Chapter Four
Chapter Four
Meet-cute. Noun. An amusing or charming first encounter between two characters that leads to the development of a relationship between them.
Examples can include physically bumping into one another, spilling wine and jogging a memory.
A requirement of a meet-cute is timing, typically occurring after a breakup or preferably when the protagonist(s) are at their lowest and subconsciously desperate for someone new.
On October third, R had a meet-cute of her own.
Sort of. A platonic meet-cute, if you will.
R didn’t see S coming and S would one day say the same of her.
During a book event, S had been looking out at the gathering crowd and R had abruptly turned away from the table of drinks.
They’d met in the middle, and unfortunately, S had been holding a glass of wine, fatally staining R’s T-shirt red.
Although R was visibly embarrassed, S was quick to take the blame, offering her own jumper as compensation.
When their eyes locked, an existing memory was knocked into place.
They’d met before.
Their conversation flowed from the start. They’d attended the same secondary school and so spoke about their teachers:
“Did you hear Mrs. Thanenthiran, our English literature teacher, retired?”
“Really? But she was so young! She’d only be in her early forties now.”
“She won the lottery! Not a lot, but enough.”
They spoke about their old classmates:
“Kelly Grant is pregnant?! Anti-baby Kelly?”
“Yes! Can you believe that?”
They spoke about what they did now, with S working in marketing for a tech company and R working as an editor for a food magazine.
They spoke about how much they loved the book that had brought them to this very event today. They sat together when the talk started.
S had to leave straight after to meet someone, but R offered her number and said, “Let me know if you ever want to have lunch or something. It’d be nice to make a new friend.”
S had been happy to accept R’s phone number last night.
They might not have been friends in school, but S knew of R, mainly because R had rarely been seen without her three best friends.
S wondered why they weren’t at the book event alongside her, and whether, like the majority of friendships formed at school, life had separated them slowly, like the withdrawal of a spoon from honey.
What mainly drew S to R was her honesty.
She’d come right out and asked S if she wanted to be friends, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been asked that question directly.
Her best guess would be nursery! A time when children have such limited vocabulary, they can only ask for exactly what they want.
From the outside S appeared to have enough friends to keep up with, but if she were honest (and she could afford to be, in the confines of her own mind) none of her friends were best friends because they all had best friends of their own.
The truth was, S gathered friends like grains of sand—all were individual, and all dispersed as soon as they were released.
She had Wini from church, who she only saw on Sundays because her family and S’s family had been going to the same church since they were children.
Christine from her school days, who S mainly corresponded with via social media.
There was Franzi from her old job, who she met up with for lunch every month or so, and then Gifty from the tech company S currently worked for.
Out of them all, S was perhaps closest to Gifty because they saw each other five times a week, often had lunch together, and always had something (usually work-related) to talk about.
S had originally thought this made them very good friends.
They shared quality time, easy conversation, dining experiences—what else was left?
However, every now and again, Gifty would say something like, “Oh, this plaster? Tough bouldering weekend,” revealing hobbies S was unaware Gifty had.
Or she would say, “My friends and I…” to indicate that she did not consider S a part of that collective.
A staunch reminder that the term work friends had the “work” prefix for a reason.
Essentially, if S were looking for a best friend, R (seemingly unattached) was the perfect candidate.
S would never call her a candidate to her face, of course; she knew some people didn’t approve of the logical approach S took to most things, but making a new friend was like looking for a partner.
You had to be both logical and emotional.
But how to launch this mission…
R had taken the first and hardest step, so really, it was S’s turn.
She knew R worked in Soho, and so she suggested they meet for lunch there.
R accepted immediately and this made S smile.
She was glad to be seeing R soon but also excited to tell Gifty that, sorry, no, she couldn’t meet her in the canteen today because she already had plans with “a friend of mine.”