A short note. this story is my 900th in this series and I cannot recall a single day missing writing one. I am setting a goal of 1000 and then, if I make it, MAY retire.
We have a date. I am pleased, delighted but still after eight years of friendship, can’t bring myself to call our getting together, our meeting a ‘date date’. He’s such a good friend with a heart bigger than a dinosaur’s.
Leon has taken me, a long time widow, under his wing. He has two of them and there is plenty of room for others like me, sorta, kinda, lonely. How he tolerates me and my constant criticisms I’ll never understand –or stop. I tell my aging friend he needs to lose weight, see a good audiologist and get hearing aids, stop riding your bike 10 miles a day in three digit temperatures. Why he doesn’t toss me to the wind, let me live a solitary life most of the time, I can only guess. It’s that big heart of his that beats to another drummer.
So far, nothing in this story pertains to what is coming so you can, skip it and start here–if you can possibly figure out how to do that. Ready, set go!
Leon and I were going to a neighborhood movie. I had selected the film, checked the timing and told him film starts at 2 and as usual I’d be waiting in the lobby. Aware that he lives 25 minutes away, I add, ‘Be sure to be here by 1:45 so we can get good seats.’ And he knew that I, the always early bird, would be there 1:30.
The lobby was cooler than outside so I sat down at one of the small wooden tables to wait. The lobby happened to be busy with a large group of retarded children and their caretaker. They were kept in a waggly line and each gave the caretaker his/her choice of treat and counted out the money needed. The line behind them extended outside. I heard not one single complaint. But watching was too much for me, too sad, too heart breaking. Instead I watched my watch. The hands barely moved. Finally they reached 1:45 but Leon hadn’t come. Time crawled. My temper heated. At 1:58 I was ready to leave but asked young couple who were hastily going in to the show, ‘What time is it, please?’ I almost swooned, ‘It’s not quite twelve. I looked at my watch again, more closely that time and darn if it didn’t say 11:58. How did I make such a mistake? I had goofed. What can I do for another hour, I whined silently. It was too hot to meander outside so I walked across the street to Barnes and Nobel, paced up and down the aisles, fingered dozens of paper backs that held no interest for me. A $4 coke entertainment for four minutes. I tossed it in the trash and walked back to the movie lobby. It was only 12:20.Only one vacant table was available. I grabbed it. Kids were banging away on noisy games. The smell of popcorn popping was gagging me. I deserved what I was getting.
Each minute was an eternity. At a table even closer to the popping corn sat a senior lady, looking at her watch every few minutes. She look worried. I asked her politely if she would mind my sitting with her so we can chat while we wait. ‘Please sit down,’ she said. I explained my careless error and the lady could hardly believe me.
From her this story will read like a fairy tale–but fairy tales do come true. Read on. ‘Sarah,’ as she wanted to be called, had been waiting an hour for two friends. It so happens that they live a few blocks from my Leon, most likely don’t know each other, but then again they might.
Sarah had told her friends to meet her in the lobby at 12:30. They had the three tickets in advance. She didn’t know their phone number so couldn’t call to find out where they were. She steamed with disappointment, smelling the same sweet popcorn I was smelling. We were very simpatico.
At 1:55, just as I knew he would, in walked my ‘date.’ Leon listened to my tale if woe, my careless reading of my Flea Market watch. He was as amazed as I at the coincidences that were happening between Sarah and me-total strangers a few minutes ago. Time was then speeding up. Leon took my hand and we walked into the dark theater, luckily found two seats together in the back row and suffered thru commercials and eight trailers, talking the entire time.
When the lights came on, I sat still, looked hastily at the backs of heads, scanned faces of those exiting up two aisles. I could not spot Sarah, my new and now lost friend. Leon and I left together, wordlessly walked to our cars together.
He opened and closed my door for me, got in his, tooted his horn briefly and we waved ‘so long’. My nice outing was over until we would meet again.
No comments:
Post a Comment