Adam & Jessie: Chapter 3

Dinner was over all too soon. Later she couldn't recall precisely what they had talked about. Food, travel. Hopes, dreams. It almost didn't matter, they spoke as though they had known one another forever. He seemed to know her intimately, he looked into her and considered her in a way none of her other admirers had done. He entered her through her eyes and took up residency within her before she had time to consider refusing him.

He was the kind of man who broke up fights before they could start. The man in the pub who could start a conversation with anyone, without putting them offside. The man who talked sincerely to the homeless man on the street and left him laughing. He had a presence, a glow, he lit up all the dark spaces inside of her. Her loneliness started to lift.

So that it seemed perfectly natural when, after the meal had finished, he turned to her and said:

"What did you want to do tonight?"

Any other date would have ended then, but theirs was just beginning.

They danced together and instead of knocking his hand away when he reached for her the way she was wont to do with other men, she grabbed hold and allowed herself to be swung this way and that, reeling out and circling back into his arms, dipping and gliding, and then pulling close, coming up for air only to gaze into his eyes.

Adam & Jessie: Chapter 2

The week before, all it had taken was one glance. She had seen him across the crowded pub and stopped, thinking - "that man is exactly my type". Yet had someone asked her what that type was, she would not have been able to explain. When they were introduced, and he shook her hand, they locked eyes for many seconds too long to be socially acceptable. She was dating many men at the same time, deliberately, in order to prevent herself from feeling too much for any of them.

But immediately Adam was different.

She got up and went to meet the dingo. She knelt and patted him, and Adam came to kneel beside her. The dingo sniffed at her, took her arm in his mouth and gnawed at it playfully, ears cocked, eyes sparky. Adam looked at her, then at the dingo – "yeah, she smells good, doesn't she?" he said to the dingo, scratching him behind the ears. "I think so too." Jessie grinned at him.
From the pub they went to dinner. A small South American eatery, he knew the staff by name and they knew him. Perhaps he didn't bring people here often, she thought. The woman manager was openly curious about her, and at one stage commented that she should take a photograph of the two of them. Was the chemistry between them so palpable, she wondered?

A little garden out the back of the restaurant. They stood there smoking, admiring the green surrounds and the twinkling fairy lights. And here they kissed. She was removed, entranced, from the present. For the first time in a year, she felt the coldness inside of her dislodge. It was replaced, gradually, by a glowing sensation. A warmth and a light filling her up from the inside:

Hope.

He smiled at her.

Adam & Jessie: Chapter 1

She accepted the invitation although it went against every rule in the modern book of women's etiquette. Do Not Accept an Invitation if it is Proffered on the Same Day as the Date is Scheduled For. To hell with it, she thought, I'm going anyway.

Doubts momentarily clouded her vision as she stepped into the Surry Hills pub at which they had arranged to meet. He wasn't there, yet she had planned and executed the perfect entrance – five to ten minutes late, as if rushing from another key appointment. She stepped up to the bar and ordered a glass of house white, determined to look confident and calm even if that was not what she was feeling.

As the barmaid handed her the glass, smiling, Jessie accepted it and handed over a $10 note. A hand on her elbow. A man, crew-cut, t-shirt, unfamiliar said: "Are you Jessie?" "Yes," she said. "Hi, I'm Shane. He's running late. Come and join us."

She walked outside, glass in hand, and sat with the band of strangers who eyed her curiously. She shrouded herself in social charm and made conversation. They were interesting, outgoing – different. A dingo sat on the nearby corner of the street, chewing his dinner of raw meat. Conversation ranged from electronic music to detox diets.

He arrived. He looked different than he had the week before. The shorts and t-shirt had been replaced by an ironed shirt in vibrant hues and snug-fitting jeans. She had forgotten he was so well built. His hair was the same, curly and soft, framing his face as well as his spectacles did. And his generous smile was warm as he sat down on the bench next to her, his thighs bumping against hers as she slid over to make room for him. Her heart surged into her throat but she responded gently, accepting his kiss graciously and enjoying the easy togetherness with which they parried and joked with his mates.

This is going well, she thought.