Our Stop(81)

He leapt up, remembering himself, and gave her a hug.

‘Thank you for these,’ she said, as they stood facing each other, nodding at the bouquet she held. ‘And for the trail of people …’

‘All the people that knew about you and me, before there was a you and me to know about …’

Nadia and Daniel sat next to each other at the bar – the same place they should have met the first time. The same guy was behind the counter. As he approached them he said, ‘Hey! You guys found each other!’ and they all laughed. Daniel poured them both a glass of cava, explaining that it was dry, like champagne, and Nada told him that she’d read something about that, maybe in The Times.

They had so much in common, and so much yet to learn.

‘You know what?’ Nadia said. ‘Do you mind if we move to go and sit over there, at a table?’

Daniel cocked his head at her. ‘Not at all,’ he said, and Nadia explained: ‘This is where I waited for you last time. When you didn’t …’

‘Say no more,’ Daniel nodded, understanding. When he didn’t show up.

The barman gave them a little bowl of olives with toothpicks and a bowl for the pips, and said their charcuterie would be on the way. Once he’d gone and the polite chit-chat was over, Nadia finally stole a peek at Daniel and decided it was too far away to sit opposite him, so moved her chair around so that she sat on the corner of the table, next to him, her knees knocking into the side of his legs.

She said, ‘Tell me from the beginning. Tell me what happened.’ She raised her glass to his, and they said a small ‘cheers’.

‘Tell you what happened,’ Daniel repeated. They were both doing that grinning thing again. They were both just so damn happy to be there.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘I got a new job, and so hadn’t been doing this commute very long.’

Nadia dropped her jaw, playfully. ‘Oh wow, okay. You really are going from the beginning, beginning.’

Daniel’s face dropped, disappointed. ‘You said to!’

‘I was just kidding,’ Nadia said. ‘Sorry. I’m … nervous.’

‘You are?’

She shrugged. ‘A little. Maybe.’

‘Well, I’m glad you said that,’ Daniel said. ‘Because I am too.’

Nadia wanted to remember every detail of what was happening, like he’d said to. The shadows of the candles across his face and the taste of the bubbles against her throat and the way he half smiled when he was unsure and needed encouraging. She wanted to frame the smell of the place, pine cones and orange, and see herself from above, flicking her hair back off her neck.

She smiled at him. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘The commute.’ He was so handsome – and so polite too, always making sure she was comfortable and topping up her glass without asking.

‘Well. I saw you by the market one day, not long after I had started my job. Before the summer – maybe in May? You were with some slick, corporate guy, talking so passionately about, like, artificial intelligence? And laughing, and being smart, and I just knew you were a woman I wanted to know.’

‘Slick corporate guy? I mean – if that was with Jared, that really was months ago! I got the go-ahead on that in … May, I think. April, even!’ Nadia wanted to know everything about this man who had spotted her in a crowd so long ago. Why hadn’t she seen him then?

Daniel looked down at his lap, where he fiddled with his hands. ‘Yeah. I felt so stupid for not approaching you then, but what was I gonna do? You were working, and—’

Nadia realized something: ‘And if you had tried to say hi I would have totally blown you off.’

Daniel laughed. ‘Exactly. Let the woman have her lunch meeting!’

Nadia laughed too. Now she thought about it, it was pretty rare to have a guy randomly strike up conversation. Maybe that was why she’d stayed and talked to Eddie when he did, on that fateful night. It was important not to be hassled on the street, but on reflection, she hardly ever spoke to somebody she didn’t already know. Like Eddie had said, it just didn’t happen.

‘But then I saw you,’ he continued, ‘on the train. My train. And over a couple of weeks I figured out that on a Monday you always got the 7.30, and sometimes on a Tuesday too.’

Nadia laughed from her. ‘Ha! That’s hilarious to me. I always have the best intentions at the start of the week, and it never lasts. I’m just not a morning person!’

‘Noted,’ Daniel said. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’

Nadia smirked.

Daniel blushed.

‘But I panicked then too. What was I supposed to do? Talk to you on the underground like a psychopath?’

He took a long sip of his drink. The condensation cooled on the outside of his glass, leaving a little wet mark on his chin. Nadia wanted to lean over and wipe it for him. She wanted to straighten his collar and touch his neck and pull him in close.

‘Again, I would have told you where to go.’ It’s true. She’d never spoken to another human on the tube in her life, except to maybe say ‘Excuse me’ or ‘Can you move your bag, please?’

‘So I wrote to you. And then you wrote back. So I wrote again. It’s funny, but I actually sent another Missed Connection after the cinema, and it ran today. But then I saw you on the tube and you recognized me and the adverts … didn’t matter anymore.’