Sweetly Unexpected

It started with a car crash.
I was 18. I was driving my sisters to the mall when I got in an accident, rear-endeding another vehicle, a rental that a family was using while out of state. There was lots of glass and mortification. Yet no one was hurt and in the end things are just things: life moves on.
Fast forward two years. I received a notice that the family I had rear-ended had decided to collect money on insurance before time ran out to do so. I had to go see a lawyer and talk through the details, which he assured me over the phone should be fairly cut and dry.
I was nervous as I drove to the lawyers office. At 20, the situation seemed much bigger than me. I had no experience with lawyers or lawsuits. I remember I wore a white button-down shirt: clean and neat and grown-up. When I arrived the receptionist led me to the office of the lawyer I was meeting with. Considering everything that happened next - and the fact that I remember so many minor details - I'm embarrassed to say that I don't remember his name. It was a Hispanic name. I think it started with a J. I'll call him John.

John met me at the door to his office with a handshake and a smile. He told me to take a seat, and young and flustered - though trying to keep so cool - that I was, I sat down in his. He laughed and said something like "Sure, you can have that seat", while sitting down in the one intended for me, and I stood up and said, "Oh I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking," and tried to switch but he said, "No, no, sit, please". I did not feel that this was a great start.
The desk was arranged so that one entered the room facing the side of the desk. Right or left, take a seat, and since he was standing on the right I went left ... and sat in his seat, not even paying attention. I sat up straight, rigidly embarrassed, while John leaned back and got things started by asking me to describe the accident. I did as he asked, and he looked at me rather puzzled and interested.
"You know, most people I talk to are so angry for having to be here. They're so defensive, saying it's not their fault and how this is a waste of time. You're so calm and aren't denying that you should have stopped faster. Thank you."
It was my turn to be surprised. "Well, I just figure there's no reason getting upset. It's just something that happens, and it's not your fault so I certainly shouldn't take it out on you."
We talked through the rest of the details pleasantly. At one point his secretary came in and exclaimed, "Oh! I love how you have switched places! That's so cute!" I'm pretty sure I blushed.

A few weeks - or maybe months - I got a call from John. He told me that everything was settled: insurance had paid out what the family asked for and there was nothing more I needed to do. I was relieved. Then he added, "So I think we should go get a drink or something sometime to celebrate. What do you think?"
(note: I was 21 by this time) I was completely caught off guard. Somehow I managed to say that I was flattered, and ... maybe? Yes, he could keep this number and call me later. I told my coworkers and they encouraged me to go out with him. The thing was though, I had started talking with a guy named Andrew, long-distance, and we were getting to the point of considering actually dating and becoming a couple. "We'll see," I said.

Call it fate or irony, but the next time John called me, I had just been rear-ended. Literally, when my phone rang I was looking at my smashed bumper and talking to the girl who had hit me. It was an accident that brought us together, but what was the meaning of this second one? Probably nothing, but the irony makes me laugh and shake my head.
I called John back when I could and eventually we agreed to meet for lunch. I asked for something laid back, and he said he'd do whatever I wanted. I met at his office one Saturday and he met me eagerly, all smiles and a hug. I couldn't understand why he seemed so smitten, after one conversation. Was it just so cute that I took his seat and spoke to him calmly?
We went downtown for lunch to a small Mexican restaurant. John was very nice. We had a good conversation and he seemed like a gentleman. With his face wreathed in eager smiles he was cute. But he was about eight years older than me, I had never really been interested in lawyers (or anything political), and I WAS interested in Andrew. When we said goodbye I didn't turn him away completely but I didn't encourage him either. I think he called me one other time, maybe we talked, and that was it.

I've never told that story to anyone except my coworkers, since it was during my lunch break when I got the call from John asking me out. It happened, and yet nothing happened. I starting dating Andrew, which was good and bitter-sweet. Aren't so many things bitter-sweet? A balance that keeps things in check. Every now and then I think of John and smile, wondering how he is now. He seemed so happy to meet someone who was nice, eager perhaps to have a girlfriend and maybe get married and settled down. I hope he found someone. I hope that after things didn't work out with me that he still had the courage to ask a girl out after one conversation, if he felt that it was the right thing to do. I think of him and am reminded that something sweetly unexpected can come from even a shattered mess like a car accident. Little surprises. Thank goodness for them.