The Meeting

Wil sets off on a date to meet a woman he's been corresponding with online, but isn't expecting the adventures that lie ahead of him.

Wil stared up at the grey building that loomed over him. He'd parked his car down the street and walked to find the address, since the road had a crater-sized hole in it. It looked like some roadwork had been abandoned in this area. Now that he looked around at the other buildings, it didn't look like anyone lived here �" at least not anymore. He looked at the webpage open on his phone to check the address again. 3525 Duvernay. This was it. Or had been. He squinted in the gloom, trying to read what was left of the rusted sign in front of the building. Most of the letters were gone, except AS LA. It was supposed to be the Castella restaurant, an Italian place. This building had obviously been uninhabited for a long time. He used his fist to wipe off some of the dust covering a front window, and saw some broken chairs scattered inside, as well as a long counter with a coffee pot, the spout missing.

There must be some mistake, he thought, and looked walked down the street, looking at the other buildings. The windows were boarded up in most of them, and all were dark.

It was like being in some kind of dead zone.

He refreshed his browser to search another site for the restaurant, but there was no signal.

Sighing, he kept walking, past his car, heading towards a gas station. The only place that seemed to have any sign of life.

“Hi,” he said to the attendant, a young guy who had his feet up on the counter, flipping through a magazine.

The attendant glanced up at him, grunted a semblance of a greeting, and went back to his magazine.

A calendar was pinned to the wall nearby, and Wil was puzzled at the date. November 1975. The month was right, but the year was way off. The edges of the calendar curled up and he could see a couple of dead flies behind it. The whole place looked filthy, unkempt.

“I'm looking for the Castella restaurant?” he asked, and the clerk glanced up again. He motioned with his head in the direction of the abandoned place Wil had just come from.

“Down the street,” he mumbled.

Wil gave an irritated laugh. “No, buddy, that place has been shuttered for years. Obviously.”

The clerk shrugged and went back to the magazine.

“Don't you have a computer here somewhere, to do a search for it online?” he asked. But there was no computer in sight. It looked like he'd entered a time warp, and was back before the internet had been invented.

“Can't help you,” the clerk said, loudly this time.

Wil shook his head and walked out, disgusted at the man's lack of manners.

Back in his car, Wil drove until he got back into a more populated area of town, and finally had signal. He searched for the restaurant again. The Castella had moved five years ago.

D****t! He thought. I knew it wasn't going to work out. I should've known.

He'd been talking to Cassandra online for three months, and they'd finally decided to meet. Neither of them had had much luck on the dating scene in the past few years, both coming out of long relationships - in her case, a divorce that had been long and painful. His relationship with Tamara had lasted twelve years. It had been a comfortable situation that had grown increasingly loveless and stagnant.

They'd talked on the phone once, and she'd laughingly admitted most of her photos online were filtered, since she had rosacea and wanted the skin smoothed out. He told her his photos were of his younger, thinner self, and she'd laughed again. Something about her voice reassured him.

He got to the new restaurant �" almost half an hour late �" but she was nowhere to be found. A waiter told him a woman fitting her description had waited a long time, but had finally left.

Discouraged, he sat in his car, thinking. What if...

He drove back to the other side of town, stopping in front of the crater again. He was walking towards the dilapidated building when he heard a woman's voice from somewhere above him.

“Wil?”

He looked up, and saw her long skirt billowing out in the wind from where she stood on the roof. Her dark hair fell in front of her as she looked down, obscuring half her face.

“Cassandra?”

“Call me Cassie!” she said, smiling.

“Stay away from the edge!” he said, alarmed.

“Come on up!” she called. “There's a fire escape in the back.”

He climbed the rusted staircase, holding on tightly as it swayed back and forth. She greeted him at the top, extending her hand.

“Hi.”

“Hey,” he said, shaking her hand. It was cold, just like his. He was a nervous wreck. Seeing her in the flesh was a little surreal. He met her eyes and looked away almost immediately, taken aback by the intensity of her gaze.

“So you figured out I was at the old address. Sorry,” he said, sitting down on an old lawn chair. The whole situation felt odd.

“That's okay. This place has its charm,” she laughed, and gazed up at the clear sky. The stars shone brightly in that part of town, due to less light pollution. The moon was almost full.

“We could stay here,” he said.

She nodded. “We could.”

Snow began to fall, light flakes falling from the sky, almost dreamily. The first snowfall of the season. Wil smiled. He'd heard that November was the saddest month of the year, but for him, the snow always brought a certain magic to winter.

After a few moments of silence, they took a last look around the old rooftop and descended the fire escape, heading for the Castella's new address.

Author's Note

Let me know what you think!