Perfect Day

working.’
    ‘But you’re not very busy...’
    She doesn’t like the quickness with which he throws her words back at her.
    ‘I’m the only one on.’
    ‘There’s something I want to ask you,’ he says.
    ‘Can’t it wait till later?’
    The phrase sounds odd. Like they’re in a proper relationship.
    ‘Say it’s an emergency?’ He’s used to getting his own way.
    She presses the receiver against her ear. Her body’s starting to want his like she can sense his wanting her.
    ‘I’ve got a break in an hour.’
    ‘Come now... please...’
    Kate sneaks a glance at Tony, who’s pretending not to be listening. He starts to whistle, which is something he never does. The door of the restaurant opens. Kate glares at it. With only two tables, and both of them eating, she might just be allowed to take five minutes, but with a third, even that slim chance is gone. Then a smile breaks uncontrollably over her face. Greta has arrived early. ’I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ she says, and puts down the phone.
    ‘You making yourself too easy,’ Tony says, shaking his head. ‘Men like a woman to say no...’
    ‘I’m always saying no,’ Kate banters, ‘but this one’s...’
    ‘Different? Yeah, yeah. Nothing’s ever different.’
    Tony splats a spoonful of tomato sauce onto a circle of raw pizza dough. ‘He won’t respect you if you come running whenever he calls,’ he tells her.
    ‘OK, OK,’ Kate says.
    She wants to tell him, look, he really is different. He’s not like you. He’s not so crude as to want me to pretend that I don’t like him when I do.
    ‘I promised double cheese,’ she says, pointing at the meagre scattering of mozzarella gratings.
    ‘More anchovies, more cheese,’ Tony mutters, ‘you’ll drive me out of business.’
    Greta is tying a tea towel round her waist, surveying the virtually empty room.
    ‘Where are we with table one?’ she asks.
    ‘We’re waiting for a Neapolitan with double cheese, and we’re letting him play with the sugar bowl because his mum’s in hospital,’ Kate tells her.
    ‘Got it.’
    As Kate goes to pull open the door, a smartly dressed woman pushes it from the street side. Kate stands back to let her in. The woman’s shoulder-length hair looks as if she’s just brushed it, and her lipstick is exactly the same red as her jacket. Her heels tap straight to the window table and she bends to hug the boy. The man stands up and clasps her to his chest, then holds her at arm’s length and looks at her as if words cannot express how good she looks.
    What’s that all about then?

    * * *

    Alexander’s sitting at a corner table. His leather jacket is saving the seat next to him for her.
    He stands up when he sees her peeping over people’s shoulders on tiptoe. When she smiles at him, he smiles. Then she’s standing in front of him and neither of them seems to know how to greet the other. He touches her arm, quickly, like a child in a museum who has to see if an exhibit’s real.
    ‘Don’t ever do that again,’ she says to him.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Say it’s an emergency when it’s not.’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    She picks up his jacket to hang it over the back of the chair. It’s very heavy.
    ‘You’re like a snail with your house on your back,’ she says, jerking her arm, pretending that the weight of the jacket has dislocated it.
    He buys her a glass of orange juice, and puts it down in front of her. For someone who wanted to say something urgently, he’s very quiet.
    ‘This better be good,’ Kate says, ‘because I’m going to have to work four hours without a break now.’
    He looks perplexed, as if he doesn’t know why she’s there, or what she’s just said to him. Suddenly she thinks that what he has to tell her isn’t good news, and she wishes she’d taken a moment to compose herself for rejection, instead of rushing to him like someone in soft focus commercial for body spray.
    Alexander sips from his tall glass of beer. She wonders if it’s still his first pint, or if it’s his second or third. The Friday night drinking noise all around them makes the silence feel even longer.
    ‘Don’t you get bored working there?’ he asks finally, jerking his head in the direction of the restaurant.
    What’s this leading to? Is he saying that he despises her job, that she’ll have to change it to have any chance with him? Kate’s body stiffens with pride.
    ‘Not really,’ she says. ‘The customers are interesting… ’
    He looks