Home And Dry

Fun Romance

Here’s a little-known fact about me: I like to have imaginary conversations with people I’ll never meet. Famous people, dead people, fictional characters…

Not all the time. Only in spare moments when my mind is unoccupied, or I need a calming break from overstimulating surroundings.

Which is how I came to be gossiping with Emilia Clarke while going down the escalators at the megaplex shopping centre on a busy Saturday – about the amazing dress I’d seen her wearing to an awards show – and almost didn’t notice the engaging lad with a tilted smile looking at me in a friendly way from the up escalator.

Nice-looking guy – but why was he looking at me as if he knows me?

By the time I twigged who he was (the leaflet man!) he was past me and about to step off at the first floor.

And I’d blanked him. How rude! This is what comes from daydreaming in public.

I craned around the line of people behind me to watch him go. My heart gave a leap as he glanced back. I flashed a smile – was it too late? The escalator carried me out of sight.

We’d met a couple of hours ago. He’d been passing out leaflets advertising a music festival, and I’d taken one, and just at the moment when both of us had hold of it, a big splotch of rain landed right in the centre with a ringing chime.

We both jumped; our eyes met and we smiled at our foolishness. And then suddenlyy there was a deluge.g Peoplep flinched under the force of the rain and ran for cover, and he touched my arm and guided me under the awning.

I should have spoken to him then. But we were surrounded by people laughing breathlessly about the shock of the rain. So I just hid my umbrella to pretend I didn’t have one, and we stood side by side, peering up at the sky in wonder as the grey cloud was speedily blown past and, for the moment, it was dry again.

I was so surprised and flattered that he remembered me from that brief meeting that I did something entirely out of character: I stepped straight back onto the up escalator, and was halfway to the first floor before I could give myself a chance to chicken out.

I saw him heading into a music shop a couple of units along. As I followed him in, I rehearsed a conversation in my head, just as I did with imaginary people.

Hi, I was glad to have this opportunity to thank you for earlier…

On behalf of the Prim Ladies’ Society of Great Britain? No, that would never do.

I left myy umbrella in the rack byy the shop door. Hi, I saw you on the escalator… And thought I’d be a bit creepy and follow you around?

There he was: browsing a shelf of vinyl records. I hovered at the end of the row, hiding behind some other shoppers. Hi–Is that record any good? I couldn’t imagine his answer in any of these scenarios. My heart pounded; I took a step towards him.

He put down the record and turned my way –

Swiftly I turned aside, burying my face in a book rack so he wouldn’t see me.

You’d think with all the practice I do in my head I’d be better at talking, but conversations in real life are more difficult that imaginary ones.

He passed by without noticing me and I didn’t even turn around until I’d given him plenty to time to leave.

For a MOMENT it felt as if something EXTRAORDINARY was going to HAPPEN

Sighing, I collected my umbrella, and it was with perfect appropriateness to my mood that when I left the shopping centre and stepped out into the rain, I discovered my umbrella was broken, and was spilling a small waterfall down my back.

It wasn’t even my umbrella, I realised then – although it was the same pale blue. Instead of the badge of the football club I supported, it had clouds floating over it, and the logo of a band I’d never heard of.

Miserably, I turned back to return the umbrella to the music shop. All day I’d been hunting for a birthday present for my sister, and I was running out of time. The shopping centre seemed to be getting busier by the minute.

I paused at a stall to look at a poster – a slightly chaotic art print full of figures. It was like the inside of my head.

I was wondering what a conversation with the artist would be like when I glanced up, and saw the Leaflet Man looking at me through the window from the pavement outside.

He gave a small jump of elation when he caught my attention. His umbrella – my umbrella! – was held away from him.

He pointed to the umbrella he held, and then at me. I grinned, and pointed at the umbrella in my hand and mouthed, Yours?

We had each other’s umbrellas. You

can’t imagine how excited I was when I discovered I was actually caught up in the plot of a rom-com!

He nodded, and then pulled a face and shrugged, as if to say his umbrella was pretty worthless. Which I couldn’t disagree with. So in the spirit of generosity, since he was getting so wet, I gestured that he should keep mine.

He looked at the logo of the football club with comical disgust, which delighted me, because he then pointed back to the entrance of the mall, seeming to suggest we should meet to make an exchange.

And then he grinned at me, as if to say, Wasn’ t it fortunate that things turned out like this?

Again, I couldn’t disagree.

We kept pace with one another, he on one side of the glass, me on the other, trying to smother the wideness of my smile.

Eventually we had to separate to get to the entrance. Just before I left him, he was joined by a couple of friends. I saw him pointing as he explained to them what he was doing.

The entrance to the mall was clogged with shoppers, many pausing inside the doors to shake off the rain. It didn’t help that a couple of teenagers were handing out burger vouchers.

I was far from the window now, but I could still see him. His friends were urging him to hurry up.

I tried to nudge my way through the crowd more speedily. I could see him outside the door, craning to catch sight of me. His expression was apologetic.

By the time I got there, his friends had dragged him away to whichever urgent appointment he had, and he was nowhere to be seen.

He’d left my umbrella propped against the wall.

It was another couple of hours before I decided on a present for my sister. I bought her a vintage red umbrella with polka dots. The rain was falling straight and heavy from a dark sky as I headed

home with the red umbrella in a bag on my shoulder, and my own umbrella under my arm, and the Leaflet Man’s umbrella raised over my head, because I was feeling sentimental. For a moment, it had felt like something extraordinary had been about to happen, and I wanted to hold on to that feeling a while – even if it meant I got wet under the useless umbrella. I waited on the platform for my train and thought idly about resuming my conversation with Emilia Clarke.

Instead, I pictured myself approaching the Leaflet Man. I imagined I’d opened my mouth to speak as we sheltered under the awning, or gone up to him in the music shop, or been just a little quicker to get to the entrance of the mall. I opened my mouth and… Nothing. I couldn’t even imagine what we might have said to one another. But that was what would have been so interesting, I suppose. “Excuse me…” I turned. He smiled. “I thought it was you! I recognised my umbrella as I was crossing the bridge.” He gestured to the footbridge above. He must have raced all the way down here. His hair was flat to his head under the rain.

“You were miles away. It was like the clouds on the umbrella were your thought bubbles,” he said.

“Oh – you want your umbrella back!” I exclaimed, flustered. Caught dreaming – again! “Not really. It suits you.” “Oh…” I blushed. “I just wished we’d had the chance to chat earlier, before my friends dragged me off,” he said, looking slightly shy himself. I lifted the umbrella higher, and shifted it so that we were both sheltered beneath. He took a grateful step closer, into the dry.

“Why?” I said, intrigued. “What would you have said?”