Rom-com at the Rite Aid

Math Man took in the expanse of wood floor, the waltz-y music and reached for me. "It seems the perfect spot to dance." I laughed and said, "There's a scene from a movie!" We were on an exciting Saturday morning date to get our flu shots.

I spent the 15 minutes we had to wait imagining the movie, scribbling bits on an old flyer from the Edinburg Fringe stuffed at the bottom of my bag. (Because I'd left my trusty 3x5" black notebook in my other bag.) Surely a rom-com? Or just maybe a Bond knock-off? Nope, definitely a rom-com. How would I have written this scene? Were we the main characters or are we having a cameo in someone else's film? Was this a prologue, the epilog, a set-up for a flashback? Would we dance, or not quite touch and head to the chairs at the edge?

We are the main characters. The pharmacist is a cameo by Awkwafina. It's the prologue, which is the set-up for a flashback, to Princeton University in the fall. It's October 1987, the main characters are crossing campus, the crisp leaves swirling around our feet. Each of us is deep in conversation with a colleague. We brush pass by each other as strangers would. Next scene shows a handsome mathematician in a light blue oxford shirt, his sleeves rolled up past his wrists, standing in front of a blackboard covered in arcane symbols. The phone rings. Flip to a woman standing in front of a set of mailboxes, unfolding a stiff piece of stationery....