Anna shook her head. ‘A fucking shitshow.’
‘Want me to ask if any of the waiters have J names?’ Nia asked.
Anna laughed and shook her head. Nia linked her arm through Anna’s and they went over to the bar to order more drinks.
It was while they were waiting at the bar that Anna saw Steve out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head quickly, and Nia noticed, and followed her gaze. She hadn’t seen Steve for a couple of years, and it was like a punch to the heart. What was he doing at Nia’s party?
‘Who are you looking at?’ Nia asked.
‘The guy with the sandy hair and the beard.’
‘Oh yes. He’s hot, right? He’s going out with Chloe from work. I think his name’s Steve.’
‘It is,’ Anna said, and Nia gave her a quizzical look.
Chloe. Anna was running through her mental rolodex of Nia’s friends. She thought she might have met Chloe once or twice, at some other birthday drinks. If it was the woman she was thinking of, then Chloe was one of those fun, pretty girls who always gave the impression they’d made zero effort and didn’t know what it was like to feel awkward.
‘We were friends,’ Anna said. ‘When the kids were little.’
‘Wait, that’s that Steve? Your Steve?’
‘He’s not my Steve!’ Anna’s voice came out too high, almost like a squeak.
‘You know what I mean. The one you kissed?’
Anna felt herself flush, even though she knew Edward had gone and Steve was too far away to hear.
‘Yes.’
‘You never told me he…’
‘What?’
‘Well, that he looked like that.’
Anna stole another glance at Steve and felt like she was standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He looks like that.’
Anna went to the toilet. She locked herself in a cubicle and thought about what she would say to Steve when they inevitably ran into each other. She remembered what Nia had said. He was there with Chloe. He was seeing someone. Of course he was. It had been a while since his divorce and, as Nia had pointed out, he looked ‘like that’. And he was kind, too. Attentive. Funny. Not the kind of person who would stay single for long. Anna wondered whether this woman he was seeing had met his son, whether things were serious.
Back out in the noisy bar, Anna looked for Nia. She was on the dance floor and she beckoned for Anna to join her. And for the next half an hour, she danced with her best friend, her arms in the air and her worries half forgotten. A couple of times, she wondered whether Steve had seen her. And then she chastised herself and tried to get lost in the music. She and Nia had done a lot of this in their twenties and not nearly enough in their thirties. Anna vowed to do it more in their forties. Once a month, at least.
When Steve approached her, Anna had almost stopped thinking about him. She was the perfect level of drunk, bolder than usual but not yet sloppy and slurring. Nia had gone to the bar and Anna was standing at the edge of the dance floor, waiting for her.
‘Hey,’ Steve said.
‘Hi.’ Anna flashed a bright smile.
But inside, she felt a little like she was falling. Whatever it was she’d felt for him, she still felt it.
‘Can I get you a drink?’ he asked.
‘Nia’s getting me one.’
‘So my girlfriend Chloe works with Nia, and you and Nia are best friends. Right?’
‘Right. So how long have you and Chloe been together?’
