Page 10 of I Know How This Ends
Frankly, the end can’t come too soon.
“You really didn’t have to do this.”
With an impending sense of doom, I stare around Pasta La Vista for the third time in one week. Same red-checked tablecloths;
same tiny vases, same flowers; same piano music playing. I’m all for keeping the conditions of an experiment the same—it’s
basic science—but nobody needs to eat this much carbohydrate.
“I think I did.” Henry gestures solemnly toward my usual table. “You can’t compare and contrast hypothetical outcomes unless
there’s a constant baseline. So here it is. Your constant. Ideally, I would quite like the independent variable to be me.”
I stare at him briefly in genuine surprise.
That is exactly why I’ve come to the same place so many times: because I want to know that the data I collect is at least reliable, even if
the people sitting opposite me are not. Then I smile faintly. On the table is a little paper sign, scribbled with blue ink:
Margot Date Seventeen—Henry Armstrong, 42, Waiter and Loo-Roll Specialist .
“Tell me you’re at least not working again.” I take my normal chair. I’m starting to suspect the small puffy cushion on it
is slowly taking the form of my butt cheeks, like sand. “Because that’s taking the study a bit too far.”
“I’ve got the night off.” Henry gestures down at himself with a charming little flourish. “As you can tell from my lack of apron.”
I study him, waiting for any of the giddiness I felt in my daydream to return.
Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t. I feel nothing at all—an emptiness where fire should be—but Henry does look nice: dark blue jeans,
a black T-shirt and a chunky gray knitted cardigan because the weather has completely shifted in one day, as it tends to in
Bristol.
“Shame,” I say, noticing that I tower over him this evening by at least five inches. I didn’t wear my highest heels, but I didn’t wear flats either. “It was the apron I was most looking forward to.”
“I suspected as much.” Henry sits down too and suddenly we’re the same height: he must have quite short legs. “I’ve got a
spare one out the back, just in case things take a downturn.”
I smile faintly and look at his large hands. The etched blue LR has gone—scrubbed off—and I feel unexpectedly sad, as if there was something important carved into a school desk and suddenly
a teacher has gone over it with a sander.
“Not married,” he adds, holding up his ringless left hand. “I wouldn’t dare.”
“Good. I’m still working through the last lot of free food.”
“I bet you are.” Henry laughs and it’s bright but low, like the sun setting. “Put the garlic mushrooms in the oven for twenty
minutes with some cheese and serve them on toast. Thank me later. I essentially live off whatever the chef gets wrong. Luckily,
he’s incredibly forgetful.”
All this does is remind me that Henry is a full-time waiter.
And now all I can think is: how would this work? Would we end up constantly fighting about money? More importantly, just how
much Italian food can one not-Italian woman eat in a lifetime?
Henry is studying my face calmly, and I’m abruptly mortified.
He can see what I’m thinking. I’m certain of it.
“If you’re worried about an income disparity between us,” he says easily, “then I’ll be honest, Margot. I am too. Frankly, my tip jar is overflowing and I shall need to place one hair over the lid to make sure you don’t steal it.”
I laugh and relax slightly. Why the hell am I already worrying about what will happen in twenty years’ time when we haven’t
even ordered a drink? Forecaster by profession, forecaster by nature.
I smooth down my navy dress. “Strong gold-digger vibes from me, huh?”
“Overwhelmingly so. Although a generous tipper, so I’ll overlook it.” Henry glances up and smiles as a waiter approaches our
table. He has white hair fluffed out like a koala. “Hello, Frank. How’s Mary’s poor back? Any better?”
“Nope.” Frank taps his pen on his notepad, clearly distracted. “Painkillers aren’t really working anymore.”
“Still cramping in both legs? Gets worse when she bends over?”
“Yup. They’re still saying she’s probably sprained a muscle.”
“I think it might be spinal stenosis,” Henry says after thinking about it for a few seconds. “She may need a lumbar laminectomy
if it doesn’t improve. Go back and say you need an X-ray and don’t take no for an answer.”
Frank’s face clears. “We will. Thank you. Are you both ready now?”
Henry nods and rubs his hands together. “Please.”
The waiter leaves and Henry turns back to see me staring at him with what I now realize is a slightly gaping, goldfish-shaped
mouth.
“What the hell was that?” I say bluntly. “Lumbar what ?”
“Laminectomy.” Henry smiles and shrugs. “I’ve been worried about Mary, so I did a bit of research last night. That’s all.”
I look at him with a reluctant bolt of respect: a man who researches things entirely unrelated to him is a man I instinctively
like.
“So what have you discovered about me?” I sit back a little coldly and assess his face again. His eyes have tiny sparks of amber shooting outward like crepuscular rays, the kind you see at sunset in hazy conditions. “What data have you collected?”
Henry doesn’t look away.
Instead, he assesses me quietly for a few seconds while he thinks about it. I wriggle slightly, pinned down, a cell under
a microscope. It’s an incredibly rare quality: the ability to sort through your own thoughts before you answer. We’re all
so trained to believe that an immediate response shows intelligence when actually there’s more weight to a pause. A beautiful
kind of gravity that keeps everything pinned down while we spin.
I feel something inside me go strangely still, as if pulled downward.
“I know your name is Margot Wayward. I know you’re thirty-six years old and are absolutely not a ‘bloody Weather Girl.’”
“I actually kind of am,” I admit with a small smile. “I just don’t like being told what I am by other people.”
“Noted.” Henry nods, still observing me gravely. “I know that you can be sharp-tongued and merciless, biting and brutal, but
you can also be kind, witty and thoughtful.”
My cheeks abruptly hit 90 degrees Celsius. “I don’t know about that.”
“I’ve watched you listen to the most inane monologues I’ve ever heard in my life without interrupting once. Date Thirteen,
for instance. A forty-minute rant about exactly how many reps he does at the gym, which muscles he works on, how often he
fasts for ‘increased energy’—and all you did was ask questions and listen.”
I shrug, embarrassed. “If somebody’s passionate about something, who am I to tell them it’s boring? I talk about clouds for
a living.”
“Right. Except nobody has asked you. I’ve watched, and not one date cared.”
I clear my throat. “Nope.”
“I know that you’re a good friend, because you’re constantly leaving voice notes and answering texts as soon as your date
goes to the bathroom. I know that you adore your grandfather and feel very guilty that you haven’t seen him much recently.”
I stare at him. “How the hell do you—”
“Because on Date Three, Date Eight and Date Fourteen, you left him voicemails checking he’d eaten and asking if there was
anything he needed. And you apologized profusely. You could hear how much you love him in your voice.”
I flinch slightly. Date Fourteen: that was two whole weeks ago.
“Everyone loves their grandparents.” I start playing with my fork. “That’s like saying I don’t kick puppies for fun. Nice,
but not exactly noteworthy.”
“I know that you don’t appear to think very highly of yourself.” Henry’s eyes are suddenly soft and the amber is brighter.
“At all. And when you’re complimented in any way, you play with cutlery on the table.”
I quickly put the fork down. “Oh.”
“And, finally, I know that when Date Fourteen gave you ‘six out of ten,’ I nearly walked over and punched him straight in
the gullet.”
I look up in surprise. “Did you?”
“Rating women as if they’re Amazon purchases.” He scowls, bushy eyebrows gathering, his forehead lines deeper. “‘I ordered
a size ten and got a size twelve instead, very unhappy, want a full refund.’ He can go fuck himself.”
I laugh, surprised by his sudden cursing.
“Wow.” I’m a little confused about why I don’t feel more creeped out. This man has been watching me incredibly closely. “So
have you been making notes about me, then? In your little waiter notepad?” I flush again. “Sorry, I don’t mean little waiter notepad. That was incredibly patronizing. I just mean it’s small. Physically. Not figuratively.”
“It is small.” Henry lifts his eyebrows but doesn’t seem offended. “No. I just pay attention. I have a naturally good memory. And I was standing right next to your table for a lot of it. Literally two feet away. Waiting to take your order.”
This takes the heat in my cheeks to an entirely new level.
“Of course you were. Sorry.”
“That’s fine. A good waiter is one who disappears so you can enjoy whoever you came here with. Or not, in your case.”
I can feel myself assessing Henry again. His eyes are kind, slightly solemn, and they’re eyes I recognize. Eyes too old for
his face. And I suddenly realize why I don’t find his powers of observation “creepy” or odd: because I do it too. We are the
watchers, with our tiny figurative notepads, putting together the details, collecting the rain.
Something in my stomach starts to hurt again.
“That’s enough about me,” I say as lightly as I can, fiddling with my spoon and then wincing and consciously putting it down.
“I’ve not had the chance to research you yet, so what is it that—”
You’re passionate about , I want to say, but Frank arrives carrying trays of food.
Many, many, many trays.
“Did we order?” My stomach plummets. “I don’t remember ordering.”