Page 29 of Pretend You Love Me

“Beginner’s luck,” I say, trying for casual and landing somewhere closer to self-deprecating. “I have a very expressive face when I’m confused. My sister says I look like I’m being attacked by invisible bees.”

Elsie shakes her head, still smiling, and goes back to the counter where a customer is waiting with impatience. “Sorry,” she says, already reaching for a cup. “What can I get for you?”

I would probably make faces at babies in public indefinitely if it kept producing that sound. That moment when her face changes completely, when the careful control she maintains slips just enough to show whatever’s underneath.

It’s not a comfortable thought. It’s a thought that leads to bad decisions and worse mornings-after. It’s a thought that belongs in the same category as “I’ll just have one more drink” and “It’s probably fine if I’m five minutes late.”

I shake my head and focus back to the task at hand.

I’m on my third coffee of the day and my second attempt at the same paragraph, which refuses to make sense. The manuscript sits open on my laptop, the cursor blinking with what feels like passive-aggressive judgment, while I stare out the window at the high street, now dry but still grey under the afternoon light.

Elsie moves through the café. Milo is asleep against her chest, strapped into a carrier that leaves her hands free but keeps him pressed close, one tiny fist curled around the edge of her shirt. He looks peaceful.

She’s rearranging the display table near my seat when I finally give up on the paragraph and close my laptop with slightly more force than necessary. The movement catches her attention, she looks up, already halfway to an apology for the noise, and then stops, her expression changing to something closer to interest.

“You’ve been staring at that same page for twenty minutes,” she says, her voice low enough that it won’t carry to the nearest table. “Either it’s very complicated or very boring.”

“Both,” I admit. “Italian tax law from 1987. Apparently there was a very exciting reform regarding international property transfers that absolutely no one but my editor cares about anymore.”

She smiles, the careful half-smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “That does sound...”

“Excruciating?” I offer.

“I was going to say ‘specialized,’” she says, but there’s a hint of real amusement in it. “But sure, excruciating works too.”

She reaches for a book on the display table, a slim volume with a cover dominated by a single striking image: a woman’s face, half in shadow, her expression caught between determination and something that might be fear. “This might be more interesting,” she says, setting it on the edge of my table. “If you need a break from property transfers.”

It’s such a simple gesture, a small kindness that makes this place different from the chain coffee shop two streets over. I don’t know how to respond. I pick up the book, turning it over to read the description on the back. “What’s it about?” I ask.

Something changes in her face like she’s excited to talk about it. Her posture straightens slightly. Her voice, when she answers, has a different quality, faster, more animated, her free hand moving in time with her words.

“It’s about a woman whose husband… isn’t who she thought,” she says, her fingers tracing the edge of the cover. “And it’s less about the betrayal, really, and more about the aftermath. The mess of it. How you can be furious and heartbroken and still have to get through the day.” She trails off, as if catching herself. “The writing is just… honest. About how people can want two opposite things at once.” She gives a small shrug. “And the ending isn’t tidy. It’s not satisfying, not really. But it feels true.”

“Endings are hard. Especially when they’re honest instead of satisfying.” I reply.

“Exactly,” she says. “That’s it exactly. Do you...?” She gestures at my laptop. “Do you write? Or just translate?”

“Just translate,” I say. “But I read a lot. Probably too much, according to my sister, who says I use books as an avoidance strategy.”

“What are you avoiding?” she asks, the question direct in a way that catches me off-guard.

I consider deflecting, making a joke, changing the subject, all the standard moves for keeping conversations at a safe distance. But there’s something about the attention she’s giving me, like she’s actually interested in the answer, that makes me say, “Real life, mostly. The messy, complicated version where people are disappointing each other and making mistakes and having to figure out how to keep going anyway.”

She nods, a single movement that acknowledges both the answer and what it cost to give it. “Books are safer,” she says. “Even when they’re messy, someone chose the mess. Decided it meant something.”

“Even when the ending is wrong?” I ask.

“Especially then,” she says. “Those are the ones that stay with you. The ones where the author trusted you enough to tell the truth.”

Twenty minutes into a conversation about literary endings, I realize my phone is forgotten, the manuscript a distant problem. The usual calculations I make to keep conversations at a polite distance have vanished. It’s the most present I’ve felt in longer than I want to admit, this complete absorption in what she’s saying. I’m not thinking about what to say next or how I’m coming across or whether I’m being interesting enough. I’m just listening, completely and without reservation, to a woman who clearly knows what she thinks about the books she loves.

And I know I am hopelessly lost to this woman.

Elsie excuses herself and I manage to focus on my work, so focused in fact that before I realise it, they are closing. I pack my things and make my way to the door.

“Goodnight,” I say as I pass, the word directed at all of them but somehow my focus stays with Elsie, who looks up with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Night,” she says. “See you tomorrow?”