I looked at my wristwatch for the umpteenth time. Women keeping men waiting is a norm, true. Still, I couldn’t for the life of me now phantom how I had tolerated the extent to which she took liberty with this tradition. And for six good months. No doubt, those six months had been good, really good. Recently however, I had the feel of a man who’d been rudely awakened from bliss. Couldn’t deny to myself that I hadn’t always suspected it to be just what it was – a dream.
An average of twenty-five minutes. That was about how long it usually took her to get from her dorm room on the second floor to our rendezvous – the closest mini-park; even when I’d called her an hour before hand. It really was barely a stone throw away, and yet she’d now kept me waiting for forty-five minutes. In the old days, when I was still head over heels in love, I would have by now grown frantically worried.
“Had she tripped while coming down the staircase?”
“Had one of my ex-girlfriends finally given in to jealousy and accosted her at just this moment?”
“Or had one of those idiot drivers who buzzed around campus at unbelievable speeds buzzed into her and she was right now writhing in pain at the health center, unable to communicate to me her distress?”