The iPhone Girl

Evil

“I was inclined to kiss you,” she wrote in her email. I had asked her to clarify whether it was she who kissed me, or I who kissed her. And that was her response. Although she prefaced it with a suggestion that it matters little who initiated the kiss.

Facebook brings a lot of little surprises. Most are neither good nor bad. Insignificant, I’d say. But once in a while you make a potential connection, or in this case, re-connection. The iPhone Girl and I sort of let ourselves lose touch after that dinner. I might have been too busy or too lazy at the time to make anything of it. Or maybe it was her? But, now connected on Facebook, we made plans to meet at one of my favorite wine bars in the city.

I was hoping it wouldn’t rain, but the weather forecast got it right that day. By afternoon, the clouds swirled and thickened. By early evening, the rains started and showered the streets steadily, though not heavily. When you’re looking forward to seeing someone and it rains, it sort of feels like the event is all rained out before it even started.

She arrived a couple of minutes after I had already staked out a spot near the bar. She flung off her hat and tossed her hair a bit to shake off the raindrops. Though I’m not always very observant about these things, I took notice that she had lightened her hair since last summer. The medium brown suits her well. Her eyes are large, the thing I remember most about her. The thing I remember liking best when we first met.

“I think I’ll try the Kangarilla,” she declared after pondering the wine list for only a few moments. “It sounds like a small, but vicious kangaroo.”

We talked, that evening, as if it were our first meeting, our first date. Which made me wonder briefly what we talked about on our actual first date. Was it that unmemorable? Or maybe our first date had just seeded our familiarity with each other, making the second date less awkward… more comfortable.

She told me later that the evening had such a cozy feel to it. That stepping out of the rain and into tightly packed wine bar made her feel warm, and safe, and comfortable.