Afterward he asked for her number, and gave her his. They parted saying it would be fun to collaborate.
Walking home, he wondered what the odds were that they would actually follow up. People run into each other all the time in New York, have fascinating conversations, then never see each other again. All part of life in the big city — a million sparks, only rarely catching fire.
He found himself thinking about what kind of musical they would have written together. Or had that just been a way of having a conversation? Maybe their musical would itself be destined to remain a fiction, like Tom Riddle’s diary or Liebkind’s “Springtime for Hitler”.
He was still musing on this when he noticed a woman pass rapidly by on the street. It took him a moment to realize it was she. He called her name, she turned around.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I felt like taking in a movie,” she said.
“There’s one I’ve been wanting to see,” he said, improvising. “It’s playing a block from here.”
“What kind of movie?”
“A scary movie, but it’s supposed to be a good one.”
She hesitated for just a moment. “Okay.”