OUT OF DARK CLOUDS a heavy, cleansing rain swept through the city, accompanied by lightning and thunder. Jacinta, head down against the wind, rushed across a street when, to the best of her ability in the downpour, she had determined there was no oncoming traffic. She had on a magenta raincoat but no umbrella. Her hair was dripping. In the gray of the rain and dirty water running in the gutters, the colors of her coat and pale blue shoes were muted almost to the same wash of gray. Jacinta was suddenly blinded. A sheet of flying newspaper wrapped itself around her face. She turned away from the wind so its force would not plaster it so tightly. She turned again in the middle of the street, now confused. There was a boom of thunder that took a rumbling moment to subside. At the same moment there was a pressure put on her arm and words spoken against the torrent. She felt herself being guided and in a moment heard the word, “Step.” The pressure on her arm indicated a lifting and she experienced the deft sensation of leaping across a gutter. Her ankle turned in a spongy spot of water. Laughing, she was led under some cover where the rain was heard drumming above her, but she was no longer pelted on. She scooped the soppy paper from her face in strips and bits. She still could not see. Rain hung from her lashes and continued to stream from her hair.

“Well, that was something!” she said, “How nice of you to rescue me.” She was in high spirits. She peeled more wet shreds from her face.

Her rescuer was strangely silent.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“We are under a canopy at the door to a café.”

“Are you able to see yet?”

“I have a hood on my poncho. I have seen well.”

From under her raincoat she brought out a handkerchief and dried her eyelids and the drops hanging from her lashes. Her little laughs died.

Surely this was Tomas.

Of course it is he! How he stares.

“Tomas?”

“It is I.” He stated without question: “Jacinta.”

Hearing the deep voice in the likeness of what had been her childhood friend produced the strangest of emotions. It was so unexpected she wanted to laugh, but at the same time a catch in her throat stopped it.
“This is – a coincidence,” she managed to say.

“No. No coincidence.”

“I believe so.” She took his broad face in by the light from the café. “How have you been?” she asked.

“Very well. I went to Los Angeles to search for you.”

“You what!!!” she shrieked. “Are you crazy?”