Later, Claire walks down the darkening streets on her way to work when her phone rings. She stares at it for a second as her stomach does a nervous lurch. She shakes her head. Come on, it’s just Mia. She picks up.
“Hey, it’s me.”
Claire can hear the muffled sounds of the café behind her. “I know. Hey.”
“I’m on a break, and I wanted to tell you…guess who came in?”
“I don’t know. Michael Jackson?”
“Yeah, Claire, Michael Jackson came back from the dead because he really wanted a soy latte, and he just had to have one from here.”
“Well, don’t ask stupid questions.” Claire grins as she moves to avoid a handful of joggers. “So, who was it then?”
“It was Josh.”
“Josh?” Claire wrinkles her nose. “As in Nina’s former Josh. King Douche?”
“The very one.”
“Why do I need to know this?”
“Because, grumpy,” Mia tells her impatiently. “I saw something Nina might like. But I figure you would know better if Nina would enjoy it or if maybe it’s too soon?”
“Okay,” Claire says slowly, still slightly confused. “What did you see?”
“He came in with this girl and ordered coffee and sat near the window. I only just recognised him. You know, when you do that thing where you ask yourself, ‘How do I know that person?’ Anyway, next thing I know, I am making coffee and there’s someone yelling. Like full hysterical screeching. And I look just in time to see this girl jump from her seat, yell something at him, and then dump an entire extra-large mocha over his head. Everybody was staring.”
“No way.” Claire raises her eyebrows and wishes she’d been there to witness that little tantrum.
“I mean, who actually does that? I felt like I was in some really bad romantic comedy. Only it was kind of funny because it was Josh, and all I could think was how happy this might make Nina.”
“Yeah,” Claire agrees. “It’ll probably make Nina pretty damn happy. I’ll tell her when the customers start driving her crazy at work tonight. It will cheer her right up.”
Mia laughs. “Kind of revenge by proxy?”
“Yeah.” Claire crosses the street.
“What are you up to?”
“Walking to work.”
“Oh fun.” Mia sighs. “I’ve got two hours to go, and then I have to go home and prep for my interviews.”
“Oh yeah, the interview.” Claire nods. Mia and Pete both have interviews for their postgrad medicine course Thursday morning. Then they’ll drive up to meet them at the cottage. “Are you nervous?”
“Yeah. Not as nervous as I was about exams but still kind of.”
“You’ll be fine. Just be your usual charming geeky self.”
“Yeah, yeah. Listen, I better go back to work. Tell Nina for me?”
“Of course. And I’ll see you on Thursday, up at the lake.”
“Yes!” Mia sounds immediately excited. “Don’t have too much fun until we get there, okay?”
“I’ll do my best.” Claire smiles. It feels good to be able to just banter again. “See you.”
“Bye.”
Claire immediately feels better, lighter even, at having found this plane of normality with Mia again. Now she wishes she hadn’t been so awkward at the café.
Why was she so uncomfortable? If it had been a guy Mia’d left the party with, Claire would have just asked her about it. Or at least cracked a joke. In fact, she probably would already have messaged her the next day and made some silly teasing comment about Mia seeing some action. But this, for some reason, has rendered her speechless. Why? For a second, she wonders if she is just being weird and homophobic. She knows that can’t be it. She will never give a crap who people choose to sleep with. Unless, of course, it’s someone she wants to sleep with herself.
And it’s that thought that makes her stop in the middle of the path.
No. She steps blindly out of the way of a frowning woman carrying several shopping bags. The woman shakes her head as she passes as if Claire has ruined her day. But Claire doesn’t even react. She’s far too busy asking herself what is suddenly a very pressing, very urgent new question.
Claire, do you have a thing for Mia?
But of course she doesn’t answer it. She can’t answer it. She doesn’t know how to answer it.
But she doesn’t dismiss it either. Because now, suddenly, she’s aware there’s a question begging to be answered. And the rapid flush of this realisation warms her neck and cheeks against the cold night. She slowly starts to walk again as she holds up this new possibility in her mind and thinks about what she does know in order to get her closer to answering this question.
One thing she knows is that the thought of having a crush on a girl has never ever occurred to her in her life. She also knows nothing has made her consider the possibility, either. Not until this unsettling preoccupation with Mia and that girl. It has taken up far more real estate in her mind than it should. But does that really mean anything? Couldn’t she just be uncomfortable because what she thought she knew about Mia might be wrong, when Mia has so quickly become her closest friend?
Claire takes a deep breath, slows her step, and gives herself a moment before she reaches the rude reality of work. She runs through a list of all the things she knows in her mind.
She knows that there’s some sort of pull between them, a palpable attraction she’s felt since they first met. It’s something that turned them so quickly and easily from being strangers to being so damn very important to one another. Until now, she’d just assumed this instant connection was the beginning of a friendship, one of those intense types she has never had before. And it was—is—such a good feeling to know someone like Mia wants to be that close to her, to be that important to her.
She knows she likes Mia more than she’s ever liked anyone before. From the moment they met she never even thought about how she felt about spending time with her. And that was because she simply wanted to be with her. That part was simple.
She also knows she feels a freedom to talk to her in a way she has never been able to talk to anyone. It’s as if there’s no translation needed between them ever. Mia gets her. And she feels as if she gets Mia. And that’s exactly why today at the café was so weird. She misses that effortlessness.
So why would this one new piece of knowledge about Mia change that? Could it be jealousy?
Claire wonders if something might have happened without her noticing it was happening. When she thinks of Mia, she knows she wants to be around her and that sometimes that feeling is even a need. She thinks of when Cam was in the hospital and Mia was the only person she just wanted to have around her. It became almost a necessity to survive that awful week when her parents left.
But the thought of physically wanting Mia? That hasn’t even offered itself as an option. Or has it? There was, of course, the drunken kiss. But after that? They have barely ever touched each other. Claire doesn’t do touchy-feely. She never has. There was the night that Mia held her as she went to sleep when Claire finally caved to her misery about Cam and her parents and the accident. That felt good. She also knows that it was simply comfort Mia was offering to her in that awful, vulnerable moment, but Claire would never do that with anyone else. And it didn’t weird her out either.
She walks straight past the door of the bar because she needs a little more time. She strides past the shopfronts, closed up for the night, not ready to let this go just yet. She thinks of what Moira said this afternoon about Cal, about the potential of not knowing something about yourself, even while it’s happening to you. Is that what is happening to her too? Is it possible her brain is just catching up with her feelings? She knows that she likes guys, has liked guys. But maybe she just doesn’t know it’s also possible to like girls too? Well, one girl, anyway. That would explain why she’s being so damn weird about Mia and this girl.
Part of her wishes she hadn’t seen it, that she could go back to the blissful ignorance that was last week.
And she wishes she felt closer to answering her question about Mia.
As she chews on her lip, head down, she tries to make Mia immediate in order to answer the question. But Claire can’t form enough of a shape of her in her mind. She can conjure her up in parts, little images, the way her lips thin out when she smiles, or the fall of her hair around her face when she’s reading and forgets to tie it up. And she can picture the way she lays her hands flat on whatever is in front of her when she’s talking out a thought, or the way she crosses her arms when she’s listening carefully. But it’s not enough. She feels as if she needs her right in front of her before she has any hope of figuring out these feelings.
Claire checks her watch and sighs into the fallen darkness. She needs to get to work. There’s no more time for chewing over these frantic thoughts right now. She spins around and walks back toward the bar, ignoring an idiot yelling from his car.
Maybe she is simply overthinking this. Maybe that’s all this is, Claire chewing too hard on something that has weirded her out slightly. Overthinking has, historically, been one of her greatest talents.
Before she knows it, though, she’s back at the bar. She pauses for a moment under the neon light of the sign. For now, it seems, she’s just going to have to sit with this unanswered for a while longer.
She takes in a deep breath, pushes open the door, and steps out of these disquieting new thoughts and into her night.
