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This ought to teach him to be so darned disorganized. Patient notes stick out every which way from his folder, shoved inside haphazardly as he runs out of his small apartment. He is so late and if he isn't careful, he'll miss his first appointment of the day. But of course it's windy and of course the wind would swoop in and dislodge his not-so-carefully organized mess.
And of course it would hit her right in the face. Because life is never kind to one Mendel Weisenbachfeld.
Such a pretty girl and absolutely his type and if Mendel hadn't been so mortified he might have attempted to say hi to her. All flustered and stammering through such simple pleasantries that shouldn't be that difficult. A simple 'hello' shouldn't be hard to manage. Instead, he pulls the paper off her face with a quick and murmured apology, hoping she isn't completely offended.
Instead, she smiles and Mendel returns one of his own, though hesitant and a bit crooked.
In moments like these, he feels like a fraud of a psychiatrist. Who counsels people through their problems and anxieties if he can barely form two syllables in front of a girl who smiles at him? True he knows nothing about her but oh god the way she smiles at him moves him right to the very tips of his toes.
It's only when he sees the paper that he sees the perfect outline of her lips pressed to the paper in a brilliant red. Small cupid's bow, full lower lip and oh god he wants to ask her out or kiss her or something to show he's interested but she probably has a boyfriend or a husband or a someone at home and there's no way she'd give someone like him the time of day but what if she did, is he even her type -- and before he can even pause his mini-freakout, another gust blows and he's lucky the wind doesn't carry the rest of his folder away this time. He's so concerned with holding onto his patient notes and her lip-stained paper... that she's gone by the time the gust dies down.
Because nothing can ever be easy.
Better the wind let him down than her, right?
Still, he can't get her out of his head for the rest of the morning. He goes through the motions for half of his day, barely listening to his clients and instead obsessing over the red mark on his notes. He runs his fingers over it, wishing that just once he could have things work out. Just once.
As if conjured by his wish by some sort of miracle of Judaism (really, those exist? Hardly says the skeptic who thinks religion is nothing but a sham) he spies his mystery woman standing on the street below. Coincidence or happy random happenstance? Or just hungry and wanting a hot dog?
Does the reason really matter?
He's too high up to shout down and god he doesn't even know her name and how much of a stalker would he be to try and catch her attention from five stories up? She'd think he was a lunatic -- which he probably is but no need to look at that too closely.
Yet if shouting 'hey you look up I'm the lunatic whose paper hit you in the face three hours ago' to a crowded street seems vaguely stalkerish, sending a barrage of paper airplanes hoping one will catch her attention is clearly the better option. Hopefully one day she'd use the word 'quirky and adorable' when telling this story to her friends. And not 'creepy dude who needed a restraining order'.
One airplane. Miss.
Two.
Three.
Six.
Eleven.
Miss. Miss. Miss miss miss miss.
Page after page, nailing some poor unsuspecting soul on the head -- half of them fly into the street and are swept away into traffic... the other half he loses sight of them. Yet with each airplane he throws, none of them makes its target.
He's reminded, yet again, as to why Jewish boys don't play sports. He couldn't throw a ball straight when he was twelve and he sure as heck can't aim an airplane to save his life. So when all that's left is the paper with her lip print on it... maybe that will give him that little bit of luck he needs.
Fold. Press. Aim.
Throw.
Miss.
He wonders why he expected anything else. And now he doesn't even have her lip print to remember her by. And his patient notes are now scattered through Manhattan.
Okay, so he really didn't think things through.
Mendel runs downstairs, desperate not to find the girl but to collect the whispers of each of his clients before they are scattered even further to the winds. He does spare one glance to the hot dog vendor, however, and is utterly unsurprised to find the guy counting his change alone. Because of course that's the way this goes.
Because of course.
He reaches the first folded airplane, snatching it from the gutter and is almost surprised to find he retrieved the lipstick paper first. As soon as he refolds it carefully into its airplane-like shape, the wind picks up again, pushing it out of his hands. He's almost pushed bodily down the street, the other airplanes he'd haphazardly thrown downstairs kicking up around him like a tiny cyclone. Mendel almost loses his balance, wondering why no one else is experiencing this strange zephyr, pushing him down the street and away from his office.
Mendel picks some of the airplanes out of the air -- yet others lodge in the curly mop he calls his hair and the stretchy cardigan that's more than a little threadbare. (Hey, it's comfortable, what of it?)
The gust only dies down once he's back at the train stop, looking like something out of a horror film. Airplanes are stuck to him and he feels... rumpled.
Which, considering he's standing in front of the girl he's been trying to find all day... is not a good thing.
Mendel gives her a sheepish smile, trying out a quiet chuckle in lieu of saying 'hello'. She plucks the airplane out of his hair and unfolds it, a bemused expression crossing her face when she sees her lipstick print.
"Trina," she says.
"Mendel," he says.
She leans in, lightly kissing his cheek and moves to stand beside him.
Their arms touch and their fingers brush.