My pal Del Dryden, fellow romance writer extraordinaire, came up with a fabulous idea for those of us who are (or aren’t!) attending the Romantic Times Convention this week– share a flash fiction story about a missed connection, up to 500 words, to celebrate all the connections made or lost or wished for as we travel to New Orleans and back.

I haven’t even left my apartment yet, and I’m already so excited about her prompt that I’m posting a little ahead of the game here. Hopefully I’ll just be kicking things off and not being terribly unfashionably early to the party.



W seeking M

February 22—Lincoln Park Conservatory—Artist?

You:

Sitting cross-legged on a bench under a jasmine tree in the Tropical Room at the Lincoln Park Conservatory on Sunday, February 22nd. Three months ago. Dark hair, brown skin, late 20s-early 30s? You were drawing on a sketchpad, frowning, until you looked up and saw me watching you, and then you smiled.

You had a really nice smile.

I think you might be an artist, because there were paint or ink stains on your fingers. I couldn’t see what you were drawing at first.

Me:

Brown-haired girl with glasses in a purple wool coat and scarf. Obviously insane, because I’d just spent an hour in the Tropical Room of the conservatory, reading every sign on every plant, reciting the Latin names aloud, and I’d only just gotten warm enough to unbutton my coat and unwind my scarf from around my neck.

Also I waited three months to post this Missed Connection.

I was at the conservatory that day because I hadn’t felt warm in months. Hadn’t felt anything, really, in a long time. Then you smiled at me, and my blood ran hot in my cheeks and I felt my heart beating through my twelve layers of wool and I felt alive in a way I hadn’t in years, from just that one look.

I thought I’d felt you looking at me, the way I’d been looking at you. If you’d had a Latin name, I would have recited it aloud until I’d memorized it. If you’d had a plaque I could read that would tell me where you grew, I’d have run my fingers over the engravings of the words.

I couldn’t work up the nerve to talk to you, so I walked behind you instead, underneath the jasmine tree. I was hoping you’d say something to me first, because I knew I’d never be brave enough to say hello. Maybe five years ago I would have been, before life knocked that confidence out of me, but it’s not five years ago.

Just as I walked behind you, you set down your sketchbook and stretched. Your fingers brushed the jasmine petals over your head, and I felt that touch on my own skin, imagined your fingertips against my cheek, on the back of my neck, behind my ear. I could see those parts of your skin—cheek, neck, the juncture of neck and shoulder, the shape of your biceps under the worn cotton of your sweater. I wanted to touch you, and I must have made a sound, because you turned around and I blindly reached for a jasmine blossom and plucked it off the branch. I didn’t know what else to do with it, so I tucked it behind my ear.

You looked at me again and held out your sketchbook.

It took more than a moment for me to recognize myself in your drawing. Some wild, lovely girl, as full of life as her surroundings. Warm as May and as welcoming.

It’s May now.

I wear jasmine perfume.