First Date

He reached the Barista at exactly 6 pm as agreed and checked his watch to make sure he was on time. Before entering the coffee shop he pulled his phone out of his breast pocket and made a call. "Hi" he said, "I have reached Barista. Where are you?...ok, I am going in. Don't take too long...I am wearing a black trouser, a blue shirt and a yellow tie. In fact right now I am the only one dressed in formals in here, so you will easily recognise me." He scanned the almost empty shop and found himself a place to sit near the window, where he could see the traffic on the road. He sat there watching the traffic and scanning the menu with lacking interest. He was more interested in the traffic, it always fascinated him. He was looking at the moving vehicles going in opposite directions. Some old, some new, some ordinary, some extra ordinary, some slow, some fast all of them with their varying qualities and abilities survived on their own without colliding into each other. Yet there was one thing common among all of them, they all served the same purpose. The ride in some would have been more comfortable than the other, some would have reached the destination faster than the other, some would have used more fuel to reach the destination than the other but in the end they all were working on the same purpose. When they decided to cross paths, may be in the hurry to reach the destination faster or may be in proving themselves better than the others there were collisions and when they collided most of the time it was the weaker one who took more damage. Somehow he could relate all this to life.

While he was busy in his thoughts still staring out of the window, a soft female voice distracted him from his thoughts. "Vishal?" she said as he looked up enquiring about him name. He nodded in affirmative and she continued, "Hi! Shefali. I am sorry I am late." He checked his watch it was 6:15, she was 15 minutes late, but he didn't seem to notice the delay because he was busy in this thoughts. "Hi! It's alright." He pointed towards the seat across the table in front of him, "take a seat." She sat on the chair. "What will you have?" he asked while passing her the menu. He noticed she was looking very pretty in the white dress she was wearing. Her long black hair falling over her shoulders made a wonderful contrast. She was not wearing lot of make up, which he liked. She looked up for a moment and noticed him staring at her face. It made her nervous so she again started looking at the menu. He also noticed it and realised his foolishness. He smiled like a little child. He could sense the tension and the nervousness, so to lighten the mood he spoke, "I will have a Cappuchino. Have you decided what you will have?" he waited for her to speak for a moment and when she did not say anything, he continued, "I would suggest you have devil's favourite, it has a lot of chocolate and ice cream in it. I hope you will like it. If you want to eat something, they have very nice brownies." "I would go with devil's favourite. I like chocolate and ice cream," she said it with a smile. "Great" he said while standing from his chair, "I will just place the order and be right back."

She was watching him standing at the counter talking to the waiter. They both were smiling while talking as if indulged in some friendly conversation. He was tall, well mannered, polite, had a good dressing sense. He was punctual, was nice to her and above all he was being nice to even the waiter. To top it all her parents also liked him, otherwise why would they insist her on meeting him. Overall she also seemed to like the guy. She was still busy in her thoughts, she noticed him coming back looking at her. She smiled and he smiled back. He joined her on the table and spoke, "I hope it didn't take long. He will call when our order is ready." She had the urge to know more about the guy but she was not sure how to start. She was too nervous to ask him any questions, besides she has never been much of a talker anyway. He somehow sensed what was going on in her head and tried to control the situation. He asked, "so, what do you do to survive through the day?" She understood what he meant and liked the way he asked the question. She answered, "I am a writer. I write short stories for Readers Digest currently." He looked impressed and said, "wow, that's nice. It must be interesting creating your own world and playing around with it. You must feel like God at times." She liked that he found her work interesting and had a reason to believe so. Now it was her turn to ask, "what about you?" He answered promptly as if he was expecting the question, "well, my work is not as interesting as yours but it's somewhat similar. You play with characters and I play with numbers. I am a financial analyst for an investment banking firm." he continued, "It's not as interesting as it sounds but I like the work." Their order was ready and he stood to get it from the counter.

They kept on talking about their work, families, hobbies, likes and dislikes while sipping their respective drinks and after almost an hour they decided to leave the place. He offered to drop her home but she said she had got her scooty and would be able to go. She however did not forget to thank him for the offer. They both bode farewell to each other and went their separate ways with a promise to meet again. They both liked each other. While riding her scooty on her way back home she was thinking about Sameer, who she wanted to marry but the idea of marriage never seemed to cross him mind and whenever poked he would try to change the subject. She had to take a decision now. On one hand was Vishal, who seemed like a perfect man and was chosen by her parents to marry her and one the other hand was Sameer, who she liked despite all his shortcomings but he was not ready to marry her. She had to choose between waiting for Sameer to change his mind about marriage but did not know when that day would come, if ever or go by her parents choice.

PS: try and link it with the Hero story I posted earlier.