Page 41 of Best Served Hot
‘I thought we were doing Chinese, not see-food,’ Nicole joked.
Alex, undeterred, swallowed her food and, with a clearer mouth, said, ‘Hey, we talked about the nacho incident. That’s tough for me.’
‘So you believe I owe you some juicy shit back?’ Nicole said.
Alex forked a spoonful of noodles into her mouth. ‘I’m pretty sure that’s the social convention,’ she mumbled out of the corner of her mouth. ‘Creates an imbalance otherwise.’
Nicole found that hard to argue with. ‘Fair point.’ She took a long sip of her beer and sighed. ‘Alright. Well, I was… You’re thirty, right? I was your age when we met.’
Alex chewed thoughtfully. ‘Why does that make sense to me?’
‘Yes, well, we all know how he works now. But when I met him, he was just this very charming producer on the set of a soap opera at the beginning of my career. He kept talking about…’ She paused. ‘He kept talking about how he couldn’t meet anyone. Told me some story about how he’d gone on a couple of dates with this woman who he found out was married. He was very upset about it, he claimed.’
Alex dropped a cracker. ‘Oh my God. That’s his line!’
‘He used that on you!’ Nicole exploded.
‘Something in the ballpark.’
Nicole tutted. ‘I can’t believe it. That was ten years ago. And he’s still recycling it?’
‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ Alex told her. ‘But, anyway, you liked something about him? What was it?’
Nicole considered. ‘He seemed… This is gonna sound silly now, but he paid me attention. I mean, seriously. He seemed to remember every little thing. And it was constant romantic gestures. I was bombarded with gifts.’
‘He love-bombed you.’
Nicole slumped her shoulders. ‘That terminology was not in common usage at that time. I didn’t know it was a technique to trap you quickly.’
‘Well, Ididknow about it. And I still fell for it. So what does that tell you?’ Alex asked drolly.
‘That we both just wanted to be loved?’ Nicole replied instantly.
Alex looked away, her cheeks pinkened. Nicole felt abruptly embarrassed. She didn’t exactly know why.
They went quiet again after that, turning their attention back to the food. A few minutes went by, only broken by the sound of munching.
‘So, what happened with the lawsuit?’ Nicole asked when she couldn’t take the silence anymore.
Alex looked up in alarm. ‘I bloody knew it.’
Nicole’s mouth quirked. ‘In my head, there was a much better lead-up to that.’ She paused. ‘But since I’ve asked it now…’
Alex sighed. ‘The suit was unsuccessful.’
‘They lost?’
‘Indeed, they did. Possibly because I’ve got jack shit they could take,’ Alex theorised.
‘Is that what the judge said?’ Nicole asked.
‘If you must know, she said she didn’t believe it could be proven that me yelling at her to eat ended in a rib fracture, that it was just a series of unfortunate events. And she said if we started treating situations like that as actionable, it would only lead to frivolous suits. And shealsosaid that she thought the yelling wasn’t without a cause, given that a lot of people testified that she’d been on the windup all day. “Provocative and unprofessional” was her phrasing.’
Nicole looked at her in astonishment. ‘So, you got a legal judgment that said you were right, and you’vestilldecided to feel guilty.’
‘I don’t think you ever really decide to feel a feeling. You just do,’ Alex told her.
‘I disagree. I was sad but decided to be angry instead. And here we are,’ Nicole said with a half-smile.
