked it gently against Meredith’s and said, “I think I will.”

The food arrived and, scoring many points in her favor, Meredith didn’t ask Lou why she was a vegetarian. She just accepted it, and had ordered a meat-free dish as well. Lou had just picked up her knife and fork when Meredith’s phone started ringing.

Meredith snapped to attention immediately. “I’m sorry. That’s my work phone. I need to take this.”

Lou had noticed that Meredith had two phones. Lou was the kind of person who would often, and gladly, leave her phone at home if she could. Going on a date with two devices in her bag was just unfathomable to her.

Meredith got up and went outside. Lou watched her gesticulate wildly through the window and wondered what could possibly be so important on a Sunday evening that it warranted such an agitated phone call from someone at work. She didn’t have to wonder very long, because she knew if you were that kind of person, it was so easy to come up with a valid enough reason to interrupt dinner with a loved one—or in this case a prospective romantic interest. Angie had done it to her numerous times in the past few years and whereas Lou could understand that some things couldn’t wait—although she couldn’t possibly conjure up what those things could actually be, no matter how hard she tried, or how many times Angie explained it to her—she always felt for the person who had to take the call and had their life interrupted for no good reason.

What would happen if Meredith hadn’t taken this call? Would the Australian economy go bust? Would the world stop turning? Would anyone truly think any less of her and if they did for that very reason, did it matter?

Lou shuffled uneasily in her seat as the memories of fights with Angie she had tried to forget made their way to the front of her mind once more.