Romance Test

Olivia Dane Advises

"I'm so nervous."

Emilia once again jerks the bottom of her shirt and huffs in annoyance. Maybe, she should change - again. The fifth time? Seriously, Milly?

"Why are you nervous?" Grace, Emilia's agent, asks and gives out her usual dry, bark-like laugh. "It's not like it's a date."

Ha. As if Emilia knows what those are like.

"It's more important than a date!" Emilia exclaims, throwing a glare at her phone where the agent's voice comes from. "I'm meeting the Olivia Dane!"

"It's not 'the Olivia Dane,' it's just Olivia," Grace dismisses, and presumably bites a crisp she's always snacking on. Emilia can hear crunching. "She's surprisingly normal for a bestselling author," Grace adds.

Emilia sighs and looks herself over in the bathroom mirror. She can only see her upper half - from the top of her unruly mop of hair, which she once again failed to style, to her poor stomach squeezed into a shapewear under her baggy jumper, the French tuck on which will fall apart and look awful when she steps out of the cab. There's a reason why that's the only mirror in her flat. Seeing her bottom right now would destroy whatever courage she has left.

"And you're only a few thousand copies behind her," Grace reminds Emilia. "You have nothing to feel insecure about."

If Emilia wasn't that nauseous, she'd laugh at the notion.

"So, go and exchange your experience." Grace probably waves a crisp in the air. "You know, professional development and such."

Emilia swallows a knot in her throat.

***

They're meeting at a new French bistro in the Village, and Olivia Dane is late. At first, Emilia is relieved. This gives her a chance to breathe out, drink a bit of water, and try to 'go to her happy place.' It's not working, but at least she might be less shaky when her 'date' comes. But then she catches a look from the waiter, which she immediately interprets as 'pitiful' - and her daft writing brain kicks in.

The waiter is young, perky, and pretty. She probably thinks that Emilia isn't actually meeting anyone here. She's not wrong, Emilia has been using this method for years - you claim you're having lunch with someone, ask for a table for two, then a few minutes later look at your phone, and pretend to be upset because they 'can't make it.' It's hard to tell what's more humiliating: being stood up in reality, or faking it and having a waiter guess. Emilia has been stood up only twice in her life - both times on an actual date. Both of those dates were arranged by her friends; and, conversely, those were two thirds of Emilia's romantic history.

The door to the café flies open, and Olivia Dane rushes in. She's red-haired, dainty, dressed in a stylish oversize coat - and even her slightly disheveled, somewhat chaotic appearance is charming. Emilia has loosely based at least two of her protagonists on the writer's appearance, borrowing the look from Olivia Dane's promo photos.

"Emily!" Olivia exclaims and waves madly. She then says something to the waiter and hurries to Emilia's table. "I'm so very sorry! There was a ridiculous emergency with a beaker, and John's too big to crawl under the seat, and–" She stops herself, exhales, and then giggles shyly. "Just listen to me, I sound mental. Sorry. Let's try again, alright?" She smiles widely. "Hi."

"Hello." Emilia sits up straighter in her chair.

"I'm sorry I'm late," Olivia says, taking off her petal pink coat and hangs it on a hanger stand near their table. "My two-year-old lost his cup; it was under the seat in the car; and I needed to help my husband to find it. It's funny how some men comply with the stereotypes we have of their gender. Don't you find?"