clearly i am not stickin with this one 🙂
She clutched her coat more tightly to her body in a futile effort to shut out the cold rain. It was assignments like these that made her long for home, or at least to be sent somewhere tropical. She crossed the empty street, careful not to slip on the slick cobblestones and entered a small tea parlor with dusty cakes in the window. She chose a seat in the corner of the shop and hung her wet coat on the back of the wrought-iron chair. She shivered slightly as she removed a bright red handkerchief from her bag and began to dry herself off with it. The waitress spotted her and brought extra napkins along with her pot of tea. She smiled gratefully and accepted them. Hopefully her show had been enough.
She sipped her tea gently, and soon a man with a watch with a band designed like a bicycle chain approached her table with a grin. “Maggie!” he exclaimed. “It’s been too long!”
Her trigger had worked and here was her contact, exactly as she had been told he would be.
“Jonathan! I know!” She rose to embrace him. One of the first thing she had to do when she started out in this job was get over her fear of hugging strangers. “Have a seat,” she added, while taking her own. After they’d spent the next half hour trading made-up updates on their imaginary families, Jonathan looked his watch. “It’s getting a bit late, shall I escort you to the train station?”
They left the parlor with linked arms and began their short stroll to the station, seeming to all the world like a pair of lovers. At the station he pulled a small box, about twice the size of a matchbox and thrust it into her hands. “Happy birthday,” he said, and kissed her on the cheek. They hugged again, then she boarded her train. As the train started up she saw him whip out his phone to alert his superiors.
On the train she sat alone and secured the box in a compartment of her bag. The rendezvous and collection had been a success. Though she still had the boarder to cross, she expected smooth sailing from then on. She made herself comfortable and looked out the window. She took a moment for self-satisfaction. She’d done well, career-wise. After all, she was being paid to take a free trip half way across the world to drink tea and fetch a matchbox. It had even stopped raining.