“Owen from Halifax, meet…uh—wait, remind me,” Tessa said.
“Phoebe from Sheffield,” the blue-haired girl said. “Hi, Owen.”
“Hi, Phoebe from Sheffield,” Owen said. “I like your hair.”
He wasn’t lying. The hair grounded her appearance. It drew attention and deflected it. Phoebe figured out that Owen wasn’t Canadian as soon as he said, “Hi, Phoebe.”
“Never been to Halifax,” Phoebe said with a heavy northern accent.
“Glad to hear it,” Owen said.
“Tell me about it,” Phoebe said.
“It’s a great place to visit. We’ve got more pubs per capita than anywhere else in Canada.”
“And, tell me, what do Halifaxians do for fun?”
“Haligonians,” Owen said, delighted to have that correction on hand. “We drink. Wasn’t that clear?”
“What’s the population of Halifax?”
“Few hundred thousand,” Owen said.
“Sport?”
“Hockey.”
“What’s your team?”
“I’m a Moosehead,” Owen said.
“When you’re rooting for your team, what team are you rooting against?” Phoebe asked.
Owen knew she was trying to trip him. “I give up,” Owen said, dipping into a whisper. “I’m from Boston. Please don’t tell anyone.”
“No!” Phoebe said, feigning shock.
Having used the Canadian bluff herself, she didn’t hold it against him. Still, she maintained her heavy northern accent and never suggested that they had a country of origin in common. She didn’t want to be herself, especially that night.
Owen watched Phoebe devour another bowl of pretzels.
“Why don’t we get some real food?” Owen suggested.
The new friends left the bar and found a chip shop down the road. Phoebe inhaled her order—so fast that Owen briefly wondered if she’d slyly tossed the newspaper cone of potatoes when he wasn’t looking.
“That was impressive,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “What should we do now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Want to come back to my place? We’ve got a good liquor cabinet.”
Owen hesitated. The we threw him. He thought she might be trying to get even with a boyfriend.
“No pressure. Just to hang,” Phoebe clarified, noting his pause.
Owen asked about the first-person plural. Phoebe clarified that her mother owned the apartment but she wouldn’t be home. Owen and Phoebe left the shop and headed back to the apartment. Phoebe picked up a couple of bags of crisps on the way.
“This is it,” Phoebe said, nodding at a well-kept Edwardian structure surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. Owen followed Phoebe through a pristine foyer that had a couch and coffee table and then up two flights of stairs. She stopped in front of a door and put her ear to it, listening. Owen thought he might have heard a male voice inside. Phoebe said, “Run,” in an urgent whisper, and they raced down the hall and took the stairs.
Outside, as they caught their breath, Phoebe apologized. “We can’t stay there. Sorry,” she said.
“Come back with me,” Owen said. “My place is small, but I don’t have any roommates.”
“Okay,” she said. She didn’t know where else she’d go.
On the way to the tube station, Phoebe suggested they get one for the road. They dashed down a few whiskeys and then headed for the train. It was a thirty-minute ride to Owen’s stop. The brightness of the train made them feel exposed. They hardly said a word. When they arrived at Owen’s studio apartment, Phoebe asked if he had anything to eat.
Owen poured the bags of crisps into a bowl and reviewed the contents of his refrigerator. He offered to scramble eggs. She declined. Owen then crawled under his bed to retrieve a bottle of Macallan. He remembered hiding it there when he had a few friends over. He’d been tired and figured they would leave once he ran out of booze.
“What else have you got under there?” Phoebe asked.
“Just this,” Owen said, uncorking the bottle and pouring two glasses.
“Cheers,” she said.
They clinked glasses and drank.
“What were we running from at the apartment? Was that your boyfriend? Or your ex?” Owen asked.
“No,” she said. “That was the bloke my mum plans to marry.”
“Why’d we run?” Owen asked.
She topped off her glass, then his. “It’s a long story,” she said. “And fucking dull.”