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The woman behind the counter is laughing, wiping up a spill of coffee. She’s got a pretty laugh, one that lights up her face and distracts Anne utterly.
She’s beginning to think that agreeing to meet for coffee with her exes was a terrible idea after all.
Anne tunes back in, but Louis is still droning on about his job, while Marguerite nods vacantly. Louis bought Anne’s coffee for her, in what was probably supposed to be a nice gesture, but he’s forgotten how she takes it; she took three sips and let it grow cold. Neither Louis nor Marguerite have noticed.
The woman at the counter glances over, face still lit up with a smile that makes Anne’s stomach curl and twist, and she thinks: sod it.
“I’m just going to get a refill,” she says, and Marguerite nods, and Louis doesn’t even notice, and Anne walks over with her pulse just a little unsteady.
“Your table looks laugh a minute,” the woman remarks.
“That’s one way of putting it,” Anne says, grimacing, before ordering her coffee to go “- just in case I decide to make a break for it.”
She’s handed a steaming paper cup – “on the house, you look like you need it” – and it’s not until she gets back to the table and all the mistakes of her past, that she sees the heart and the smiley face and the telephone number scrawled on the side. She glances back to the counter, and receives a wink.