Nestled on the floor, she spies another lost book and reaches down to pick it up. The cover draws her in. A girl wearing an orange beret, staring into the distance. One arm leaning against a blank canvas, the other slung in the pocket of her grey coat. There’s something so lovely about her that Haf can’t stop looking at.
It’sCarolby Patricia Highsmith, apparently. In all the chaos, she must have knocked it off the next table over, a display of ‘The Best of LGBTQ* Fiction’. Even here, most books are new to her. She went through a phase at university of reading whatever she could get her hands on, usually battered copies found in charity shops, so there are lots of gaps in her knowledge. It’s been one of those things that she’s promised herself she’ll spend time indulging in for... well, most of the last few years.
‘Now that’s a book.’
The stranger’s attention is back on her, and the two women hold eye contact for a beat.
Unsure of what to do, Haf holds up the book.
‘How good’s my taste?’
‘That depends,’ she says, looking up with heavy-lidded eyes.
Haf gulps.Holy shit.
The stranger reaches forward, hooking her walking stick over one forearm, and takes the book from Haf’s hands.
‘Have you read this before?’ She turns it over in her hands, smiling at it like an old friend.
‘No. Oh wait, didn’t they make a film of this? I swear everyone is always telling me to watch it.’
‘You should read it.’ She taps her red manicured nails on the cover.
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. Really, it’s a romance, but it’s written like a thriller. There’s a bit of homophobia, bit of a shit husband, the usuals. But there is a happy-ever-after for the lesbians, probably the first in literature, which is nice.’
Haf takes the book back into her clammy hands, gripping onto it for dear life.
‘Oh,’ she says, all the air going from her throat. ‘That makes a change.’
She’s always struggled with this part, making it clear you’re another queer woman. Most of the time she feels like an alien speaking human, and this feels like an expert level of communication that she’s never sure she’s managing. If only there was a hand signal, or that everyone still spoke Polari. It would be really useful if she had one of the enamel flag pins on her enormous rucksack, though pointing at it would likely be as awkward as what she’s trying to do now.
‘Is it set at Christmas?’
‘A little bit, actually. That’s how they meet. In a shop.’
Haf licks her bottom lip and bites down on it.
‘The film is also very good, worth watching just for Cate Blanchett’s wardrobe alone. And there’s this scene where she’s sitting on the floor and stands up so elegantly without using her hands... You’ll get what I mean when you see it. It’s almost erotic.’
Haf feels like she’s going to pass out. Message received, apparently. She can’t quite believe that she’s managing it.
‘Remember how to flirt! Remember how to flirt, you absolute disaster!’ yells Ambrose’s voice in her head. ‘Ask her to watch it with you! Get her number!’
I can do this, she thinks.
She reaches for Party Haf – the brash confident version of herself that flirted with Christopher, the Haf who knows she’s hot and brilliant. That Haf isn’t completely separate from her, but she’s a kind of the Big-Personality version of her. She’s where Haf stores her bravery.
‘Maybe—’
But before Haf can finish, the woman answers her phone.
‘Hello? Oh yeah, hi. Everything okay?’
And with that she rushes away, out of the bookshop.
Fuck.
