Rear View Mirror(C)

There is something about red cars on grey rainy days. And if there is a young lady behind the wheel, the grey leaches away even faster. More so if she is wearing something in navy which beautifully offsets her skin and throws her coal black tresses into relief. The mere sight of her in the rear view mirror was a good antidote to the pent up irritation of the mile long jam of cars crawling in to work on Monday.

She was nodding in time to music- most possibly something peppy and upbeat- it looked like that. Then she smiled and golden sunshine broke out from behind the clouds, little birds started chirping and the highway became banked with the most beautiful flowers. No, really I mean that, it was like that. An I-am-so-in-love-with-the-Universe smile.I smiled back. Which was silly, she could not see me! But it made me feel better.

She tossed her hair away from her face in a quick movement, and started mouthing what she had been listening to. I could make out it was a popular ditty, which I happened to have in my car too. I cranked up the volume and started singing too.

And suddenly even the prospect of meeting with my dragon boss later in the day did not seem as awful. It had been weighing on my mind all over the weekend and had quite ruined a romantic getaway to the beach. Niki had been her ebullient self, “Never mind, it happens, why don’t you log on from here” and then the rain, the darned rain , creeping up on my best laid plans.

I was lost in the reverie, when I realized we had started moving. As I brought my foot down on the accelerator, I looked up again. She pursed her lips together in a Kiss…

I passed the rest of the drive in a haze. When I reached my desk, my cell phone rang

“Niki, since when have you been blowing kisses to people in the car in front of you?”

“Only when the car in front of me is yours, have a good day!”