Rescue and Run
Sarah sits in a steamed-up café staring at her phone on the table, waiting. Waiting for a text from her best friend Bradley, which could come any second between now and the next hour… or never. She’d agreed to this arrangement only once before for him – something he proudly calls “Rescue and Run”. A ruse that has her holedup nearby waiting for a text that means she needs to gatecrash his terrible first date with a fake emergency so he can leave. And after the first time, she told him, explicitly, she would not be doing it again in a hurry.
She’d felt bad for her; the date.
“But what about me?” Bradley had grinned, posting a chip shop chip into his mouth from an open cone of them.
“You rescued your friend from a terrible date with a rude snob. You did good!”
Then he’d put his arm around her and said, “Rescue and Run is friendship law, Sarah. You can call on me when you need it too.”
But Sarah never has. Because Sarah doesn’t date. She’s a cynic with most things (psychics, fate, airline luggage fees), but when it comes to love, she believes in the old-fashioned way. Roses, dinners and thoughtfulness. Dates that bloom from a conversation struck up in a coffee shop queue. To Sarah, falling in love shouldn’t require an app.
Bradley though. Bradley plays the apps like a game of poker and it suits him. He’s affable. Up for anything. A does-things-and-thinks-later type.
“Nobody can handle me,” he once said, laughing. “Except maybe my scary Science teacher Mr Gordon. And you.”
Sarah finds herself smiling now, thinking about him. She wipes it off her face with a sip of her cappuccino.
She’ll leave the café soon. She’s not waiting here longer than the agreed hour, in a stuffy greasy spoon, knives slicing through liver and bacon at too-close-together tables on a Friday night. But for Bradley, Sarah would do pretty much anything, despite herself.
“Because you’re secretly in love with him,” her sister often says, and Sarah always scoffs. “Love? A crush at a push.”
She stirs the frothy milk of her coffee, leaves a shape on the top like a question mark.
And there is a crush. Always has been, since they met at work eight years ago – seasonal jobs at a theme park. Sarah at a hotdog booth, Bradley hired to play a prince to pose with guests for photos (of course).
But they had slipped into easy friendship, back then, and that’s how it’s stayed. Bradley is her friend. A friend who’s sitting in the restaurant next door with a date he seems
She has a crush on him, he doesn’t see her like that
quite serious about, no less. He doesn’t see her like that.
Bradley is nervous about this date. And he’s never nervous. He’s an actor, for God’s sake. He’s been on stage in nothing but a loin cloth before and felt nothing more than, “Let’s hope the safety pins hold.” And yet tonight, for this date, he’s all heartbeats and sweaty palms.
This feels right. More than anything has in a long time. But is he doing the right thing? He never normally does this – old-fashioned stuff his best friend Sarah’s always banging on about. Flowers, a romantic restaurant, candles, a nice shirt that Sarah helped him choose.
It’s why he made Sarah wait next door in that tiny café, for the text. Because he could change his mind at any point. He could send the text, or not. Because he knows it’s a risk. But he also feels it’s time.
He sets the flowers down and picks up his phone.
Time is almost up. It’s obviously going well, Sarah ponders, which means her plan B will soon be activated – a walk home, via M&S to pick through all the cut-price picnic food which she’ll eat later in front of a film as, streets away, Bradley moves closer to his date. He’ll make her laugh with all those anecdotes of his; remember all the tiny details about her, like he does.
Her phone rumbles on the table, jingling a can of cutlery.
imessage from Bradley: Rescue and Run Sarah places her half-finished coffee down and stands like a detective called to an important case. This is where the drama tips she’s picked up from helping Bradley learn his lines over the years come in.
The smell of garlic and griddled lobster swarms her as she enters the restaurant. Oh, she’s going to make him buy her so much picnic food after this, to say thanks. She’s starving.
She scans the dim room, finds him at a round table flickering with candlelight. This is very romantic for Bradley. He must have really thought this was going to go well, this date… wherever the date herself, is. Because he’s alone.
He stands and smiles. What is he doing? Maybe the date got there first and had her own Rescue and Run waiting next door.
They’ll laugh so hard together if that’s the case. She crosses the floor towards him, arms outstretched at her sides. A wordless, “Huh?” He presents her with a bouquet. Roses. “Hey,” he smiles.
“So, where is she?” Sarah asks, but it’s like her heart knows before her head, because it stops in her chest.
“Here,” he says, looking at her. “I was wondering if you’d like to join me for dinner?”