Meet Me - Part II

To read PART I, see part I

The day after the fedex was mailed, of course, she had to actually call the hotel in Houston and make sure it arrived and that the concierge or whomever delivered it to E. She only had one day to make sure it had arrived. So.

Packaged received and delivered. Now, it was all up in the air. It was all very fun…not knowing. The knowing E. would have received the package by now, but the not knowing of her answer.

2 days later, Saturday arrived. She spent the day doing her usual things: going to the market, the post office, the cleaners and while she did, she noticed a mixture of excitement and anxiety. Anxiety? Nervousness? And then more excitement. She found herself at the counter of the bakery, not paying attention to her surroundings and just simply smiling at thought of the evening.

It was a gorgeous day in town. The spring weather had brought beauty, freshness, and a slight afternoon breeze that carried on into early evening.

In her mind, she had to decide what to do if E. did not show. A no brainer, really. She would stay and have dinner anyway.

She made the short drive to the restaurant and the young valet chap opened her door, smiled, took her keys and parked the vehicle. She arrived a bit early to grab a cocktail at the bar. She sat in perfect view of the valet circle where she would see E. arrive, if indeed that turned out to be the case.

Sitting at the small, under populated bar area, she fiddled with her cocktail glass and phone. At this point, she felt confident E. would show. Just a gut feeling she had. She took a few more sips of her cocktail, the shaved ice cooling her warm throat.

Looking at her phone, the time was past the hour. It was fifteen minutes passed the hour. E. was notoriously late so she wasn’t sure how long she would actually wait. Fifteen more minutes, she thought. After that, I go to my table. Alone.

Twenty minutes after the hours passed and quickly she was determining that for whatever reason, E. would not show. She wasn’t angry.

This is how she set it up. No RSVP.

She asked the bartender woman for the check and just as she was about to pay, she took one last look outside. There, she saw her. She had showed. She saw E. coming out of her vehicle while handing keys to valet chap. Even from a distance, she saw she was moving fast, worried that she was so late, looked a bit frazzled.

E. entered the restaurant and saw her sitting at the bar. She gave her a wonderful, beautiful smile. They went on to have a fabulous meal at 213 Palm Drive