LIZZIE'S WORLD: Over before it starts

Liz’s obsession with ‘the girl from church’ may just get in the way of her budding friendship with Gabriel.

Gabriel takes a large sip of his whisky and cuts himself a slice of pizza, which he carefully places on his plate.

“I’m waiting for you to fill me in about the girl,” I poke, as I sit back and watch him.

“Oh, well, nothing happened there,” he says. “She’s just acts like she’s interested in me sometimes. But you know you women are hard to read.”

“Have you been out on a date?”

He shrugs then frowns. “We’ve gone out for church activities – you know, we’ve hiked the Longonot crater, that sort of thing.”

“Church activities?” I raise an eyebrow. I would have thought those would involve Bible study and other yawn-inducing stuff.

“Yea, our pastor started this singles’ ministry to get all the single people in church to get to know each other in a safe-,” he wriggles his fingers around that last word, “-environment. So we have group activities and wait to see which people will catch onto each other.”

“Interesting phrasing there,” I say, reaching out for a bit of food. “So she ‘caught’ onto you?”

He laughs a loud, hearty laugh. “Well, she asked me if we could hang out, just me and her, a few times. I’ve been promising to make time but…” he shakes his head, “…work is heavy.”

“And yet here you are, with me, just the two of us, having lunch. Is it really that difficult to do the same with her?”

Gabriel turns to give me an amused look. “This is different.”

“Oh? How so?”

He shrugs, takes a bite of his slice. “You were my guest at church today. I owe you a meal for keeping you hungry all that time. Tell me about you.”

“What do you want to know?” I ask. This is the part I hate about dating someone – the awkward first stage where you ask all of these supposedly deep questions that don’t get you anything but PR-regulated answers. “Didn’t Jo and Johann give you the lowdown before they dragged you out to dinner last night?”

We both laugh, and get to reminiscing about the events of the evening before, and how difficult it was to warm up to each other. But I can’t get the pretty girl from church off my mind, and eventually, she comes back into the conversation.

“So what’s her name?” I ask Gabriel. We’re close to winding up our meal and I am almost done with my glass of wine, and contemplating ordering a second one.

“Who?” Gabriel frowns.

“The girl from church.” He furrows his brow as if he doesn’t know who I am talking about. “The pretty one you were just talking to!” I punch him lightly in the arm.

“You mean June?”

“Ah, June. That’s a pretty name,” I say, remembering her long locks and curvy hips. I don’t understand why he is not attracted to her – I would be if I were a guy. “Why don’t you want her?”

“Who, June?” Gabriel turns to look at me.

“Yes, June!” I try to temper my serious enquiry with a playful laugh.

“I dunno, she’s not really my type,” he says.

“Who is your type,”

“Someone more…,” he waves his hand vaguely in the air, “I mean, she’s just … I don’t know.”

I think he’s lying. She the kind of woman any man would find hard to resist. “Liz, would you call yourself insecure?”

“What? Who? Me?” I feign. “Absolutely not. Why?”

“You’ve spent half our lunch asking me about a woman I am not even interested in,” he points out. I blush heavily.

“Ok, I’ll stop,” I say. A waiter ambles past our table and I am just about to propose a second round of drinks and change of topic, but Gabriel signals him and asks for the bill instead.

“I have to go, I have a few reports I need to go home and finish and it will be a while,” he says, as he opens his wallet to bring out a debit card. “Do you want to stay? It’s a lovely day and I can buy you another drink to keep you company,” he proposes. I shake my head. In any case, I have left my car in the church compound and I need him to ferry me back to it.

We enter the car silently; I don’t know why he is silent but I know that I am scared to open my mouth in case ‘June’ slips out. We get to the church and say our goodbyes, but he seems distracted and doesn’t even offer to open my car door. ‘Way to mess that up, Liz,’ I think to myself as I enter my car; I guess this will be the last I see of Gabriel.