The Woman At The Bus Stop

   

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The Woman At The Bus Stop

Jason Rooney picked up the bag containing his bowling ball, shouted, ‘Bye,’ to his wife and made his way to the bus stop. Friday night was his night out with the boys and since he always downed a few jars at the bowling alley, he had left his car on the drive. Reaching Fenchurch Street he joined the end of the bus queue. The queue was always long on a Friday night, filled with a mainly young crowd inbound for a night on the town.

As he waited he scanned the queue on the off chance that there was anyone he knew. There was no one. There were two women at the front that looked to be in their late twenties and apart from them, the rest were in their teens. In the distance a bus turned the corner and he stared at it until the number came into focus. Number 5, no good, but since it terminated in the town centre it would clear the queue and he wouldn’t have to stand when his own bus arrived. As the number 5 pulled up, his eyes were drawn to the front of the queue again. The women were about to board and as they did, the taller of the two, a really stunning blond, smiled at him and gave a little wave. For a moment the world seemed a brighter place and then she disappeared inside the bus and he was left wondering who on earth she was.

The number 16 arrived; he climbed on board, took a seat at the front and all the way in to the A1 Bowls, pondered on the identity of the mysterious blond. He couldn’t recall having met her before and if he had, he was sure he would remember someone with a figure like hers. He went over the times and locations where he could possibly have met her and came up blank. It bothered him, but it couldn’t have bothered him that much, because he forgot all about her when his team won the quarterfinals that night.

In fact he had forgotten about her completely, until he saw her again three weeks later. It was Friday night again; she was at the front of the queue again and just as she was about to board the bus she did that smile and little wave again. He swelled with pride, a Thirty-eight year old married man with two kids and he could still pull a class doll like her. But once again his mind was in turmoil over who she was. No matter how hard he tried he just didn’t seem to be able to place her and this time he couldn’t forget her. Next time that he saw her, he was determined to ask her how she knew him.

He got his chance sooner than he expected. On Tuesday as he was driving home from work he spotted her standing at a bus stop in the High Street. Hurriedly he searched for and found a parking place and walked back and caught her just as she was stepping into the bus. ‘Excuse me,’ he called.

 She turned her head and smiled.

‘Do you know me?’ he asked.

‘Of course I do,’ she replied. ‘You’re the father of one of my children.’

He was stunned speechless and before he could recover the bus was off taking her with it. He ran to the car and began to follow the bus, his mind selecting and rejecting when and where he could have; to put it nicely, had a liaison with this woman. It had to have happened before he got married, so it would be eight years or more ago. But when?  Ibeza? He had met a blond there but he knew who she was, he’d seen her several times in Tesco’s over the years. Majorca? No. Kos? No. Then it hit him; it had to have been his stag night in Budapest. They had bumped into that hen party in the cellar bar and when he woke up in the morning he couldn’t remember a thing that had happened.

He slowed down, the bus was stopping and she was getting off. He looked around wildly, a car backed out and he whipped into the empty space before the old codger who had been waiting for it could make a move. Jumping out of the car he race after and caught up with her outside the paper shop. ‘Did we meet … er, in Budapest?’

‘No don’t be silly.’

‘Where then?’

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