Please Mind The Gap #1

13: Please mind the rooftop dinner

13: Please mind the rooftop dinner

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Eight pm. Teddy stuffed the note Nathan had given her into her pocket and headed for the rooftop. Except, she didn't actually know how to get there.

She sighed, frustrated. Leave it to Brownie to pick a hard-to-get-to place. She stormed into his bedroom.

Empty. Then she noticed the empty window. The blue curtain was blowing in the dry night wind against the slowly darkening sky. Out the window? And then where? She didn't know how to climb a FLAT, SMOOTH WALL. So she stuck her head out the window and looked around.

A ladder! Feeling a rush of self-accomplishment, she swung herself out the window and positioned her feet on one rung of the ladder. The clunk of her feet on the steel ladder emitted a resounding metallic echo through the night. Resolutely, Teddy started climbing like a monkey. Hands, feet, hands, feet. Finally, she reached the roof and pulled herself up.

And waiting for her, sitting on a picnic blanket; face was illuminated by the gentle golden glow of the candlelight was Nathan, grinning at her like a cat.

"I knew you could do it," he said. She walked over to him and plopped down beside him.

"Goddamn it, Brownie," she replied. She looked around at the setting before her: a pale red picnic blanket, two paper plates laid out at opposite ends of the blanket with plastic utensils, lit candles inside glass mason jars, containers filled with sandwiches and potato chips in the center of it all. "The best you could do? Potato crisps?"

"Hey, I had limited stocks," Nathan protested weakly.

"Anyway," she continued. "What's the special occasion?"

His jaw dropped. "Isn't it your birthday today?"

Teddy gaped blankly at him. "What?"

Nathan looked bewildered. "But..." he stammered. "But you said it was your birthday!"

"I did?" Teddy said in disbelief. "You idiot! I was drunk and half-awake! Of course I didn't mean it! My birthday just happened months ago in March!"

Nathan seemed to deflate. "And I had all this planned," he said hollowly.

Teddy threw her hands up in the air. "Who cares? Let's continue with the plans!"

"You mean...?"

"Well, you planned it," Teddy said. "Let's do this. First agenda?"

Nathan laughed. A nice laugh that filled the night air. Teddy couldn't help but smile as well. "What?"

"You don't just charge into a party like... like I dunno, a businesswoman. You relax. Unwind. Stuff yourself. Enjoy the moment." Nathan got a sandwich from the container in the middle and snagged a couple of chips on his plate.