Coffee with Wilde

Chapter 9

"There I went again, building up a glamorous picture of a man who would love me passionately the minute he met me, and all out of a few prosy nothings" - Sylvia Plath

"I don't know what to do now," Athena said, slamming the multi colored post-it notes, down onto the table.

T. S. Eliot, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron quotes, littered the table, written in black ink.

"He started writing back, huh, I didn't think that would happen," Klade said.

"Yes, I think it might be obvious that it was me but...What do I do?" she whined.

"Give him your poem."

"No, it's embarrassing."

"Go on, do it tomorrow then you have the whole weekend to worry...get over it." He paused, his face lighting up. "Hey Athena, do you think that Stephen could be your Ted Hughes? He's already more successful."

"Piss off, he's never had a girlfriend in his life and incredibly shy."

Throwing out her chair, enabling her to put her head on the table, she banged it repeatedly. Picking up the William Blake quote and raising her head to examine it she smiled. She tucked it back into her pocket. Rubbing a hand over her face, she groaned. The thought of approaching, Stephen again (or leaning down and slipping notes into the binder, which he put beneath his seat), made her queasy.

Taking out the notebook, she read over the poem after a week of purposely ignoring it.

"How are you?" she asked, her eyes drifting over to Klade and then darting over to Kwan.

"I'm at the point of criticising everything he does, like his K-Pop style hair and his too tight pants. So I think I'm getting over him," Klade said.

"Does that mean I can set you up with, Ty?"

"Is he really gay?"

"Yeah, he's been out openly, for a year, it happened right in the middle of English when we were discussing Virginia Woolf."

"Orlando?"

"Yes and the influence her affair with Vita Sackville-West had on the novel. Someone made an offensive, homophobic comment and Ty outed himself. Since then he's become publically out and proud."

"What are your other friends like?"

"Pretty boring, actually."

"Mine too."