Amber had taken Martha to her favorite vegan restaurant, which happened to be very close to where Martha lived. Since they’d sat down, Amber seemed lost in thought.

“You’re miles away,” Martha said. “It is the food or the company?” Second date nerves prevented her smile from stretching to its widest.

“I’m sorry,” Amber said. “This week is killing me. The contrast with my time in India is too big. A retreat like the one I was on is so valuable. I felt fully recharged when I got back, but I’ve had a lot on my mind since then.”

“I hope you’ve had some time left to think about me.” One look into Amber’s eyes, and Martha didn’t care that she was coming on a tad strong.

“I think thoughts of you may have taken up most of my emotional bandwidth,” Amber said.

Martha grinned. “Good. I think.”

Amber glanced at Martha’s still half-full plate.

“It’s not the food,” Martha quickly said. “I promise.” She was a really bad liar.

“I should have taken you to a more transitional place. I realize now this one might be a bit too hardcore.”

Martha shook her head. “When we were on our first date, I’d look at you and I’d sometimes think you were from another place and time.” She paused. “Don’t get me wrong. I think you are beautiful and kind and intelligent. Well, that was my first-date impression of you, anyway, but we’ve lead such different lives. I’m older, of course. Only by nine years, which at our age shouldn’t matter that much, I believe, but, god, Amber, I’m in awe of you when it comes to certain choices you’ve made. Especially the ones I was always afraid to make myself.”

“You mean you should have become a vegan years ago?” Amber quipped while a small blush crept up her cheeks.

“If you’re using the word vegan as a euphemism. Yes, then I guess that’s what I mean.” Martha chuckled. She didn’t care much about the food, because it simply felt good to sit here and talk about big and small things.

“It was never a choice for me.” Amber no longer had any trouble staring deeply into Martha’s eyes. “I only came out to my parents when I was twenty-five, but by then I’d known for a decade that I would never be with men. There’s a big difference between knowing and making the choice to be open about it.”

“Tell me about it.” Martha made another attempt at stabbing at her food, then put her cutlery down. “How did your parents take it?”

“Really well. Because they’d known for such a long time already and they were happy that I’d finally told them. That it was all out in the open. That I could finally become my true self and be happy.”

“And did you? Become happy?”

“As happy as a twenty-something junior marketing manager working for a big corporation, who was about to have her heart severely broken for the first time, could be.”

Martha nodded thoughtfully. “When I was twenty-five, I’d been a mother for a year. And Liam was already a twinkle in his father’s eyes.”

“I can’t even imagine. Twenty-four is so young to be a mother.”

“I know. Trevor and I married when he graduated and I was still at university. Looking back now, it was madness. I can’t imagine Stella, who just turned twenty, about to be married. It seems so ludicrous now.”

“Plenty of people still do, though,” Amber said.

“I know, but it’s just too young. What do you know about the world when you’re twenty-one? Especially when you’re still at uni.” Martha shook her head. “I certainly didn’t have much of a clue of what I was doing then.”

“It didn’t stop you from getting your PhD and becoming a professor. That must not have been easy.”

“I waited until they were old enough. And by that I mean old enough for me to leave them with a nanny or their grandparents without feeling too guilty. Trevor was pretty good about it as well. I can fault him for many things, but not for not having sufficiently feminist views in the nineties.” She gave a forced laugh. “I suppose that, for the longest time, I just didn’t give myself a spare second to even think about what I really wanted. All my life, I’ve been so incredibly busy. Children. Studying. My career. It literally took my husband leaving me to take a step in the right direction.”

“And how did that first step go?”

Martha took a sip from the organic wine she’d been served and found it very hard not to screw up her face in disgust. “I was fifty when I took my first steps. You can imagine how that went.”

“Tell me,” Amber insisted.

“At first, Trevor and I splitting up caused quite a ruckus at the university, what with him being Vice-Chancellor and me also working there. It wasn’t a student, by the way, whom he left me for. She’s twenty years younger than me, but fully graduated. Stella told me the other day that she’s been nagging Trevor for a child.” Martha huffed out the most disdainful of chuckles. “But I guess for men it’s not that uncommon to become a parent again at almost sixty. Still, he’s a grandfather. His grandchildren would be older than this child.” She couldn’t help but shake her head again. “Anyway, news about our break-up and the reasons for it spread quickly on campus. Gossip really thrives in a place like that. To this day I still have no idea how word broke about me being interested in women, but let me just say I was propositioned by a couple of students fairly quickly.” Martha arched her eyebrows. “Of course seeing a student is totally out of the question. At least, it is for me. I’ve been at the university long enough to know it does happen, but what would I do with a student, anyway? I’m not interested in youth that way. I wanted a woman. Someone mature. Someone who had lived a full life already, like me. Someone who didn’t need to be taught most of life’s lessons anymore.” She let her gaze linger on Amber, who had learned plenty of life’s harder lessons already— Martha knew that much. “But, right out of the gate, I didn’t fare so well.” Martha leaned back in her chair. “I’d known Sheryl for a while and I told her in the hopes that she could introduce me to like-minded women, which, ironically, she eventually did, though not for years later.” Martha threw in a dry chuckle. “I tried internet dating. I tried going to that bar just a few blocks from here that’s been around forever.” Martha twirled the stem of her wine glass between her fingers. “Reinventing yourself at fifty isn’t as easy as the myth of the midlife crisis would have you believe.”

“But you, er, have been with a—” A sudden blush appeared on Amber’s cheeks again.

“A woman before?” Martha completed the question for her. “Yes. Thank goodness, I have. I met someone, eventually. She was a professor in Melbourne. We met at a conference at her university. It was fun, but long distance. I guess in the end there wasn’t enough between us to keep the fire going. My life is here. If I want to, I can always be busy. I have classes. Research projects. Students to guide. Faculty meetings. And, despite being divorced, I have a family. I have children and grandchildren.” She pursed her lips together. “Long distance is not for me. In fact, the distance between Camperdown and Darlinghurst is far enough for me already.” Martha narrowed her eyes and watched Amber’s reaction.

“Do you ever take a break?” Amber asked, sounding genuinely worried.

“I’m taking the best possible break now, sitting across from a beautiful woman, drinking”—she cast a sideways glance at her wine glass—“frankly, rather questionable wine.” She broke out into a big smile. “I like you, Amber. And I will try to go slow with you, but well, at my age, I don’t have a lot of time to waste.” Had Martha really just said that?

“It sounds so enticing when you put it like that.” The skin around Amber’s eyes crinkled when she smiled.

They both burst into a mild bout of laughter and Martha concluded that if Amber was only feeling half of the promise of this that she was, there would be enough fire between them to bridge any distance—or anything else that could possibly stand between them.

“What time do you teach tomorrow?” Martha asked.

“My first class is at eleven.” Amber sighed with relief.

“How about we get out of here and I take you somewhere a bit more... wild?” Martha took great joy in the possible innuendo her invitation held.

“Take me there,” Amber said.