Along For the Ride

Along for the Ride

She stood on the 7th floor in between a tall potted fern and a half-empty water cooler. Or perhaps it was half full. Was she an optimist or a pessimist when it came to five-gallon water jugs? The elevators in this building were slow, so she stood listening, in spite of herself, to the chitchat of the secretaries behind her. She never was entirely comfortable while waiting for the elevator. Nowhere to look but straight ahead. It was going on lunchtime, and she was carrying her sack lunch to bring to the park across the street. A well-worn novel peeked out of her saffron-colored satchel.

When the doors swung open, a man stood facing her, and they made the type of eye contact that Harlequin has based their legacy on for decades. A sizzling, we-could-be-a-thing, we-could-be-a-fairytale, a fantasy, we-could-share-a-California-king, a coffee, a copy of the local paper flared through them.

He was handsome in a casual way. In an off-the-cuff way. In the way that men who are handsome but don’t know they’re handsome can be.

She was pretty in the style of the vintage draw-me-girl. The girl next door. The friend to the heroine who is there to be wisecracking and witty, but nobody notices she’s the real beauty until the right guy comes along.

His eyes said: I want to know what you look like in the morning before you put on your makeup.

Her eyes responded: I want to see you tousled under my velvet comforter.

In a flash, their future was writ in bold: The New York Times penning their meet-cute story in the most adjective-riddled way. Oh, they would appear so beautifully, bashfully in love beneath the write-up of the oil magnate’s daughter and her publisher king beau and above the lesbians who met over a spilt ice cream on Fire Island.

The man was wearing a navy suit jacket, pale blue shirt, classic indigo jeans. Not pegged. Not tight. But also not too loose. Nice shoes, she noticed. Solid-looking leather brogues. He had a simple watch on his wrist, not a “smart” watch, but one with a retro metal band. It looked old in a good way. He didn’t have a briefcase, a messenger bag, a tray of cappuccinos, a bouquet. She tried to remember what types of businesses were on the floors above.

Was there an architecture firm? One of the few remaining magazines? A vintage book seller?

She had on her first-day-of-summer dress, sleeveless, tied in the back, stripes of colors like an English garden: forget-me-not blue, Johnny jump-up purples and golds, pale cherry blossom pink. Her honey-blonde hair was in a high ponytail. She’d taken a moment to slick on lipgloss, and she’d worn her lucky hoop earrings.

Elevator doors are timed to the second. These ones stayed for eight. She knew. She’d counted before. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand eight times. But sometimes time takes a break. Sometimes time stands still.

He saw her in his backyard hammock. He was bringing her fresh lemonade with mint plucked from the plant that grew wild by his back deck. She was reading a paperback, one of her favorites. She owned a collection of battered copies she’d amassed over the years. The well-loved novels stood in a row on her bedside table. She favored Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh, and it delighted him that someone so good-natured really dug the murder mysteries.

She knew what he’d look like right out of the shower after his early morning run, his curly hair glistening, white towel wrapped around his flat stomach. He’d grin at her before shaking like a dog and getting her wet.

They might go to Paris on their honeymoon. Or maybe Italy. She could speak the language after four years in college. On their second date, she’d tell him about her year abroad. How it was the first time she’d ever traveled by herself, and even though she had roommates and took classes at the college, she made it her mission to lose herself in the streets of the city, to immerse herself in the oddly exotic mundanity of daily life.

When she’d returned home, she regularly visited Little Italy to keep the magic alive. In fact, she’d take him to her favorite cafe with the red-and-white checked tablecloths and candles stuck in heart-shaped bottles. She’d order him the very best raviolis in town, served with freshly shaved Pecorino Romano.

The owner knew her and always gave a free dessert, which they’d share, bite for bite.

They’d close the restaurant, drinking too much red wine, becoming just tipsy enough to kiss while leaning against the mural on the back of the building that showed gondoliers and low bridges.

A slight breeze in the air would smell of honeysuckle and desire. He’d brush a strand of hair out of her eyes. She would bite her lip as she looked at him, knowing that they were both thinking the same thoughts.

They’d walk home together, holding hands, the streetlights glowing above them. He’d take off his jacket and drape it over her shoulders.

One day, he’d ask her to move into his tiny bungalow. They’d laugh as they tried to fit her large framed movie poster from “It Came From Beneath the Sea” on the wall of his bathroom beneath the porthole window. He’d never had a girlfriend who shared his love for B-science-fiction movies before.

She’d cut bachelor buttons from the empty lot and stick them in milk jugs. He’d bring home fresh jelly donuts in a pink box tied with string for lazy Sunday mornings. And when he’d walk into the kitchen, she’d be squeezing oranges from the branches of their neighbor’s tree, branches that hung over the fence and scattered the fragrant orbs everywhere.

Sometimes, late at night, their limbs entwined as they canoodled on the sofa, they’d remark about how a chance meeting had led to this bliss.

“Going up?” the man asked.

“Down,” she said miserably, and he held her gaze for one more beat before the doors slowly started to close. She put a hand out.

“You know what?” she asked as she stepped inside on a whim. “Maybe I’ll just come along for the ride.”