The Curious Case of Emma Lee

It was a rainy day, the day that I met her.

I remember the raindrops making their way down the shop windows as I walked along the sidewalk. I clutched my collar, holding it close to keep the precipitation out, and to keep the last vestiges of warmth inside my jacket. The jacket was old and worn, and it was already doing an unsatisfactory job keeping the rain at bay; I refused to carry an umbrella. My shoes splashed in the ever-growing menagerie of puddles, and I had to find some respite from the rain. I put my hand on the next handle I saw and pulled it open.

The air was warm inside and welcoming, and it seemed I had found my way into a small bar, and with some even greater luck, I found that I was the only patron. In it, there was a small, brown-haired woman. She was cleaning glasses and didn’t seem to notice me.

“What do you want?” she said.

“Beer?”

She never looked up from the glass. “That’s alarmingly generic.”

“Do you have a better suggestion?”

“No,” she said. “I just thought that a writer would be more creative.”

“I guess I’m not that good,” I said before the realization hit. “How did you know I was a writer?”