Love Like Theirs

Her food arrived, and Keira ate with purpose, her ears burning from the sensation of being watched. She wondered whether everyone was looking at her with such judgment. But whenever she glanced about her at the few other diners they were all occupied with themselves, their own companions, their conversation, and their food. Only the middle-aged woman behind her seemed to be staring.

Keira grew more and more frustrated as she ate, formulating rebukes in her head for the woman along the lines of “Did no one ever teach you it’s rude to stare?” As her fries diminished, she worked herself up into something of a frenzy, gearing herself up to go over and say something. When her plate was empty, she turned to discover the woman had gone. The moment had passed.

So it was with great alarm she turned back to her table and discovered the woman standing over her. Keira squealed loudly.

“Sorry!” the woman said, holding her hands up. She had a Texan accent. “I didn’t mean to scare you!”

She was blond, with a heart-shaped face and delicate features.

“Where did you come from?” Keira exclaimed, looking around her, her heart racing with shock.

“I was just watching you all through dinner because I recognized your face,” the woman admitted.

She was blushing suddenly. She pulled something from her purse and handed it to Keira. To Keira’s surprise she was looking at an image of herself, in black and white, looking like a film star. And there was Cristiano. It was the front cover of Viatorum. The Paris issue.

“Oh,” Keira said, feeling a strange sense of loss over the sight of the image.

“It is you, isn’t it?” the woman asked hopefully.

“Yeah,” Keira replied, sounding glum. “That’s me.”

The woman clapped her hands. “I knew it! I knew it! None of my friends believed me.” She pointed to the bar, where the rest of her party had moved after vacating the dining table, and gave the four other women watching a thumbs-up.

The whole thing felt extremely odd to Keira. First Meredith in the office, then the taxi driver, and now this woman. She was becoming recognizable, something that, as a writer, she’d never really wanted to be! She knew she shouldn’t have taken the cover image. It was so mortifying to be recognized from that silly, fantastical image rather than the more sensible one in her by-line!