Mrs Hudson left, and we walked into the tea house. It seemed that we were the only amateurs of the room…or the only ones in our thirties. We were surrounded by either old people, either little girls pretending to be grown-ups. And also a bunch of tourists thinking that this is what British people do on their free time. Neither of us looked up from the menu. When it was taken away, anyone could see the fear and embarrass in our eyes. We waited and drank our cups in silent, looking at the table or faking smiles.
Mary seemed she couldn't handle that awkward silent anymore and decided to talk. And the easy-found subject was the disaster I had the gut to call a « hen party ». She waited to say something nice, she tried really hard but I didn't let her finish her sentence. I knew that was boring. Even doing the housework was a delight in comparison. I tried really hard not to apologise for the hundredth time that I told exactly what I thought of that stupid idea of mine. That being said, I felt relieved. And thirsty. I needed a drink. But I couldn't tell Mary that I wanted to go to the bar, Sherlock already thinks I'm an alcoholic, that's enough. Besides, I didn't want her to feel that she had to come with me and continue this torture. Yet she looked at me with a smile, a genuine smile – surely the first of the evening – and talked about the list. For a second, I didn't understand why she brought that up. Then I saw the glint in her eyes and I thought of the bar. We paid the bill, took our coats and rushed out of that boring place. I swore to myself to never go back there before my hair had turned white.
We went to Soho, because it's obvious the best part of the town to have a drink and stopped in front of the French House. As always, it was crowed but we managed to slip inside and find a table. I summoned my courage and made my way to the bar. I came back to the table with a bottle of red wine and two glasses.
"Since we don't have a lot of things to tell each other, I brought this." I said as I put Cards against humanity on the table. Mary sat still for a moment before a gigantic smile appeared on her face. "I love this game!" she shouted.
I shuffled the cards, dealt the cards, and giggled seeing mine. Mary took the first question card:
"A romantic candlelit dinner would be incomplete without… I'd go for "dining with the cardboard cut-outs of the cast of Friends"
- - I'll start with the simple "riding off into the sunset"
- - I won, then.
- - Fair enough. My turn: What's the next Happy Meal toy?
- - This groovy new things called LSD.
- - Not bad….Dead babies.
- - You're starting to sound horrible. I like it!"
The more cards were played, the more glasses were drunk, and the less aware of other people and the horrible things that we were saying we became. Everyone was looking at us and we didn't care…until we were gently asked to leave the bar. I may have overreacted and had thrown my –mostly empty- glass at the guy. We took our coats, bags, the cards, the bottle and we left, laughing out loud.