Of A Rare Moment

Genre: Romance

Nothing had happened between us. There might have been a moment, maybe it was only in my mind. If something almost happens but doesn’t happen and nobody speaks about it, did it not almost happen at all? Even if it had been a passing moment; it meant nothing if I could not crawl into her brain and see for himself; her thoughts on; well almost everything in general.

She was hard to decipher, like a rare edition manuscript, handwritten in a neat but precise scrawl which unfortunately could only be read by its author. You know those books, with rugged hardcovers and gilded edges which don’t glitter; they are built to last long after all the paperbacks on the shelves next to it have lost the sheen on their high gloss covers and the embossed lettering has flattened out; the rare edition would be there.

Or maybe; just maybe, I had spent too much time in a library and could only picture people in book metaphors. People were not meant to be understood; only read and perhaps valued the way you do a particularly memorable scene in a favourite book. That moment unbidden comes forward and plays in your head over and over long after you have since closed the book, until you decide to read the book again. You might get tempted to skip through all the chapters to get to your favourite part but you know each word builds up to that moment and you want to make it last…..

“Make what last?”

Though spoken; softly the words might as have been deafening as they intruded upon my dreamy reverie, they hung in the air; jarring me back to the here and now.

“Huh?!” I sighed.

“You were saying something about make something last”

“Oh?” I had not realised I had spoken out loud. “I was just…. Running a few ideas past myself…., sometimes… I need expert advice” I said trying to recover myself.

“When did you come into the room?” I inquired trying to figure out how much I had thought out loud and how much of that she had heard.

She shrugged and then gestured with her feather duster pointing at imaginary cobwebs. This was her cue for me to leave the room, so she could clean the study room. I had long since stopped protesting about it, she would clean it even if it looked clean, well clean by my standards, she would run her finger on a spot and say

“Dust”

You know how one says a word as if it’s a living foe that must be vanquished with all haste. Even if I said that it was ok that, I would clean up later, she would gently but firmly shoo me out the room, that’s the other thing she would never let me stay in a room she was cleaning. Which is why I was mildly surprised, as I was getting up from the couch, to hear her say one word.

“Stay”

If communicating the entire range of human emotion in singular expressions were a virtue she would be a Goddess.

I sat back on the couch and tried to look busy but I was simply drawing circles in my notepad round and round, if you added eyes and tiny mouths it looked like a sea of Minions coming to drown the world in an ocean of gibberish language and hysterics. I tried to sneak in a quick glance to see what she was up to and found she had been looking at me, our eyes briefly met and then each suddenly found something more interesting to focus or pretended to; at least I pretended to suddenly be intensely interested in the minions I was drawing; crazy eyes, crooked grins and tongues sticking out.

I actually got quite engrossed in my sketches until a polite cough, the kind of cough one does to clear their throat as they ask for your attention; well demanded attention. I looked up and noticed that she was playing with her hands the way someone who cant figure out what to do with their hands does to hide their nervousness.

“I need a huge favour” she begun.

“Well it kind of depends what sort of favour you need?”

“What are you doing next Saturday” she asked

“Probably doing a favour for you; whats up?”

She took a deep breath and begun;

“You remember I told you about my silly dream to be dance instructor, right? Well one of best my friends, decided to meddle, good intentions and everything. She went and entered a video clip of ours, dancing in a talent search competition. The clip was from a wedding; I was one of the bridesmaids and helped choreograph the bridal dance routine…. Well I have been short-listed for the next round and its next weekend.”

“How can I help? You want me to come support you and sit in the front row so when you go on stage I will make noise?…..” I asked; curious because I remember she might as well as have forbidden from asking her about her dancing; And after my disastrous date with the princess we hadn’t  spoken no more than  two words to each other.

“No!… I mean yes. Yes I want you to come but not to sit in the front row..the thing is__” “Well” she said and paused uncertain how to phrase her next request;

“I need you to be my dance partner.”

I had not seen that one coming… I wanted to say “let me think about it” or even ask why she picked me, I wanted to ask, if she knew her eyes lit up when she smiled… oh I had so many questions, suddenly I realised I hardly knew this woman, all I knew is when she smiled a part of me wanted to be the reason she smiled and when she laughed, on those rare occasions; I had heard her laugh, it was infectious. I opened my mouth to say “I’ll see” but only one word came out

“yes”

The End

~B

This is a continuation of a story in progress you can Click here and here to find out what happened before.

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