How I Found You

How I Found You

Trudy was sitting on the drive with the engine running as I rounded the corner. As soon as she saw me, she gave a casual wave and pulled off through a cloud of exhaust smoke. It would have been nice if she’d had time to stop and say hello given what day it was, but she looked rushed as usual. It wasn’t as though I was asking for a lot, such as to find a warm, heavenly-scented bath drawn for me after the end of another long night shift.  

I sighed as I realised that she hadn’t had time to deal with the latest offering to our wall either. Typical. Usually it was a lone glove, keys or occasionally a child’s teddy. No-one had left a handbag before though. Served the so and so right for sitting on our wall as they waited for the bus. Trudy always told me not to get too hung about it, said it didn’t matter, but it was our garden not a bus shelter.

As the kettle rumbled, I emptied the contents of the offending bag on the kitchen table. As a bag it was however far from offensive. It was actually one that I’d been coveting online for months as I browsed wistfully to pass the hours I couldn’t sleep in our daylight-filled bedroom. We still hadn’t sorted the home furnishings I kept nagging Trudy about. She was great at putting the curtain poles up – any job in fact that meant wielding a power tool, but the nice stuff that came afterwards, well that was too frivolous for Trudy’s liking. She said I could just pick something – she didn’t care what it was, but I wanted us to do it together. 

I searched dutifully for a drivers’ license so I could return the bag, but secretly hoped I wouldn’t find one so that I could keep it. There was a lovely purse inside but no cards, just some vouchers for the cute boutique in town we never went in – it wasn’t Trudy’s thing either. Everything in the bag was lovely actually - and immaculate. I thought of the threadbare backpack Trudy would have slung on the back seat of her muddy car, there being no space left in the trunk. 

I used to love her care-free attitude, her easy, natural beauty and how she didn’t care what people thought or how things looked. It was a classic case of opposites attracting, with me being her ‘perfect princess.’ She hadn’t called me that in a long time. More and more our differences seemed to annoy rather than excite each other. Goodness knows what she’d think if she caught me fawning over this bag. She made me feel so shallow and empty sometimes. That’s why I’d said that I didn’t want anything. I suppose I was trying to impress her, but even as I said it, I don’t think I completely expected her to take it at face value. But I couldn’t get upset about it now, she’d just tell me it was my own fault and that I should say what I mean.

Was it wrong to suddenly wish the owner would come back to collect her bag? To knock on the door and to enquire if we’d seen it – I corrected myself - if I’d seen it; Trudy wouldn’t be home in this story. 

On-trend make-up, check, cute notebook, check – no clues inside – it was too nice to use like all my notepads were, and probably too small as well. Practical I wasn’t! Perfume I’d never heard of, but it had my favourite notes of amber and soybean. I gasped out loud when I saw my birthstone keyring, or nonsense keyring according to Trudy. What was going on? It must be fate. 

I couldn’t get the mystery owner out of my head as I lay staring out at the scudding clouds. Perhaps I was being overly sensitive because of what day it was, and making far too much of it, but I was at a point in life where I had to start taking it seriously and there I was, with more in common with a random stranger than my own girlfriend. Trudy didn’t care about any of that stuff in the bag, and she probably didn’t even know that I did. Was it a sign? How was I supposed to know? There was no way I could sleep so I had to see the bag again.

Seeing it again didn’t make me feel any better. Even the little plant guidebook and pretty gardening gloves - it was all grown-up stuff that I wanted to be interested in I decided as I poured myself another wine on the weed-strewn patio. I needed to pull it all out by the roots and then put my own down. All I was certain of at that moment was that I didn’t want to do it alone. I wanted to do it with someone yes, but with someone who would want to spend time with me I reasoned as the sun slid round. She should have left work ages ago I thought as I drained my glass.

The sun at least made me feel sleepy and I dragged myself inside and flopped on the sofa, desperate to escape my nagging thoughts. I focussed on the ticking clock and waited for oblivion. 

Suddenly the doorbell pierced the silence. Confused, I stumbled to my feet trying to think if I was expecting anybody.  I tried not to feel too hopeful as I rushed down the hall – most probably it was just Trudy not bothering to take her key again and just expecting me to be there.

“Sorry, hands full!” I heard Trudy’s voice behind a crate of plants and pots.

“What’s all this?”

“The rest of your present. I thought we could spend the weekend tidying the garden up. I got some really pretty plants I think you’ll like.”

“The rest of it?”

“Oh God, you did get it didn’t you? I thought it was risky. That’s why I’m late by the way. In addition to these,” Trudy nodded at the plants, “I had to make up the half hour you cost me this morning making sure you were back and no one else took it.”

“Took what? This?!” I reached for the bag.

“That’s the one. Happy birthday darling!”