This Old Thing?

1,200 words This Old Thing.
By Diane Rayburn

It had been warm and sunny with no mention of rain on the weather forecast when they left home that morning. Then, as Ann left work, the skies had opened, but there was no time to shelter. Jamie and Sara her children were due home from school at any moment.
Ann shivered. The movement shifted the collar of her thin summer coat letting a dribble of icy rainwater down her neck. Luckily, the entrance to the cul-de-sac where they lived was across the road.
While she waited for the traffic to thin, Ann tried to plan what to cook for that evening’s meal. It ought to be something warm and nourishing, but it would take too long; she didn’t have the energy.
While she guiltily settled on unhealthy but fast, a passing car hugging the kerb drenched her with the contents of a rainbow hued puddle that had formed over a clogged up drain.
Ann gasped. The sheet of dirty water cascaded over her head, down her face, soaked the front of her coat and grit, half-rotted leaves and black silt stuck to her legs filling her already sodden shoes.
Smelling of petrol and shuddering to think what else the water contained, she dabbed ineffectually at her face with a limp square of tissue and squelched unhappily home.
‘Mum, wait for us,’ Sara and Jamie’s voices called out from behind her as she stumbled into the narrow bleak hall of the small terrace house they had moved into after Ann’s divorce.
‘What happened to you?’ For once they were both looking at her.
‘Careless drivers and what you get for day dreaming.’ Ann was about to kick the door shut, but stopped when she heard someone calling from the front gate.
All she could see was a gaudy golfing umbrella, and the bottom of a snazzy brown rain coat over two long, twill clad legs.
‘Ah it is you.’ A voice muffled by the rain pounding on the umbrella called out. ‘I’m very sorry I honestly didn’t realise how near I was to that puddle. I stopped to apologise, but you’d crossed before I had a chance. You must let me pay to have your coat cleaned.’
Ann stifled a yawn. Once she would have given the driver a piece of her mind, but she had no energy to spare since Steven had walked away from them. The initial feeling of anger and all the emotions that accompany even the friendliest divorce had finally settled into a sad dullness. Each day felt like the last and although the children and her job kept her busy, it seemed as if nothing special happened to her anymore. Ann couldn’t remember the last spontaneous thing she had done.
At that moment a gust of rain blew into the hall flinging a random pattern of raindrops down the dingy cream wall.
Fighting off another yawn Ann invited him in and studied him as he stepped over the threshold. He had a neat nose, kind blue eyes and slightly thinning dark brown hair. He wasn’t good looking, but somehow his face escaped being ordinary due to a humorous twist at the corners of a generous mouth.
Her ex husbands mouth was pinched. When she had proudly taken him home to meet her parents her mother said he had prissy lips and predicted he would be hard to live with. Ann, blissfully in love for the very first time was deeply hurt and hadn’t spoken to her mother for months.
He hesitated on the doorstep. ‘I’d better not come inside; I don’t want to ruin your carpet.’
Ann was trying to peel away a lock of hair irritatingly clinging to her cheek. Tucking it behind her ear she looked down at the dirty wet patch dripping into the carpet around her feet.
Suddenly, he put his hands over his mouth, and as he turned away his shoulders began to shake.
It was only a coat for heavens sake. It wasn’t that bad! Embarrassed, and wishing desperately he would go away, Ann was about to awkwardly pat his shoulder when muffled snorts escaped from behind his hands. He was laughing! Then Sara and Jamie began to giggle. ‘Oh mum, you do look funny.’
Ann glimpsed her face in the hall mirror. Her thick blonde hair dotted with debris from the gutter hugged her scalp in mousy strands. Her mascara had run and her face, deprived of that mornings light coat of foundation was red and blotchy.
Feeling the beginnings of a sob catch in her throat Ann took a deep breath and fighting for control turned towards the stairs.
‘While you’re all falling about with mirth I shall go and get changed. James, see this – this - person – out,’ but then she ruined her careful exit by sneezing and tripping on the bottom stair.
He came towards her. ‘I’m sorry. My sense of humour gets me into all sorts of trouble; I wasn’t laughing at you.’ He cleared his throat and fought to control his face. ‘Well, technically I suppose I was - but I wasn’t if you see what I mean. I suspect you’re remarkably beautiful when you’re clean and dry. Oh God listen to me I’m making things worse! Here’s the money for your coat.’
He fumbled in his wallet, put a twenty-pound note on the telephone shelf at the bottom of the stairs, and backed out of the door.
Ann’s temper snapped. Forgetting all about being wet and miserable, she snatched up the twenty pounds, and telling the children not to follow kicked his forgotten umbrella into the garden, and ran after him.
The rain was coming down harder than ever. Ann dodged between cars and then slowed her pace when she recognised his bedraggled figure standing helplessly by the side of the road.
Despite its expensive appearance his raincoat was obviously letting in water and his trousers clung to the front of his legs like a second skin.
Childishly pleased to see how wet he was, Ann felt her bad temper miraculously leak away and a long silent imp of mischief slide into its place.
‘I’m Ann Carter, divorced with two children. You left your umbrella behind … I like your legs,’ she said calmly.
He looked distractedly over her shoulder. ‘Someone’s stolen my car. I’ve only had it for two months. I know I parked here. Oh sorry; I’m Sam Black, unattached - I really love that car … ’ Bemused he looked down at his legs. ‘Do you?’
Ann began to laugh. She pointed at the double yellow lines shining cleanly against the wet tarmac. ‘Not stolen – probably towed.’
Laughing, her eyes met his and then, stunned into silence she felt the knot of unhappiness that had been part of her for so long slip away.
Laughter,’ she thought. All I needed was laughter,’
then, remembering that he had said she was probably beautiful, I’ll have to dry out and show him.
‘My mobile’s in the car,’ he protested weakly, but then he smiled and gently touched her face.
‘Your coat’s ruined.’
She laughed again and put her hand over his. ‘What this old thing? Come on, let’s go home and get dry.’