Part 5: Mistletoe Mishap
She'd gone to freshen up at the hallway restroom and he waited by the bar for her to join him for lunch. Opening the door, she stepped out and turned to close the latch behind her, when for the first time he noticed her long willowy form from the silhouette that was framed against the backdrop of a lighted rail car. She walked towards him in a sleeveless kurta and a jean, with a purple shawl tightly wrapped around her arms. True, he thought, she was a model American Indian, trying to keep the Indian ways of life alive, even in the remote corners of America. Her wavy mass of hair caught his peripheral vision and dragged his gaze down to her waist. Instantly, he shifted his eyes back to the menu he was looking at while she'd been gone from the lounge car.
By the time she was standing by his side, his head was clearly focusing on the upcoming lunch, rather than the distractions that had come his way moments ago. He didn't know what to make of them, but evidently it was not the time to debate over when she was seated on the bar stool next to him.
Lunch was served soon after and the topic about the fundamental reasoning behind the book she was reading (The unbearable lightness of being) then showed up again.
"I don't understand Geet" He started "Don't you think it puts pressure on you to carefully live out every moment of your life, if they were to happen just once and only once..." He forked a chunk of chicken from the salad plate into his mouth.
"No..." She mumbled and so she paused to finish off the bite of sandwich she was chewing on "Think of it this way...So many things have to come together for a single instant of life to fall into place. Then tell me what is the probability for millions of things - including time and space - to arrange itself in a way so as to be repeating a thing of the past in the exact same order again?"
He shrugged and she smiled taking that for his submission. "Exactly...For example, take this trip of ours..." And that caught his attention as he listened in sharply.
"It was a spur of the moment decision for both of us...but think about so many other things that could have not been in favor for us to get to this exact same moment..." She pointed her index fingers at the table, animatedly and he nodded in agreement.
"My parents could have cancelled the trip and I might have stayed back" Her head swayed from one side to another and he couldn't help but observe a few strands of a wild curl tease the corner of her eye, "Someone could have held you up at the wedding and even a single second delay there could have had a domino effect on everything that had followed since then, not letting the same set of things to come together to bring you down to the train station" He abruptly stopped eating and stared at her in deep thought, considering all that she had just said.
"It's funny" she smiled lacking cheer, serving herself more of the mayonnaise that was on the side "to think that we wouldn't have met in the first place..." She met his eyes, realizing what she'd just said and that moment felt far from being light. In fact, it suddenly felt outright unbearable to imagine eating that lunch without him. Peeling her gaze away from him, she focused on carefully taking a bite out of her sandwich.
If he'd taken notice of the slight shake of her hands after she'd looked away, he concealed the knowledge of it well under the act of crunching his ice-cold lettuce. Before he could think of something else to take their attention, the waitress at the bar came around, serving him the check.
"That's 33 dollars and 12 cents you owe me" She said with a drawl, being taken in by his handsome look.
She let him pay without a show and he pushed the bills forward along with the bill, when the waitress spoke again. "Oh! and you owe the lady a kiss..."
"What?" He shouted, having caught off-guard and she began choking on her food upon hearing the inappropriate suggestion, that sure did sound blasphemous to her.
"You folks are sitting right under the mistletoe...It's just tradition" The waitress clarified, rolling her eyes and left after pocketing her tip.
Once alone, they quickly exchanged glances and she was choking again picturing the frightening possibility that he had every intention to kiss her. Her cheeks had already turned a hot pink and his neck showed traces of a mild fluster.
A faint mischief of a smile trailed his lips as he picked up her glass of water and handed it to her. "I wasn't planning on doing anything like that" He added just to assure her.
Her embarrassment was still apparent and she did nothing to hide it. And she was glad that he wasn't reading into her mind, to see the number of times a particular scene was flashing in her mind's eye.
To her, the instant the waitress had uttered the forbidden words had felt like a turn of fate's key - a click of a lock that was withholding a secret, more than she liked. It appeared that the domino effect - that she'd just talked about, to him - was going to set off events in motion, of a vision that neither could be ascertained of.
With the exception of a few awkward minutes, he'd helped them to recover reasonably and the drone of the overbearing silence now seemed lost in their aimless chatter. Though they were at quite a distance from returning to that same moment, he strongly sensed the way somethings had permanently shifted between them. It wasn't the same when their eyes briefly met or if their fingers accidentally brushed against each other. He willed for a few vile thoughts to leave him alone when his eyes drifted down over the same comely face - he'd looked at only hours ago without any of that attention he was giving her now. There was a good prospect it was only a plain old rebound - given the similar experiences they had shared in their past relationships - or something more, but his head felt out of place to make that sane argument towards his own self.
Lord! Whoever came up with the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe...He sure didn't know if the misplaced words were going to leave them as lovers, but it certainly did leave them out of place in each other's presence.
Edited by 6thElement - 13 years ago
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