L is For

Without realising, Norah had sat up in bed as she had been reading. The diary, much closer to her face than was really necessary.

Heights Park.

That was where she had been this evening. It was so strange to read about Margot’s life although in a different time, in the same steps that Norah herself was taking. To read about someone discovering their truths and, Norah felt, experience those along with her was something that she was not taking lightly.

She remembered the first time she had fallen in love with a woman.

It had been far more eventful than her coming out, which she felt, with a high degree of shame, had unfortunately been entirely devoid of any drama at all. Friends and family had either already suspected or just been entirely supportive, which of course, is what every coming out should be but Norah had carried a sense of guilt that there had been no trauma attached to her revealing her true self when others close to her had been evicted from their families just for who they loved.

Norah had fallen in love slowly. And then all at once. Thanks to her parents, she had a jaded view on love, on what it should be and because of that, she held herself back. Until one day, it wasn’t something that she could hide from anymore.

Paula. Her first love. A shy girl in public who blossomed like a beautiful-rare flower when it was just the two of them. It was a gentle love that they had shared, the kind of love that they both grew from but that ultimately was never destined to last beyond navigating teenage years.

After that, love was something that she craved. The initial rush of it; the passion, the excitement, the exploration of another’s mind and body and with time, the warm comfort that crept in; the security, the safety.

That was until Paige.

She hadn’t loved anyone quite the way she had loved Paige. It had been a love that felt so set in stone, that like the ancient ruins of a castle, there was no question that it would always be there. Or so she thought. Paige, it turned out, did not think that.

Norah began to feel a familiar sadness settling into her chest, like a weight of rocks and she reached for her phone out of habit to find someone to fill that void. Her screen lit up with a message from Rachel, Norah paused, her thumb hoovering between the message icon and the familiar brightly coloured icon of the most popular dating app of the moment.

She took a deep breath and opened the message from Rachel.

“Hi, sorry to message so late, but I’ve actually hada change of plaans and was wundering if you might be free tomorrow to show me the boob? No problem if not, I know it’s late notice.

Also, sorry if any typos, I’ve had a couple of drinks, the fun kind hehehe.

Rx”

Norah chuckled to herself, she tried to imagine the sophisticated woman she’d met getting tipsy and the probable embarrassment she’d feel in the morning about asking to see Norah’s boob rather than book.

Not that Norah minded.

Oh lord, she thought as she rolled her eyes, sometimes her own thought process was boringly too predictable. She resisted the urge to tell Rachel that she’d be happy to show her her boob and typed back a quick message saying she would be free after work.

With that she flung her phone to the bottom of the bed where she couldn’t be tempted by the dark charms of the late-night swiping and settled herself to sleep.

She was woken by the muffled sound of her phone alarm coming from between the tangled sheets. Scrambling around in the semi-darkness to mute the offending sound she almost tumbled from the bed.

It had only been a couple of days without her usual 6.30am early wake-up but oh boy, she had not missed it. Even during the summer months when the sun had already happily taken her place in the sky long before Norah had even opened her eyes, it felt like a struggle leaving the wonderful comfort that was bed.

Taking longer over her appearance that she usually would in the hope that it might silence some of the office gossip that she was a ‘heartbroken’ woman, she packed up her laptop, some snacks and the diary as she planned to meet with Rachel on her way home (assuming she handled hangovers better than Norah herself did, she absolutely refused to leave bed if more than 3 gin and tonics had been drunk).

She’d already looked up her new route to work and was delighted to discover that it took her past the coffee shop that she had discovered at the weekend. Ordering a large green tea to go that was prepared by a young man who looked like he was just leaving his teenage years and had the same cherry chin that Teresa had. A grandson most likely Norah mused.

She looked around the space, viewing it with new eyes now that she knew that Margot had been here all those years before when it had had a different face but the function had been the same. A place for people to gather.

The memories from that evening lived in those walls. It comforted Norah to think that thanks to the diary, it wasn’t the only place that the story lived on.

With her drink in hand, she headed to the metro stop, securing herself one of several available seats, apparently this was a good place to join the daily rat race. She opened up her emails, hoping to work through some of the more mundane ones before she got to the office, which would free her up some time to pester Dan, her favourite colleague, in a more guilt free manner.

She looked up from her laptop, feeling eyes on her and spotted a 30-something year old woman in a beautifully tailored suit, to-go coffee cup in hand looking her up and down appreciatively. Any other day, Norah would have lapped up that attention and secured herself a dinner date minus the dinner for the evening but the thought of potentially getting Margot’s diary seen by someone who could get it into the public eye was not something she was willing to give up. The fact that ‘someone’ was Rachel also probably had a lot to do with it but Norah didn’t want to dwell on that fact for too long. It seemed like her head needed to have another talk with her heart pretty darn soon.

Entering the office, Norah felt all eyes swivel to her. She did her best to pretend that she couldn’t feel them and walked over to her cluttered desk and sat down, her spine a little straighter than if she wasn’t being watched by a bunch of people.

As the vultures began to descend, Norah saw the screen of her work phone light up and she had never been more pleased to hear from her most difficult client.

“George” she cooed down the phone as the scavengers were forced to retreat “Lovely to hear from you. How are things?”

A tirade of complaints came barraging down the speaker of the phone, most of which had nothing to do with the set-up of the house that Norah had just staged for him and she was once again left wondering if she’d have been better taking a course in counselling rather than interior design for all the personal issues she listened to during her time working with clients.

“Are you sure you want to put a glass statue of an Octopus in the living room? It may clash a little with the classic deco look that we put together….. No, no of course, if that’s what you’d like we can do that” Norah clenched her jaw together so tightly she was sure that she’d was close to cracking a tooth. George represented exactly the kind of client Norah hated working for: young, born into new money, horrendously entitled and absolutely no taste to speak of.

“Tomorrow? Yup, of course we can get that installed tomorrow. The listing goes live at the weekend is that right? Well, I’m not the realtor so I wouldn’t be able to make a call on that but you can of course contact them If you’d like to…. Ok well bye then” she said staring at her phone in exasperation after George had hung up after realising she was of no more use to him at that moment.

She much preferred working with the clients who were just looking for some direction in how to organise their home, sure she made less money from them but they also didn’t steal years from her life and she felt that was a good balance to have.

She spotted Dan going into his office just at the same time as Louise, one of the more predatory of her colleagues looked like she was going to swoop in on her.

“Dan!” she cried in a much louder voice than necessary but she couldn’t risk him not hearing her “I just have a quick query around the George Thatcher property could I bug you about it?” She made her eyes as wide as possible to convey that she needed help, Dan cottoned on very quickly.

“Of course” he gestured towards his open office door “Come in and let’s talk this through shall we”.

The moment the door closed behind him, Norah rolled her eyes so hard that they were at real risk of getting stuck in the back of her head.

“My God” she exhaled aggressively “Do these people have nothing better to do than just cling on to the hope that I am someone that can fuel their joy as they leech off of the distress of my supposed emotional breakdown?” She flung herself onto Dan’s stylish but very uncomfortable chesterfield sofa.

“Please” Dan muttered drily “Do make yourself comfortable.”

Norah flashed him a withering look. They had been work colleagues for long enough now that it had turned into a real friendship, one that rarely spread beyond the confines of the ostentatious office building but a genuine friendship none the less.

“So, what have they been saying about me whilst I’ve been gone?”

Dan scoffed “Well look at you assuming anyone cares what’s going in your life.”

Norah raised her eyebrows at him.

“Alright yeah, fair point” he shrugged “the usual suspects have been having a little gossip that they thought they saw you coming out of the bathroom rubbing your eyes the day before you went on leave so they are convinced you were crying over the break up still.”

Norah lent over the arm of the sofa and grabbed a handful of M&Ms that sat in a bowl and popped the lot in her mouth.

Through chewing she laughed “I love how these little vultures minds work. It’s been three months. I was absolutely just hanging out of my ass that morning because I’d spent a pretty intense night with a girl who was very into circus skills.” Her tone suddenly became harder “If they actually cared, it would be different, but they just want content for their little gossip circle at lunchtime. I learnt that the hard way. I think you are genuinely the only person here who isn’t a total arsehole.”

“Wow. Such high praise indeed coming from you there Nor. You are right and I’m sorry, I have tried talking to them about it but as you said, they just claim it’s because they are checking in on you.”

“Oh” Norah threw the word over her shoulder on her way out, “I’m going to need you to pull some strings with the movers and get them to move that absolutely massive glass Octopus piece of tat into the Thatcher property tomorrow. See…” she threw a cheeky grin his way “I do sometimes want to talk to you about actual work”.

It was Dan’s turn to roll his eyes at her “You owe me for this one, you know how much those boys hate the bloody Thatcher property.”

“Well, they are hardly alone there are they?” Norah’s personal phone suddenly vibrated indicated she’d received a message and as Norah saw Rachel’s name come up on the screen, she failed to suppress a small smile.

“I haven’t seen that particular smile for a while” Dan commented wryly.

Norah threw him an affectionate scowl and let the door shut behind as she left his office.

Opening the message, she felt herself feeling giddy as she immediately saw the three large ‘Xs’ at the end of the message.

“Morning,

Oh my. I am so embarrassed. Sorry for the message last night, obviously I should have a two G&T limit in the week. Thanks for not making me feel even more ridiculous because I definitely left you with a wide opening there.

Does seven thirty work for you tonight? We could grab dinner? Maybe I’ll hold off on the drinks. R xxx”

The smile on her face grew and as she sat back at her desk without even noticing if those around her were peering over.

The afternoon passed in a pleasant rush. The octopus was successfully installed in George Thatcher’s house amidst promises that she would bring all of the movers each a huge bar of chocolate when she next saw them and that yes, the man whose house it was, was indeed as much of an idiot as the giant sculpture had lead them to believe.

Bill, the oldest of the movers, patted Norah sympathetically on the shoulder as they finished up.

“We might have to do some back-breaking work sometimes, but you have to deal with these people. And there are some right weirdos out there.”

All Norah could do was purse her lips in agreement. This client was sure filling that description alright.

As the working day drew to a close, she found herself falling into a slight panic that she hadn’t felt about meeting someone in a long time.

“Get it together Nor, this is basically a business meeting. Nothing to overthink, nothing to infer – just two people coming together to discuss business.”

As much as she kept trying to convince herself of that fact, it wouldn’t stick in her mind no matter how many times she kept repeating it like one of those overly positive good-morning mantras.

Norah decided to call it quits early and take an Uber home, rather than risk getting stuck in the rush hour traffic and not have any time to get ready. As she arrived in her flat, her bed looked incredibly appealing, first days back were always tough, even if it was only a a couple of days that had been taken off.

“Sorry my love” she called mournfully to it “You’ll have to wait just a bit longer for us to be reunited today I’m afraid.”

Opening her wardrobe, she felt like she was staring into the abyss, it was quite obvious that she did in fact have a large number of clothes, but at that moment, the wardrobe may as well have been empty.

“Too slutty, too formal, too ugly – jeez why do I even have this?” she threw a baby pink velour mini dress onto the rejected pile of clothing.

She could feel herself becoming overwhelmed and a diva-like state of drama threatened to over take so she paused. Drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. Turns out that mindfulness app she had downloaded did have some use after all.

“Ok, start with the basics” she steered herself over to her underwear drawer, as she examined the options, she was put in the mind of one of her favourite scenes of Bridget Jones – do you wear the pants that get you to the bedroom or the pants for the bedroom? That age old question.

Norah groaned. She didn’t even need to be thinking about that question – this was a business meeting. She grabbed a matching set of underwear that was comfortable but also made her butt look good – you know just in case.

The part of her body that she fully expected to be covered up for the entire evening sorted, she moved on to shoes. In her experience, they could make or break an outfit so often it was better to start with them and work around it. She eyed up her floral Doc Martens but she didn’t want it to seem like she was too much of a stereotype and that she only owned one pair of shoes, so she went for her cream high top converses instead.

Norah was not a connoisseur of much, but oh boy, she did love a good shoe. Her collection was displayed a little like a museum and each pair, no matter how old, looked in pristine condition.

She went for a mustard yellow ankle length dress lightly patterned with stars and constellations that hung off her form in all the right places. She paired it with her fancier thrift shop denim jacket and did her make-up in record speed, so used to the routine was she, that she could probably do it with her eyes closed. A winged eye and a red lip later and she was ready to go.

She put Margot’s diary lovingly into her backpack, took a long look in the mirror, gave her hair one last ruffle and headed out the door.

It was only as Norah exited her building that she had the sudden realisation that she had no idea where she was going. It seemed like something out of a movie where both parties just magically knew where to go – in reality it was that one person was vastly hungover and the other had no sense of practicality for the most part.

She whipped out her phone and sent Rachel a quick message.

“I’m usually pretty good at reading people but unfortunately, even my skills don’t extend to mind reading. Where should I meet you? Nx”

She wasn’t one for signing off messages with a kiss, even when she’d been with Paige she hadn’t, but she hadn’t even noticed that she’d done it until she read the message back before hitting send. She left it there.

A reply came back within seconds.

“Oh shoot! I’m so sorry. Gah I absolutely cannot function on a hangover. How about The Glen, it’s a little place on the East side of Heights Park? R xxx”

Norah shot back a quick message, smiling that the additional kisses had remained there.

“Sure, I’ll be there just after 7.30 Nx”

She hadn’t heard of that place before, but she was pleased that it was near the park. It made the connection to Margot feel stronger, sharing her story so close to where a part of it happened made Norah feel like she was doing the right thing.

As she decided to walk as she had the time, it was an unseasonably warm evening so she thought she would make the most of it. Her mind began to wander and she wondered what Margot had felt as she had gone to the park that day to meet Nancy. Knowing that she was a taking risk doing so but feeling the pull so strongly.

Norah would be eternally grateful that she was born into a time and place where she had been able to explore who she was and figure things out at her own pace, not to be have been forced into a relationship or a way of life that wasn’t her.

She had dated one boy in her life when she was nine years old and that had been enough to make her realise that boys were stinky and definitely not for her. She had tried again when she was older and experimenting, but the results had been unpleasant for both her and the guys involved. Since, then she’d steered well clear. She could appreciate a good looking man and she’d even had a couple of crush on old work colleagues but the idea of it going past deep appreciation made her feel like she would be going against her code.

The park was approaching fast now and Norah felt butterflies begin to form in her tummy, not just for seeing Rachel again, although that was a part of it for sure, but for sharing Margot’s story. She had found herself pulled into this woman’s life and she wanted more than anything for Rachel to feel the same way, for her story to be seen as something that needed to be shared with the world.

As she rounded the corner, her shoulder connected with a hard surface, she quickly realised that it was another person’s.

A brief thought flashed through her mind that maybe she should start paying more attention when she was walking. This feeling was quickly replaced with the feeling of having been punched in the stomach. Hard. The shoulder that she had connected with was one she knew well. It was one she’d slept next to, cried on, placed little kisses on and even sunk her teeth into in the heat of the moment for six years.

Standing before her looking strangely nonplussed was Paige.