Rubaroo - Part 2 - Pg. 3 - Page 3

Rubaroo - Part 2

As she resumed walking towards her office, she had this goofy grin on her face that refused to diminish. It was saying something that she didn't realize Danielle was eyeing her suspiciously until they were inside the glass doors of the office building.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" Rhythm asked Danielle as they entered the filling to its capacity elevator.

"You know very well why I am staring at you like this." Danielle replied with a smirk and Adrian guffawed as he stood right behind the two. Though before she could answer to that the lift door opened for a select few to tumble out and move on to their respective day's work, which in these girls' case was situated at two ends of the same floor.

"Are you going to move from here, mate?" Mair's friend, who was now getting impatient, rattled him by his shoulders.

"Henry?!" Mair looked up from his phone that he had whipped out right the second she had left him there, grinning like a fool. "Shut up." And went back to meticulously typing out what he wanted to.

Rereading the message once there was no going back gave him a different feeling, even though the only thing the message said was - "Just to be sure that I don't misplace the number. - Mair".

"You know right that you can't run away from me now?" Danielle said standing over her head over the workstation's low wall. She however seemed to be in her own world, her phone held in both hands as she stared into oblivion, thinking about God knew what. Danielle came into her cubicle and shook her by her shoulders making her thoughts take an abrupt halt. "What's going on here?" Danielle stared at her and she let out a sigh.

As Danielle sat down on her workstation counter she shook her head knowing her friend was not going to let go of the topic without the real story, and she began, from the very starting.

"Who was that girl?" Henry asked as the group noisily sat down in a small caf after having spent half a day roaming around. "Was she the same one who asked for your autograph yesterday?" Mair picked up his coffee from the counter as he followed Henry back to where everyone sat, and they picked the two corner most chairs for themselves.

"Yeah." His word came out more like a sigh and he began recollecting all of his turmoil and muddled up thoughts since he found that playbill on his make up counter.

"Hello." She said springing into a sitting position, the book that she had been so engrossed in reading, when the phone rang, fell on the carpeted floor with a dull thud. Thankfully she was not sharing her hotel suite. Perks of being the only girl on the team of three, and a high paying job.

"Hi. Mair here." She could hear the wind behind him. She got up to pick the book from the floor. She could feel the wind on her face as she walked into the adjoining balcony of her suite.

"Hi." She smiled.

"I hope I didn't disturb you."

"No, not at all. I was just... reading." She said, realizing it was something he had disturbed her at. She stood with her arm around herself in the light cold.

"Oh. I... I wanted to... talk to you about the note you left in my green room."

"What note... Oh that one." It took her a few seconds to recollect. She wondered how her thoughts had gotten so damn muddled up. She stared at half moon, or what was visible of it from her 20^th floor balcony.

"It was you right?" Mair was worried, scared.

"Yes it was me. Though that quote is not exactly original." She grinned.

"Yes I know."

"That was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw you on stage." She recollected seeing him play Benedick so passionately. He remembered seeing her serene face in the streetlight outside the theatre.

"I want to meet you."

"For what?"

"To talk."

"Isn't that what we're doing right now?" She retorted. She was confused now. She had been the whole day. Why did he want to talk to her? What about? Why her? Why did she give him her number in the first place?

"I'm sorry if I offended you... I just..."

"No it's alright. I'm sorry for coming across so rude." She took a deep breath calming herself, telling herself to behave.

"It's fine if you don't want to meet."

"I'm not free till the weekend."

"Saturday then?"

"Where?"

"You tell me."

"Hyde Park, Saturday, 1 am." She said as her eyes fell on the worn out novel lying on the table.

"Alright. See you on Saturday." He smiled into the phone, after a long time into the conversation. It wasn't just her who was all befuddled.

That whole week the only thought on the two minds was, why won't Saturday come any soon'.

That morning the sun was shining brighter. Or maybe they just thought so. Well they had been certifiably going crazy over the week. Strangely so because they hadn't contacted each other after that one phone call. And that was one though in her mind while she got dressed that morning, was he actually coming.

In the end she decided to take her chances, as she picked up her little messenger bag and stuffed the novel into it before getting out.

Unsurprisingly she was early, like she wanted to be. And she perched herself along the railing of the bridge facing the huge sculptor of Colin Firth as Mr Darcy as she began reading.

"In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." She began enunciating as she opened her favourite and perennially bookmarked page and giggled at her own stupidity.

"It's ugly." She heard someone say and turned around to see him walking towards her from a little distance. Handsomely dressed in Khakhi pants, white t-shirt and a blue sleeved shirt over it; a black leather jacket lazily hanging from his arm. The few seconds he took to reach her, she unabashedly spent them staring at him. "I'm talking about the statue; it's ugly. You were pretty good with the dialogue though." He smiled as he rested his elbows on the rail and stood next to her.

"Thank you." She replied, shyly pushing a strand of her open hair behind her ear and diverting herself by putting the book back in her bag.

"Well now that we're meeting, officially for the first time. Let me introduce myself to you, officially." He said bowing a little in front of her, making her giggle more. As she tried to suppress it, her bangles clinked making an even more beautiful sound for him. "Mair Omar Ali." He extended a hand in front of her.

"Rhythm Kaur Sapra." She took his hand and smiled. But at that moment his face lost its pallor.