The Planetarium

PART FIVE

PHIL HAD TO GO TO his buddy's wedding out of town on Juliet's birthday, which she was most pissed about. She came to me complaining over a cappuccino for a solid half an hour, saying that they'd had a reservation at Red's for two weeks.

"Hey, would you like to come instead?"

"Oh." I feigned polite surprise, as if I wasn't jumping over the moon. "That would be rad."

I was picking up her phrases now.

Neither of us had given up searching for the renowned stalker that terrorised Juliet's nightmares, and she seemed pleased he hadn't reared his ugly head for a while now. We'd scoped the library during study sessions, watching for lurkers, and I even let Juliet borrow my camera to video-record her apartment in case of another break-in.

The 13th came around, so I cleared the dust from my whitest, pressed shirt and unearthed a lonesome tie with the same flourish as an archeologist.

I didn't tell a soul about our reservation at the restaurant. On the website it looked very heavy and romantic, so I didn't want to paint the wrong impression. Instead, I fabricated a believable story about the planetarium, saying I was going to observe the constellation of Aquarius due to the breakthrough of Trappist-1.

Red's was a divine sort of place. Baroque in design, there were hundreds of candlelit tables clothed with white, seated by all sorts of beautiful people. Elegance seemed to be a prerequisite at this scene.

"Orpheus, over here!"

Juliet looked simply radiant. I had to physically prevent a double-take. She wore a classic black dress and her bushy hair was tamed and sleeker back for the occasion. I had never noticed how white and straight her teeth were, but now they were complimented by the ruby lipstick she adorned. Even her freckles had vanished.

"Hi! Happy birthday," I said.

"Don't you scrub up well," she beamed, as the cool waiter swept is through the crowd towards our table.

"You look great, too."

The lights glittered above like angels. When we got to the table we ordered a bottle of wine that had a name I couldn't pronounce.

Contrary to my expectations, the waiter didn't sneer at my lack of knowledge, but left and returned curtly with some highly polished glasses.

"I can't believe Phil," she shook her head, fiddling with a napkin. "Normally I wouldn't talk bad about him, and I get it's his friend's wedding and he promised to be there. But he's hardly texted me at all."

"Maybe they're on the booze, enjoying themselves," I suggested. I never knew how I was meant to respond to the burden of boyfriend drama.

"We were supposed to prep for our show, and Phil could hardly scrap it together after stag night. I had to do the majority of the presentation, and I swear, we nearly had dead air. Dead air! How ghastly."

The velvety wine washed down my palette with ease. For what felt like hours and hours, I listened to her carry on, fantasising about my fillet mignon. When it arrived, I was grateful for the opportunity of silence, chewing instead of obligatory conversation.

A few tables away, I spied a familiar face. My oncologist was seated with a napkin tucked in his collar to protect his tuxedo as he had his pea soup.