“A Rainy Day”

Now that the snow is finally gone, dead dry leaves that were trapped under the white for months are finally visible again, blowing up and down the street like autumn and winter are yet to be over. Time travel. That's before it starts raining, though; when it starts pelting down, the leaves are flattened to the pavement and their dance stops. Luckily I avoid getting soaked; I make the short walk from my house to the meeting place before the clouds give in and start their downpour.

April's late, as usual. I sit in the coffee shop for half an hour, waiting for her to show up, but it's not so bad. I brought along a book, knowing her and knowing that she'll never be on time. My mind doesn't seem able to focus on reading, though, and I spend most of that spare interval watching the other people in the café.

A rather odd-looking pair sit devouring sandwiches. The woman is large, with frizzy hair that will probably only look worse when she goes back out into the rain. Her partner is a tall, skinny Asian man with drawn-on eyebrows, gaunt cheeks and hair that is half-shaved so that bangs fall around his face, but the rest of his head is uncovered. They don't talk, they just eat. I wonder if they are a couple, or oddball best friends, or both because the rest of the world is so unsympathetic to them.

Two people sit alone at separate tables, each concentrating on laptops. A coffee shop staple, surely, I think. Trendy students showcasing their coolness and intellect with the help of a computer and a latte. One will be working on a novel, the other might just be playing Solitaire.

When April walks in, she is drenched. Her hair is plastered to her scalp and her eye makeup has run down her cheeks. She looks like Brandon Lee in “The Crow”. She scans the room and then walks towards me, rubbing her bare arms.

“Forget your coat again?” April is always forgetting things. One time, she forgot for a short while that she had a boyfriend, and ended up cheating on him. It was a complete accident, she said afterwards. But the guy still dumped her, because he never really understood April. He never got that, in many ways, she isn't like other people. She can't help the way she is a lot of the time. Although I don't think the massive amounts of cannabis help with her memory problems.

“Yeah...” She bends down to hug me, pressing her moist body against my dry shirt, wrapping those slick, pale arms around my neck. She kisses me on the cheek and it makes me shiver.

“I'll be right back,” she whispers in my ear, then runs off to the toilet. When she returns a few minutes later, she looks completely different. Her hair is dry, the ruined makeup is all gone, and while her clothes still cling to her in damp patches, she seems warmer.

“Sit under the hand-dryer?” I ask, laughing a little because at just that moment I remember the time she dried her whole body with a hairdryer at my place, claiming her skin was too sensitive at the time to use a towel.

“Yep,” she nods and sits down on the sofa next to me, her eyes on the chalkboard across the room. “What's good? I'm starving. No. Just thirsty.” She bites her lip, which means she can't make up her mind. A moment later, she stands up and walks over to the counter without saying anything else. When she sits down again, it's with a giant muffin and a bottle.

“I love Orangina,” she says, smiling properly for the first time since she walked in. “It's got bits, just like juice, but it's fizzy. It's like being on holiday.”

“Yeah,” I say, “it's great. The muffin looks good, too.”

“I'm not hungry,” she says suddenly, pushing the plate away. “Do you want it?”

“I thought you were starving? And no thanks, I had a big breakfast.”

“I forgot breakfast. I slept at a friend's house... that's why I had no coat. It was warm last night.”

“The weather can't decide,” I say, sliding the plate back to April. “You should really eat. Don't you have the munchies, at least?”

“Nah.” Nevertheless, she starts to pick at the muffin. She drinks the Orangina and burps, which makes us both laugh. Sometimes things like that are really funny; a girl burping. Like when you hear your mum swear.

April's fingers are stained blue, which surprises me because I didn't think they put real blueberries in the muffins in places like this. She sucks her fingertips and then wipes them on a napkin, suddenly restless.

“My place?” She asks, and I nod in agreement because I'm bored of the café and I know that when April gets restless she likes to walk. So we head out into the rain and she lights a cigarette, or maybe it's a joint, she's walking really quickly and I can't see it properly with all the movement. Somehow the glowing orange tip manages to stay bright, amidst all the water. She talks non-stop for a while, about a dream she had, and about the friend whose house she slept at last night.

“He's a bit stupid,” she explains, “but nice with it. Do anything for you, bless him.” She prattles on about all the nice things that he's said and done in the time that she's known him, and I don't really say anything. When she has stopped talking, we are at her building. We walk up to the fourth floor because the lift is broken, and April unlocks the door to her flat.

The moment the door is closed behind us, she peels off her wet clothes and heads into the bedroom. I do the same. This isn't a sexual thing, although I've fucked April in the past. No, this is something more innocent. April gets under the covers, and I join her. When she speaks again, her voice is different, as if she has a cold or is about to cry.

“Jake?” She asks.

“Yes?”

“How long have I known you? I forget.”

“A long time,” I reply. “A long, long time.”

The rain is loud against the window, and we lie listening to it for a while. Somewhere in another flat in the building, music is playing, but I can't make out much. White noise. We can hear the sound of a vehicle driving down the street, through a giant puddle. The splash sounds like applause.

“I want to be like water,” April says. “I want to slip through fingers, and hold up ships.” I have no idea what to say to April at moments like this. I find her hand under the covers and squeeze it, hoping that it will give her what she needs – comfort, reassurance, or maybe just the knowledge that there is somebody next to her.

She asks me to stay for a little while, and I do. When she drifts off to sleep, I tiptoe out of the bedroom, put on my damp clothes, and go out into the hall. I nearly run straight into a girl on the stairs. She smiles at me brightly, and I ask her name. Old habits die hard. The girl says her name is May. I grin at this, but resist the urge to ask for her number. I tell her to have a nice day, and then I head back out into the downpour.

I take my time walking home; getting wet isn't much of a distraction anymore. I step in half a dozen puddles by accident, and another half dozen on purpose. My clothes weigh a lot more than they did this morning. When I walk into the house, my girlfriend is curled up on the sofa, watching TV. I walk over and kiss her on the forehead, but she pushes me away in mock-disgust.

“You're soaked!”

“Yep,” I nod. It's true, after all.

“Well go and dry off, you'll catch your death.” She turns her gaze back to the show. I shuffle into the hall and up the stairs, ignoring the dark trail behind me on the carpet. I take a long hot shower, put on some new clothes, and go back downstairs with an unusual hankering. It's so gray outside, I want something to remind me of the warmth in the air last night. Something to bring on the summer. I call out to my girlfriend from the kitchen;

“Do we have any Orangina?”

Author's Note: This is the result of an afternoon sat in the corner of a coffee shop, watching the rain and the customers. It was going to have a terribly cute title like April Showers or April Fools, but I decided against that.