Elevator Love Letter

Her heel was broken. And to make things worse, it was raining.

She sat under the green awning of the Starbucks, on the dry cement stairs, on the corner of Yonge and Charles.

Shivering in her navy blue blazer with three pockets, she leaned closer to the wall on her left, as people shuffled past her into the coffee shop, giving her strange looks, as if she was a hobo.

She listened to the medley of voices floating through the propped-open door; 2 Korean voices, a boy and a girl, were louder than the rest. Snatches of lyrics, from Feist’s 1 2 3 4 made her hum and bob her head, despite her dark mood.

She was making her next plan of action. Her heel had broken, separated completely from the sole, just as she stepped out of the Starbucks, only to stare at the buckets of rain drizzling down.

She could try and hobble through the crosswalk, but what with the heavy crowd and heavy stream of traffic, she was bound to slip and fall and lose the shoe.

The irony of it all was that a Payless Shoe Source was right across the street; the BOGO sign taunted her from across the window. If she could make it to the other side of the road…

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him. His face was obscured by a big, black umbrella, but she knew what he was wearing. She had seen him in the elevator this morning, on the way up.

He wore crisp khakis and a blue dress shirt, that brought out the green flecks in his hazel eyes.

His umbrella jerked and she turned her head down, not wanting to be caught staring.

Instead, she pretended to be fascinated by the kaleidoscope of colours by her feet, as the rain water melded into the spots of oil, each drop of water shifting the colours, changing them.

He crossed the street and ducked into the Payless.

She peeked out when the shoe store’s door closed but she couldn’t see him through the small windows. All she saw was a pile of shoes, grinning cheekily at her.

Her lunch break was almost over, so there was nothing to do but admit defeat. She would have to hobble down two blocks to her office.

Just as she pushed her glasses up her nose and got up for her mission, she saw a figure jogging through the crosswalk.

He came to a stop where she was sitting on the stone steps off the coffee shop, his hair shining with drops of water.

Her breath came out in a tiny puff as her eyes widened, staring at him. She had never seen him in such close proximity outside of the elevator. Her heart quickened.

He opened the large bag in his hands and set a box at her feet. He didn’t say anything but just looked at her expectantly.

She pulled back the lid and uncovered the tissue paper to discover rain boots, decked out in tiny rainbow-coloured umbrellas.

She looked up at him and he flashed her a warm smile, a smile that always made her heart do somersaults in the elevator.

“I don’t think these’ll break,” he said, speaking to her for the first time.

“Thank you,” she whispered, looking down at them. They were shiny and bright and looked a size too big and would clash horribly with her formal black pants. But they were hers.

When she looked back up, he was gone.

She looked down again and saw his big, black umbrella by her feet, propped up against the stair.

By the time she got up, he was already on the other side of Charles, jogging through the crosswalk to get to the other side of Yonge, and was already soaked in the cool September rain.

As he turned his back towards her, walking back south on Yonge, she saw the ghost of a smile on his face.

And she smiled too.