She stands waiting on the ledge of the curb for a clear path between the cars to cross. She looks left, then right, left again. There is an opening and she walks briskly across the road, though not fast enough and a car blares their horn at her. It is shrill, incessant. She lowers her head, embarrassed and runs the last few steps.
The park lies resplendent towards her – a subtext of anticipation, in her own mind – and takes a look around. He is not there. She knew it was silly to imagine him sitting, waiting, beautiful and jovial on the park bench under the cedar tree; by Denison’s monument; by the shade of the newspaper stand’s red and white striped-awning. Perhaps it was silly to imagine him coming at all.
It is not, however,the most hidden.
Though she tries not to dwell on that fact, on the negative parallel of her situation. Instead, she envisions meeting him again, of catching sight of him for the first time.
He will be walking, of course, with his head tilted, his eyes searching for her. She will stand; just enough movement to catch his attention and nothing too exaggerated. He will finally see her and smile – she can see that now: a wide, toothy grin that crinkles the periphery of flesh at his eyes and cheekbones. He will walk towards her and when they meet they will, not quite embrace, but draw their hands to together, carefully, softly touching knuckles and fingertips, and palms and wrist bones. Pulled towards each other by pure magnetism and the credibility of such a moment. Yes, she can envision it exactly
Would he look the same? she wonders to herself. Or different somehow. Older and wiser, perhaps. Like herself.
She follows his gaze to across the street where men in work suits and women in muted dresses line-up on the sidewalk, and the tram, in its boxy, cumbersome fashion, slows to a stop in front of them.
She knows, had she let him, his own means of transport will have got them to his apartment in no time at all. In less than a second; as if she were to simply blink