Short Story: Trudy

Trudy had her head down, eyes fixed on the pavement as she hurried back from the off licence. Some evenings your microwaved lasagna just cried out for an extra bottle of wine. The wind cut through the February night and she pulled her long coat around her, managing to rip the handle off the thin plastic bag in the process. She cursed as the bottle clunked on the paving stone but it didn’t break and she stooped to retrieve it. Small mercies.
It was when she stood up again that she realised she was outside the restaurant. Their restaurant. Their first date. And of course their last one when he had ended it, eight months and three days later.
She absently ran her hand through her wayward hair as she looked in, past the ghost of her reflection, remembering… Italian food, bottle of Lambrusco, charming smile.
That was at first, he had tried the same smile when he broke up with her and she had thrown a glass of that frigging Lambrusco into his face for his trouble.
Her eyes widened.
“She’s in there!” the wind took the words from her chapped lips.
That was Suzy! Dark hair in a pony-tail as she sat with her back to the window. What a little cow. Did she have any idea of what she’d done, how she’d ruined Trudy’s chance of happiness? Of course she didn’t. What the fuck did Suzy know? Consigning someone to the realms of on-line dating and desperate flirting at office socials? Not a pigging clue about that have you? Too young, too thin, too bloody pretty to know any better.
“Enjoy it while it lasts honey. In another ten years you’ll be older, fatter and plainer.” The wind didn’t take it all away this time and a couple going inside glanced warily at her.
Now was the time. She pushed the door open and marched in. The air inside was thick with the aroma of pasta and sauce reminding her of how hungry she was despite her mission. The place was busy even for mid-week, filled with conversation and the chinking of cutlery and glasses. She had time to see that nothing had changed; a cock-eyed Sophia Loren in a big red hat rendered by some struggling artist (possibly aged twelve and a half) still stared at her from behind the maître-d’s station, the fake beams were still hung with fake vine leaves, the same tables were candlelit by the same wax-spattered Chianti bottles.
Negotiating her way past the loaded dessert trolley in the aisle, she kept on the blind side of Miss Perfect.
She’d rehearsed this soundlessly in her head as she stared out of the train window in the mornings or unseeing at the television in the evenings. She would be calm and give her a smile, then she’d quietly demand to know what sort of person would steal someone else’s true love, how such a person could live with themselves after doing that, whether the guilt would keep that person awake at night. Then she’d call her a fucking bitch and be done with it.
She strode up to the table, and took a breath.
“Enjoying your wine Suzy? Stood you up has he?” she said loudly
Suzy turned round, glass in hand, eyebrows raised.
“Excuse me? My name’s not Suzy.”
“Ah.” Trudy replied, spinning on her heel “Carry on.”
Under her breath she called her a fucking bitch anyway for good measure.