The Doctor

36

Anna was wearing a black turtleneck and jeans, she had been told to dress nicely but not overdress and be outrageous. She was in a big meeting room, alone for the moment, waiting for Julie and her writing team or whatever to come in and discuss terms. Apparently, they needed her to sign things because a verbal agreement between Julie wasn't good enough. The book was just about to be released, it had rave reviews from critics and movie deals were on the table, people were all over Julie again, her name was popping up left and right. The man that led Anna into the room opened the door again, this time followed by a smiling Julie and a bunch of people with laptops and papers in their arms.

"Julie!" Anna stood up and gave Julie a hug that was warmly returned. 

"My God! You're tanned," Julie commented and sat down beside Anna's seat. "How's Stella going?"

"Good, she's back at work. Shorter shifts and only 5 in the arvo to 9."

"Good, good. How was Australia and Britain?"

One of the agents cleared his throat.

"Shut up Brian, I'm the one paying you! I'll catch up with a friend if I want." Julie leant forward and smiled at Anna. "To be fair, I do have to hurry along, I've got an interview soon."

Paperwork so handed to Anna, it was only a small piece of paper stating nothing serious and not signing over rights or anything, just giving permission for Anna's story to be used in fictional context. Anna read it over and looked around for a pen.

"You are sure you don't want any money from this?" Julie asked, pulling a pen out of her pocket.

Brian squirmed uncomfortably, Anna saying yes would mean more paperwork.

"Um," Anna thought. "I don't know. You'd give me a loan if I need money, won't you?"

Julie nodded and smiled. "You'll probably get money if we do a movie, I'd feel bad taking your story and making millions off it."

Anna laughed. "Well if you're making millions I'll take some thanks."

Julie smiled and looked at Anna with motherly concern. "Have you told Stella about this?"

"Um, yeah, sorta," Anna said with guilt.

"What do you mean 'sorta'?" Julie said slowly.

"Well, Stella's a private person, she's been hurt because of who she is so many times and I feel like if I said to her 'Hey! A world-famous author based a story on me and you're in it', she'd sort of freak out. It's not her story anyway, it's me and she might have completely the opposite reaction."

Julie looked at her for a while not saying anything. "Whatever you think then," she said slowly.

"Trust me, it's better this way and I'll end up buying the book for the bookshelf and she'll have to read it because that would annoy her."

"What would annoy her?"

"A book on the bookshelf that she hasn't read."

"Right," Julie nodded and tapped Anna on the leg before getting up, Anna standing up beside her. "I've got to get going, thanks for coming in. I'm going to invite you and Stella over for tea at mine with my family, see if you can talk some sense into my daughter that's married to a man."

"Julie, you know that she's straight."

Julie shrugged. "A mother can only hope. Right, Brian, call the car or whatever."

Brian left the room, rolling his eyes and muttering under his breath as he left.

"Should you be a bit nicer to him?" Anna teased but meaning it all the same. 

"Oh, he's my grandchild, I love him dearly." Julie gave Anna a hug. "See you then dear."

"Bye," Anna farewelled and got her coat on before walking out the door, down the lift and out of the building onto the busy street.

Being in America was lonely, even if the streets were packed and the city never slept. Compared to when Anna was with Stella every moment of every day it was so horrible that Anna could feel the same sadness creeping back in, she had tried her best to outrun it, she'd rang Mark and opened up to Stella about it, but being away from people that Anna knew was hard. They didn't start living together, instead, they went back to their old routine of living, hoping that one another would ring each other to ask if they wanted to stay over. They both knew that they wanted to live together, but the conversation hadn't been brought up and even after a year of being together and seeing each other ugly cry, somethings were hard to bring up in conversation. 

Anna turned into the vegetable grocer she went in every week, not because she necessary needed a bunch of veggies, but because the girl that worked there was nice and Anna couldn't figure out a way to ask her for coffee or something just as a friend. 

"Hey, Anna," Maria called out from behind the counter and walked around to her. 

"Hey, Maria," Anna said and smiled at her. 

"How'd your trip go?" Maria asked, fiddling with the apple display as a distraction.

"It was good, it was... fun," Anna replied in her blase manner. "Hey, you don't have Davidson's plum do you?"

Maria looked at Anna with a blank expression. "I've never heard of it."

"Oh, it's just Australian and I was wondering." Anna walked down an aisle, looking up at Maria who's eyes were following her. 

"Do you need anything in particular?"

"Um, I was just going to make roast potatoes for dinner, I hope my girlfriend isn't expecting anything fancy."

Maria raised her eyebrows. "Girlfriend?"

"Yeah, one year."

"Oh. Potatoes are down the aisle." She turned and walked back to the counter and when Anna checked out her veggies, she was cold and rude. 

Stella unlocked Anna's apartment that night and was greeted with the smell of bacon in the air. She walked down the hallway and smiled at Anna who was seated at the bench and reading a book, she walked behind her kissed her neck. Anna turned around and kiss her cheek.

"Hey," she said softly, "how was work?"

Stella groaned and sat down on the couch. "It was ok, a bit boring. What did you get up to?"

"I met with Julie, then I went to the veggie store, apparently the girl is homophobic so I won't be going back there again, and now I'm cooking roast potato."

Stella closed her eyes as if in pain. "What'd she say to you?"

"Nothing, just you came up and after that, she was all cold and rude. I'm fine though, I don't have time to waste on people like that."

"Yeah," Stella said slowly, homophobia was something that she'd faced all her life in all cracks of her life, it was a big deal to her. 

"I've been thinking also," Anna begun and came around to Stella. "Well, we've been together a year and nearly a month, and we've just come from being together every single day to hardly seeing each other and I was wondering... Well, if you want to... Can we move in together?" 

Stella looked at her and smiled, glad that it'd been said. "I've been thinking also and I want to leave America."