Waking up to the moon

He could have been in an accident, maybe someone’s died, hopefully his phone was stolen. Not one of these helpful thoughts does the trick. There’s no thought challenging that can get around the fact that my date, who I had for some reason pinned unreasonable hope onto, is not turning up.

I can just imagine what Ellie will say. I’ll never live down the moon man who ghosted me.

“What sort of a date is that?” she’d said, when I’d told her that he’d suggested we meet at the top of the cliff over the river to watch the moon.

“A romantic one,” I’d said, to which she’d countered, “Or a cheap one.”

Maybe a moon man is what I need anyway– someone who still believes in the mystique of the world and doesn’t just look up and see the end of another day in the sky.

You do not need that I hear in Ellie’s voice even though she’s not actually said that. She/I am right – there’s nothing magical about a full moon, it simply looks pretty. I take a deep breath and look down at the water below. I listen to the soft lapping sound of the tide on the rocks and try to be mindful, but my thoughts are like the tide – pushing and pulling and bringing in bits of driftwood and miscellaneous crap. It’s funny how even with the randomness of life some people believe in fate, funnier still that clients of mine who’ve been through such trauma can still feel they have some pull, that they can ‘manifest’ their wants. But truthfully, I’ve tried to manifest myself a man tonight and not just any man, but the one I’ve been waiting for. I’ve really hyped myself up. The sultry day, the breeze that’s making me feel just cool enough to need an offered jacket, the way my hair just woke up for this day, curled in an unusually sexy way.

But feelings don’t control the world – if they did, I wouldn’t have a job – or maybe I’d have more of a job…

I wish I had something to throw into the water, though its too far to be a gentle game of poo sticks and with how I’m feeling I might be a bit forceful which is probably not the vibe the couple crowd here needs. I look around again and it is not as exclusively couples based as my mind thought. There are a few people with telescopes and a family. Near the stairs, right in my peripheral vision, I notice him – a tall man, lanky in the extreme, dressed in a suit.

It’s too far to see his face but he straightens out and starts walking in my direction. I look away in embarrassment and when I glance back he is walking over to me. I feel my heart beating and even though the light is too dim to make out his face, my body tenses up and I realise I’ve been holding my breath.

And just as I think this is it, a group (his group?) close the space between us. Are you kidding me? I look up at the moon as if it’s a malevolent God.

“Kate?”

I almost jump out of my skin. The voice is deep, warm, and yet…

Familiar. Shit.

“Oh, Ian, hi, I, I didn’t recognise you from…”

I awkwardly gesture the distance factor as if that would explain why I was staring at him with googly eyes.

He says nothing, which is about what I’d expect.

“I was waiting for, you know… someone but looks like I’ve been stood up.”

Six years of training and the ability to sit in silence but this ass gets me oversharing just with the raise of one dark eyebrow.

“Yeah, I figured,” he replies, looking at me all too steadily, his tell-me-your-secret eyes boring into mine. You think blue eyes are attractive until you meet someone like this, someone whose gaze makes you feel uncomfortable, like they’re dividing and summing you up rapidly.

“I think most people might feign surprise when someone’s been stood up,” I reply, all but pulling off the sass except for averting my eyes.

There’s a beat before he replies but I miss it’s meaning since I’m looking out at the moon again.

“The fact in itself is surprising,” he says, his voice all measured and slow as always, “but since I saw you standing here awhile, clearly waiting and looking particularly beautiful, it was apparent to me.”

I don’t know what to say back to that, so I laugh awkwardly and oh God, I’m starting to ramble.

“Yeah well, we’ve all been there and now I’m stuck alone watching the bloody moon.”

I gesture up to it like my fate is the ball in the sky’s fault.

“I mean I should have known it wasn’t going to work, I never even notice the moon.”

He’s looking at me, the slight smirk edging its way across his mouth as he says, “I hardly think interest in astronomy is essential to compatibility.”

Great, he’s laughing at me now, though I start to see the humour too until… oh shit. I have to ask.

“So, are you meeting someone here?”

“Nope, just me on my own, watching the ‘bloody moon.’

We both laugh until he speaks again.

“But this isn’t a blood moon, that’s not till the 24^th.”

I look at him and feel my mouth part slightly in surprise.

“I’m just joking, I’m not that into astronomy,” he says and this time the smirk turns into a grin.

Dr Ian Parker, Dr medical model, Dr efficiency himself, is grinning at me.

I look down at the water again and it glimmers, constantly changing, approaching and retreating, whether we notice or not.

“You must be tired after today.”

The mind reading again – or maybe he’s noticing how I keep shifting my weight from one heeled foot to another. I straighten up and look at him. He must anticipate the reprimand because he looks momentarily flustered.

“I’ve had some assistance in cutting back my ‘overworking’ so I’m not feeling tired at all, thanks.”

This time I hold his eyes, and it’s a bit easier because for once he doesn’t look so self-assured.

“You know I was only trying to help you when I mentioned that,” he says, his voice lower and a frown on his face as if the prospect of this not being clear worries him.

What a piece of cake. No, wait that’s not right, I like cake – he’s a piece of work.

“Yes, it was super helpful to have Ann insist on an extra hour of supervision each week.”

It actually was but he doesn’t need to know that. His intent was clearly shitty – who criticises someone’s work in the staff room while their superior is there? And someone who is not even in that line of work – psychology is a hell of a lot different to psychiatry.

He actually tilts his head at this one, and far out why am I noticing how nice his jawline is and how his cheekbones look in the moonlight.

“I still can’t believe you told me I couldn’t give clients ‘so much extra time’ in front of my boss.”

I shake my head but again I can’t look at him, it’s too confrontational after I have before this moment left the situation and avoided him as much as possible.

“What?”

The blue eyes don’t have any of their examining qualities when I look back to them – they only seem worried and almost hurt.

“You tell me what that was about,” I say under my breath.

“I honestly had no idea Ann was there,” he says and he’s speaking quickly, breathlessly.

He must see the scepticism in my face because he continues, “I would never do that.”

“I’m sorry, how can you just ‘not see’ a person in that size room?”

“I don’t know, I’m an idiot.”

Did I just hear Dr genius call himself an idiot?

“I was really nervous to talk to you about it and I just saw you and focussed in.”

“Well why did you have to ‘talk to me about it?” I say.

My hands have gravitated to my hips in indignation, and I try to subtly drop them, but I’m sure it looks comical.

“Well I saw, you know, that client, and she said how you were doing all this extra time. Just splitting stuff – usual.”

I look away, I had missed that she was trying to split the team and it had been a huge embarrassment when I finally realised, about a month after Ian talked with me– messed with my confidence for ages.

“The client kept telling me how you were giving her extra time and I just knew you’d burn out if you kept going.”

“You knew I’d burn out?” I say. The words come out louder than anticipated and I find I’ve stepped closer to him when I look up and I can see the stubble above his full lips.

“Look, I almost have, lots of times. And I was the same with her at first – sessions over by 5 minutes, 10, then you’re going a whole 20 minutes over.”

Twenty minutes over session time is like an hour over time in psychologist money and he surprises me again.

“I really wasn’t trying to make you look bad to Ann.”

I feel my body relax, the indignation dissipating though a discomfort in my stomach remains. Come to think of it, I often feel this way around him and in the light of the moonlight the possibility that it could be attraction and not just pure dislike presents itself.

“I should have just admitted that that client really challenged my boundaries at the start too.”

I don’t know what to say and I find myself staring at the fine thread on his suit jacket. The suit is grey, silver in the moonlight, and it fits his lean body perfectly.

“Are you cold?” he says, taking off the jacket I’ve been staring at and offering it to me. He has on a crisp white shirt underneath, also fitted. Despite his height he has a small frame, almost petite, and I wonder if I took this jacket if he’d be cold.

I go to say no but when I see his expression something makes me take the jacket. It’s warm against my bare arms and I realise how vain and silly I must seem to be wearing such a light dress in the wind. It would hardly help to explain that in my imagination it was a balmy night, nor that I didn’t factor in the wind/water factor and assumed it would be fine since it is technically Summer.

“So, is this why you avoid me?”

“I don’t avoid you,” I say, but we both know I’m lying.

“And you always disagree with me in case conferences,” he adds.

“You mean when you question all of my ideas?” I say. My voice comes out teasing and it’s in this moment I realise that the pushback I get from him about shared clients maybe doesn’t bother me as much as I thought.

“I like seeing how your brain works,” he says.

“Shouldn’t you know that,” I say and have a strange urge to reach out and touch him. Maybe it’s this jacket, his warmth already enveloping me comfortably.

“Well you seem pretty clueless about my brain too,” he replies and it’s suddenly serious, so serious I have to look away, back to the moon.

“It’s weird how the moon is always there but we only really notice it when it’s so… big,” I finish lamely.

“I always notice the moon,” he says, his eyes still stuck on me as if I am the moon and he a moth.

“I should go now.”

Apparently he’s not a moth, more of a bee, buzzing around confusing and dazzling me till he stings for no reason at all.

“Yes of course, me too,” I say, shedding his jacket so quickly that one arm gets stuck, and I clumsily readjust.

“I really wish I could stay, I’m just having dinner with my family up at La Dolce,” he gestures in the direction I assume the restaurant is.

“Oh, of course,” I mumble, before more decisively adding, “I’ll see you at work then.”

I hold out the jacket, and he takes a minute to take it. Our hands brush as I return it and it’s like a parting warmth with something else – pleasant and uncomfortable at the same time.

“I’m actually changing jobs,” he says.

“Oh, congratulations,” I say. It’s too much to process – this different, nice Ian, who maybe never had it in for me and who excites me intellectually and in other, unexpected ways – and who now is leaving.

“Well, good luck with everything,” I say, and it comes out formal and cold, even as I can still feel and smell him on me.

It’s Ian who is looking up at the moon this time and when he looks at me there’s an expression I’ve never seen before, nothing like the calm, controlled doctor who can take everyone’s instability and measure and sort it.

He visibly takes a deep breath, his trim chest heaving, then says, “I really like you Kate. Could we see each other outside work, see if there’s anything there?”

“Yes,” I hear myself say and he grabs my hand and gives it a squeeze, another burst of warmth, possibility.

I watch as his long legs carry him off quickly. Just as he is out of sight, I hear my phone buzz. I look down and it’s Ellie – Did you meet ‘him’? she’s texted with several emojis of the moon and lips and unfortunately an eggplant.

I smile and text back: Maybe I did.