My Date Had Two Bedrooms. Then a Third One Appeared.

Nina remembered the wall because Theo had kissed her beside it. Orange print, slightly crooked. Nice mouth, considerably more interesting than the print.

A week later, the wall was gone.

A bedroom stood there instead.

Theo was in the kitchen, pleased he'd cooked dinner without burning anything. Nina was forty, Theo forty-three, and until this point their dates in Launceston had been refreshingly uncomplicated.

"When did you get another bedroom?" she asked.

He remembered a room that hadn't been there

Theo came into the hall.

"That's always been the spare room."

"You said you had two bedrooms. Yours and the office."

He counted the doors.

"Right."

Inside were a narrow bed, a lamp and closed curtains. The window should have looked directly into the stairwell.

"I put a suitcase in there," he said.

"When?"

He didn't know. A moment later, he remembered vacuuming it too. Each memory seemed to arrive while they stood there.

Nina had come over hoping to see his bedroom. She hadn't expected to need proof of how many he owned.

He found his moving-in photos. One showed the orange print on a wall. The next showed the doorway. Same date. Same boxes on the floor.

"Did you edit it?" she asked.

"Why would I?"

"I'm trying the normal explanations before we get to the really fucked ones."

The room started using things they recognised

The lease said two bedrooms. The floor plan agreed.

From the hallway came a scraping sound.

There was a chair inside the room now. Neither remembered seeing it.

Theo switched on the light. A half-full glass stood beside the bed. There was a dent in the pillow.

"Hello?" he called.

Nothing answered.

He stayed outside the doorway. Nina was glad. Men doing something stupid to look brave had never been her thing.

Then he pointed at the blue bedspread.

"My aunt had that. When I was little."

Nina recognised the lamp. Her grandmother's, right down to the crooked seam.

The room was borrowing things from both of them.

"Get your keys," she said.

He turned off the cooker, grabbed an overnight bag and locked the flat.

The floor plan followed them out

They went to a late-night café. Theo rang his brother. Nina ordered tea. It was nice to make a request that produced something expected.

Theo opened the floor plan again.

Three bedrooms.

The new room fitted beside the stairwell, although the building hadn't got wider. Inside it were two tiny figures facing each other across a table.

One had Nina's handbag. The other had Theo's jacket over an arm.

Exactly as they were sitting now.

"Close the fucking laptop," Nina said.

His brother collected him. Outside, Theo apologised about dinner.

"You didn't burn it," she said. "That part went well."

They hugged, longer than usual. Both seemed relieved the other felt solid.

At home, Nina photographed her hallway. Two doors, a cupboard, a wall.

In the morning, Theo called.

"The plan's changed again. We're not together in the room now. One figure's on a couch. One's in a kitchen."

Nina stood up from her couch.

He stopped speaking.

"What?" she asked.

"Yours just stood up."

She looked down her hallway.

Two doors. A cupboard. A wall.

For now.

For a different reason to leave your date's flat, read the mirror that started flirting.