Ali can see right through people. Like now, sat in the overpriced Italian bistro on her lunch break from a dead-end job that makes her feel like a zombie - those around her, drinking too-quickly-cooling coffees and eating cakes-that-look-sweeter-than-they-taste, are entirely see-through.
What she can see is what people are like in love. An omnipresent romantic haunting. A lot to take in.
Like him over there with the espresso, wearing a grey cashmere jumper that matches his beard and repeatedly blowing his nose: he is the kind of person who has never broken up with a woman. Instead, in each relationship, he makes her life increasingly unfathomable until she is left with no option but to retreat to reality. It isn’t his fault, precisely. It just kind of happens. Like when, after five years with Elise, he kept calling her Maggie in his sleep and occasionally in sex. It was his mother’s name, as well as his assistant’s at work.
In love, his speech becomes unwittingly littered with lies. It is inadvertent in that he does not plan to lie, but realises he is doing so whilst the words are slipping out of his mouth. Very small things: I ate this for lunch, not that; I am currently reading this, not that; I am going here, not there; I am very happy, I love you. It never occurs to him to cheat. Verbal philandering is plenty.
In the corner, there are two young women holding hands in a hot way over milky drinks. The one with smaller hands encases the other’s larger hands: their hands together are like a clam. The smaller-handed one is the kind person who believes each new love is her ultimate (she’ll only be right once).