Meet Cute

Melinda was running late. She had told her friends she would be there at 5:30, and she left her house at 5:35, and still had to stop by the outdoor market to buy some fruits for the fondue gathering. On her drive to the market, words and feelings from last night's phone conversation with Angela kept spinning through her head. Angela, one of Melinda's closest friends, who had moved to the west coast nearly five months a go, had called to announce her engagement. She couldn't avoid think about what her friend sentenced last night: "Melinda, I swear, if you don't move to another city,  or at least make some effort to meet someone, you're never going to find  anyone right for you". Angela always wanted to set her up with her guy friends but Melinda hated this because of it's "forced" nature. Eventually, Angela got the message and stopped trying to fix her up with people. Even though Melinda wasn't as superficial as her friend, she had always wondered why there was such a scarcity of good looking men in Claremont. At 5:43, she was parking her small sports car at the market. She quickly took several paper bags and started picking green apples, peaches, bananas, pears, and mandarin.   She was almost ready to go when she remembered one of the best fruits to combine with chocolate was strawberry.  She turned around, and quickly walked towards the berries area to grab some. She aimed directly to the strawberry basket without realizing there was a striking young man in the same spot, with his hands inside the basket. Their fingers touched in the midst of all those berries and she looked up to find a pair of emerald green eyes and an adorable-dimple-smile looking back at her. A tall, ghost white, black hair beau apologized, for what seemed like no good reason, and she didn't know how to respond. Her jaw fell open in astonishment and then, in embarrassment after a few giggles, she managed to say "No, I'm sorry, I'm in such a hurry I didn't see you until....". The instant these words escaped out of her mouth she regretted saying them. They had killed any possibility of an interesting conversation taking place. "Oh, ok, I'll stay out of your way, then"... but she was fast enough to tell him "No, It's ok! I'm already late anyways". He laughed. She laughed. And then asked the inevitable "why so many strawberries?" "Oh! I have a get together with my girlfriends, we're supposed to drink wine, eat cheese and chocolate fondue and talk about our unexciting and non-existing love lives." He kept looking at her with a question mark on his face, so she explained "the strawberries are for the fondue". But apparently, the strawberries were covered, his puzzled face was for an entire different reason, "How come a beautiful woman like yourself has an 'unexciting and non-existing' love life?" Melinda blushed at the question, but felt completely flattered and excited he thought she was beautiful. She took advantage of the situation and told him "that would take hours and many cups of wine to explain". The stranger looked deeply in her eyes, smiled and asked her "how about over dinner, Friday night?" Melinda couldn't believe it. In what alternate universe was living in? How did this happen? She felt like she was part of a movie. She quickly smiled back at him and told him "sure". They exchanged numbers, smiled at each other, said their good byes. And Melinda forgot she was in a hurry. As she walked back to the car she still couldn't believe what just happened. She turned the engine on, speed dialed her friend. She couldn't wait to tell her what had happened. Almost immediately she hung up. Maybe she should keep this to herself. At least until the date takes place.