Author's Note:
This is a continuation of an entry in the February 2020 750 Word Anthology.
I'm keeping within the spirit of the original challenge of writing flash fiction, but without the absolute constraint of 750 words. Nevertheless, this is short. If you're unwilling to engage with story-telling on this basis, please back-click now and find another tale.
Like the occasional encounters on a bus, these will be occasional vignettes - I might never see her again.
* * * *
Well that's bloody annoying, I thought, as I moved away from the bus stop, having just discovered a snap stop-work had been called by the drivers' union. Services would resume in an hour. I couldn't be bothered getting a taxi or uber, so I resigned myself to wait. At five o'clock, though, most of the city cafés were already shut.
I crossed the road to a small square surrounded by trees, with small patches of lawn and some sad flower beds in raised concrete surrounds, and found an empty bench. That's when I saw her, the smoking hot girl I saw on the bus in the mornings. The girl with the slightly crooked teeth who'd put her phone away and chatted to me, her thighs pressing against my arm as the bus swayed. She'd kept her balance with her hand on my shoulder as the bus made the long left-hand turn onto Hobart Terrace.
"Hey," I called to her, catching her attention. "The buses aren't running, not for an hour."
"What's not running? An hour? What do you mean, not running?"
"The buses. There's a stop-work. They're not running. The drivers have gone out. It's this rolling stoppages thing." I gestured for her to come sit beside me. "They'll be running again at six. I'm waiting till then."
"Waiting?"
"Yes, waiting."
"God, that's tedious. All I need." Her shoulders slumped. "No buses."
"Long day? Waiting doesn't help." I placed my hand on the bench beside me. "Here, join me. We can wait together. Here on this bench."
"Like on the bus in the mornings, then? But in the afternoon. On your bench?" She was recovering from the news of a delay, understanding what I was trying to say. She sat beside me, placing two shopping bags at her feet and a handbag in her lap. The pleated lines of her skirt, white and black stripes, swirled and fell with her movement. She rested hands with long fingers on the handbag, and was still. The skirt shimmered, made of some satiny material.
"It's not mine." I patted the timber seat. "It can be our bench, if you like."
"Our afternoon bench? That's nice. I'm Delilah, by the way. Delilah from the bus in the mornings."
She'd remembered too, her hip against my shoulder as the bus lurched and swayed.
"Adam," I replied. "Adam in the afternoon."
"That's a whole day done then, Adam." She said my name and took possession of it, making it hers to keep if she wanted it. "It's nice to meet you. I'll know what to call you now, if I see you in the mornings." She turned towards me and her gaze was steady, looking me straight in the eye.
I noticed again how careful she was with her make up, and found myself wondering how old she actually was. Not a girl as I'd first thought but a young woman, now that she sat closer to me. Maybe late twenties, very early thirties even, but blessed with very good genes.
She wasn't classically beautiful, her nose was just a little too big for that, but she was striking. A woman who could walk into a room and be noticed. She had a certain hauteur about her and a sway in her walk. Less sway at the end of a day when she was tired, perhaps, but still, her clothes moved beautifully on her. But of course, she moved beautifully and her clothes merely followed. How lovely she would look, her clothes falling to the floor.
