Just like in that 60’s song, Ted and I met at the bus stop. We didn’t have an umbrella, but a gust of hot wind scattered his papers across the sidewalk and we chatted after chasing them down. We discovered we were both waiting for the shuttle to Allen House, an apartment complex near downtown Houston that catered to young professionals. The shuttle was a major amenity for the residents, not only because we could save on downtown parking, but also because it provided a venue to meet others in the days before online dating; as such, we called it “The Love Bus.”
Our offices were on opposite blocks of the same street, and we crossed paths that July day only because I had worked a bit later than usual, while Ted had skipped out a little early. The next day we followed the same routine; I hung around the office for an extra half-hour, while he watched out the window and bolted from his drafting table when he saw me at the corner. We both tried to make it look coincidental.
After several days of this charade, things seemed to be going in the right direction until he told me he was moving to a new place and wouldn’t be on the bus after the end of the week. That Friday, a crisis kept me at the office even past my new departure time, and the bus whizzed by as I hurried along the street toward the stop. I wanted to cry when I saw the bus. There it went, with Ted aboard for the last time, and we hadn’t exchanged numbers. That’s it, I thought, I’ll never see him again.
I walked on, kicking myself for not paying attention to the time. Then, I looked toward the bus stop and there he was, sitting on the bench, watching me. I couldn’t believe it… it was just like a scene in a movie. I swear, music even swelled in my head. I hurried toward him and said, “The bus just went by… I thought you were gone!”
He just smiled and said, “I waited for you.”
Twenty-four years later, I still have the slip of paper he gave me that afternoon with his name and phone number written on it. I had to ask him how to pronounce Kollaja; little did I know then how well I would learn it myself. I keep the note pinned in a glass shadow box between Alex’s Boy Scout ribbon and a beaded bracelet reading ‘Mom’s Girl’ that Sophie made for me when she was five. I see the paper, and the mementos of our life together, every day and am glad, so glad, he didn’t get on that bus without me.
