The day we met had been a rainy, quiet, lonely day. Like many, I’ve always enjoyed rainy days, but hated having to go out in the rain, wearing boots and armed with an umbrella (which, in reality, isn’t all that helpful and you still get wet). I had decided to stay home and read a book, drinking tea, but as soon as I sat myself down on the sofa with a steaming cup of tea and a book, I realized there was something missing. I wasn’t quite sure what, but it was missing and, even though I tried to ignore it, I became restless and was unable to focus on the words that blurred before my eyes. After rereading the same paragraph four times, with a sigh, I gave up and decided I had to discover what was missing in my set up.
I rearranged the furniture, moving the sofa next to the window, where there could be more natural light, and the coffee table to the middle of the room, and the lamp next to the couch (for night time), and the painting my sister had given me to the wall opposite the window, and the photos of my family to the coffee table, and the TV to my bedroom (which required more time and strength than I had thought), and, finally, I moved the cat’s bed from beneath the window (where it had been before I moved the sofa) to sitting directly under the painting.
The entire move took me longer than I had anticipated, but I was happy with the result, so I sat back down to read.
However, there was still something missing and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Too tired to move the furniture once more, I decided to clean.
I started with the kitchen – doing the dishes and cleaning the stove and rearranging the food in the fridge, and cleaning the floor and watering the flowers sitting on the corner of the kitchen. Then I moved to the bathroom, then the sitting room, then my bedroom (now a TV-bedroom), then I cleaned the windows and mirrors.
By the time I was done, it was past noon and I was starving. Too tired to cook, I decided to leave the house. I looked out the window and it still rained. Though this would’ve normally put me off leaving the house entirely, something told me I simply had to leave the house, so I put on my boots, a warm coat, armed myself with an umbrella so big it could fit a family of four under it, and left.
I trudged along the street looking for a place to eat, though I had no particular desires at that moment, so I ended up strolling around the neighbourhood until I found a nice, though rather empty, café. I sat on a round table with a simple white tablecloth and a rose in the middle, and ordered a piece of apple pie and a cup of black coffee. As I waited, I took a look around the café. All tables had a different flower sitting in the middle, and the same simple white tablecloth. A pregnant lady and her husband chatted happily about colour schemes for their baby’s room, and an old, elegant woman sat alone, reading a magazine and sipping on her coffee. And then I saw you. You were also alone, nervously twisting the edge of the tablecloth in your hands and looking around, constantly glancing back at the entrance, as if you were desperately waiting for someone to arrive. Then you looked at me. Like a schoolgirl that had been staring at her crush, I quickly looked away.
I couldn’t bring myself to look back at you, but I could feel your gaze on me at all times, as I ate my apple pie and drank my coffee and paid my bill and getting up to leave. As soon as I stepped out of the café, I felt a tap on my shoulder.
“Excuse me. I’m sorry, but are you, by any chance, Annabelle?”
“No, I’m not. I’m sorry,” I replied nervously.
“Oh,” a hint of disappointment in your voice, “Sorry. I know it sounds pathetic. A friend set me up with this girl, but she never showed up and I’ve been waiting for almost two hours now. Sorry for bothering you.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Maybe you should just go back home. If you’ve been waiting for two hours and she hasn’t showed up, she probably won’t anyways.”
In retrospect, that was quite blunt. I could see the disappointment in your eyes and your slumped shoulders, but you still nodded.
“I don’t know the area very well. Where can I get a cab?”
It might’ve been that I felt sorry for you, or it was my strange desire to talk more to you, but I told you I’d ring one for you from my place.
Perhaps not the best idea. There was no way of knowing if you were telling the truth about this Annabelle or if you were a psychopath just waiting for the perfect opportunity to viciously murder me and take a lock of my hair as a trophy, but I decided to take you to my apartment anyways. You thanked me profusely and introduced yourself.
Once inside, I rang the cab company and my cat curled on your lap, purring.
“Oh, she likes me!” You rubbed her head.
“Don’t be so excited. She’ll like anything that pets her,” I laughed, “The cab will take a little while because of the rain. You can wait here.”
You thanked me once again, and we were silent, sitting next to each other awkwardly on the sofa, my cat purring and the tap tap tap of raindrops on the window next to us.
“I’m really sorry to be a bother. I can’t believe she stood me up,” you whispered.
“Don’t worry about it. We’ve all been stood up at some point of our lives.”
We sat silently for a moment longer, then the cab arrived. I saw you to the cab and we said our goodbyes.
“Thank you. Once again.”
You smiled, and left. I waved.
And then I sat back down on the sofa with my book and the strange feeling that something was missing came back to haunt me. It nagged me incessantly.
What was missing? I couldn’t figure it out for the life of me.
Huh.
YES
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