Our Anniversary

I wait – it’s our second anniversary.  Sue is very late, but arrives just as the waiter comes over for the third time to ask me if I want to order drinks.
As I look up she steps in from the half lit street lights, into the harsh illumination of the Café

Lamps, picking her out like a spotlight against the terracotta walls and dark wooden panels. She walks half defensively shuffling across the wooden floor, her heels trying and failing to hold her back from completing the final few feet of her journey.

She reaches the table and mumbles something about the traffic and her problem’s finding a parking spot, but even though it’s clear above the background chatter and clink of glasses, I’m not really listening.

I’ve been brooding on this for the last 45 minutes - she could have phoned, she could have left earlier, she could have done something. So now my mood is dark, as black as that cat in the poster on the wall. I nod my acceptance, and in keeping with this Anglo-French hybrid, it’s some mixture of a Gallic shrug of indifference and an English reluctance to cause a fuss.

I start to stand to greet her, but it’s just a little too slowly and instead it’s the waiter who pulls the chair back offering Sue a seat, and we both sit back down in unison, for the first time in months. 
“I haven’t ordered anything yet” I say, “I thought it best to wait”.

“Oh that wasn’t necessary” she say’s forcing a smile across her face as she speaks.

“No, No.” I insist “We’ll I didn’t think it would be a long wait … at first”.

“Sorry” she say’s again and the slight wince of pain in her expression almost lifts my mood.

She gazes down at the dark red Menu laid out in front of her by the waiter, seeking out something to change the subject and move on. “This all looks very tempting, but I don’t want to have anything too fattening”.

It’s an olive branch, my chance to say something nice like, “Oh you don’t need to worry about your weight” but I’m still sulking, so I let it drift un-responded, “We’ll I’m going to go for the Steak Rouge” .

The forced smile again, “That sounds nice, I might just have the Goats cheese salad, and a coffee, something to warm me up.”

She starts to ask me about my day, but before she’s finished, the Waiter steps up – “Would you like to order some starters?”.

We each gaze briefly at each other, half tempted but feeling will seem like gluten’s so shake our heads, “No, well go straight to the main course”, I say “a Steak Rouge and a Salade de Cher-ver-er?”. I struggle over the pronunciation of the last part and make another mental note against Sue for choosing something difficult for me to say.

“And a coffee” she adds, “And two coffees” I correct.