Raincoat Song

Delaney was twenty-eight when it happened. She’d been waiting her entire life to reach that moment – picking up coffee from a small shop after her afternoon class at university, rain pouring from the sky and ruining plans of a leisurely stroll home.

It had been a long day of studying and preparing for a final Master’s degree presentation that would be arriving in just a short time. The rain had ruined a great deal of the day for all of New York; it had been delaying trains and taxis for most of the city’s inhabitants, Delaney including. She had been ten minutes late to that thesis meeting at noon, twenty minutes late to walk home from campus with her roommate, five minutes late from the closing time of the campus-based Starbucks kiosk.

She didn’t realize that she would owe all future happiness to that mini-monsoon, since its obscene circumstances led to that fateful first meeting. Since you see, if anything had gone differently, if her train had made it on campus in time for her to get coffee before her meeting or if she’d gotten out soon enough to meet Cindy for the walk home or if the campus center’s barista had lost track of time and stayed just a few minutes later, she wouldn’t have gone to get coffee on the corner.

And she wouldn’t have met him.

Because in the moment she was strolling to a corner booth, he was rushing in towards the counter and ordering before emphatically explaining something to the young male barista. The only words Delaney caught as he practically yelled to the whole business were “you will never believe about the wedding… couldn’t do it… left my umbrella at home, don’t worry about it… I told you it wouldn’t happen…”

He stayed there for fifteen minutes chatting rather loudly with the employee, who apparently had been involved in some sort of bet with the dark-haired man – long enough for Delaney to not only become increasingly annoyed as she tried to read over her ultimate graduate school assignment, but also to finish her coffee and begin her trek toward the counter to return her “eco-friendly” cup. And never one to leave out a comment, especially not during thesis, she couldn’t walk away without saying something.

“Excuse me,” she intoned loudly, interrupting the suit-wearing man’s diatribe as both he and his main audience looked to her incredulously. “Don’t you think it’s a bit rude to walk into a public space and start yelling like that? I don’t mean to be rude in return, of course, but I’ve been trying to study and it’s impossible with all this noise.”

“I-uh,” the stranger replied, looking around a bit as he realized he had in fact been practically yelling in public. “You’re right; I’m sorry, I just didn’t realize. See, my best friend just left her fiancé at the altar because she came to this world-stopping realization that she was supposed to marry another of our friends. And I come here for coffee a lot because I teach at Columbia, and I bet Chris here that she wouldn’t go through with the wedding so he owes me twenty bucks. And I know the whole things sounds so awful, but I just knew she couldn’t do it. This guy she’s going to be with – they’re complete soul mates, you know? Really just perfect for each other in every way.”

Oh. Now Delaney was uncomfortable.

Here was this man pouring a very personal part of his life out to her like it was nothing… and he was doing so not a minute after she had attempted to verbally slap him… and he taught at the school she was graduating from in two weeks so which meant she had just practically assaulted a seemingly romantic, definitely adorable man who could easily make those next two weeks a living hell… and the way he spoke lead her to believe that she knew him from somewhere in the past which was in itself an unsettling realization.

“Oh,” was indeed all she could say. “I’m so sorry I just snapped out like that; it was ruder than anything you did by a million percent, and you were just happy for your friend. And I’m so sorry, really.”

He laughed now, his brown eyes lighting up as his head tilted back slightly. Genuine. “It’s fine, I promise. I probably shouldn’t have been telling that story to someone who barely knows Robin in the first place – I am sorry.”

“No, I just feel awful now! I insulted you before I even knew you! And you’re a professor at my school, so I’m in real trouble if you decide to get vengeful down the road or something, turn into the crazy professor.” And then it hit her: where their paths had crossed before. Now the situation was nearly laughable, but she kept up the serious exterior, unsure of whether it would be good to further upset the man who really didn’t even seem too upset. “Is there any way I could make it up to you? Here! You can have my umbrella! It’s the best one in the city, and I’m practically home, so – here. It’s yours.”

“I – thank you,” he smiled again, actually taking the yellow mechanism from Delaney’s offering hand. Then his expression quickly turned into a sad puppy dog look, those big brown eyes staring up at her like those orphans from the Save the Children commercials. “But, y’know, I really couldn’t just take this umbrella from you if it’s the best in New York – that would be worse than insulting you within five seconds of knowing you, right? Maybe if I had your number we could meet up on a sunnier day so I could return it?”

“Uh, sure,” she grinned in response, scribbling her name with a seven-digit number onto a napkin from the counter (behind which the barista had disappeared somewhere.) and handing it to him. Try not to laugh too hard. “Call me anytime other than next Tuesday afternoon – I have a paper to present for then, and the Economics department gets upset when students leave their phones on. See you later, T-Dog.”

And then, just like that, she walked out of his life for the inadvertent second time, with the slighty damp ankle of her pants trailing behind her as she went.

Laughing in disbelief at having been so openly insulted and having such an easy time getting a girl's number, Ted examined the umbrella she'd left him. It was his now; but, in some way, it always had been.

She didn’t even make it all the way up the staircase of her short-block-away building before her phone was ringing.

“Hi, it’s Ted.”
…

The following Wednesday, they went out to dinner at “the first date place.” When Ted told the shell fish joke, she laughed heartily – and really none of it was out of pity.

That Thursday, she met his friends – a rag tag group of four other people, all crammed into a booth in a wood-paneled Irish bar underneath his apartment building. They all seemed unlikely friends: tiny redhaired Lily and her gigantic husband (whose teddy bear tendencies did nothing to live up to his stature), so obscenely in love it was one of those things that made single people want to die - gorgeous, 'could have been a pop star celebrity' Robin (who could clearly hold her own around men) - and enthusiastic, high-fiving Barney (who had to leave early, dragging Robin with him, because he spilled beer on his suit.) Despite their differences, Delaney knew within a few minutes that she had found a family.

Eight days later, she and Ted had a serious argument when he told her to “just calm down” about graduation the following day. Obviously, from the stress of the ultimate weeks in class, she snapped and threw a throw pillow at him and locked herself in Robin's old room while he stormed off to the corner deli. It was stupid and pointless, and it ended with her crying to her Lilliputian ginger friend as he smoked his last cigarette ever on the roof with his Brobdingnagian best friend. They made up and were down in the bar drinking scotch well before midnight closing time.

The next day, she walked across stage and received her third, final diploma. Professor Mosby was the head of the cheering section from beside the raised platform. As she moved her tassel over her cap, she found him in the third row of staff and smiled more than when she thought possible when he threw her a cheesy wink with his own grin. Rules be damned; he was already in love with this girl.

He proposed one year and two months later to the day. She said yes. They moved in to his house outside the city, the one he'd built for her before he was even sure she existed.

Two decades later, he sat down in the family room of his dream home with his children.

“Kids, did I ever tell you the story of how I met your mother?”