An unexpected encounter

This happened over a month ago, but still blogworthy.

I was walking down the street pretty close to my house, on my way to pick a friend up at the nearest T (subway, for those not in the Boston-know) stop. All of a sudden, I hear..

"ARIELLE!"

I realize that the voice is coming from the roof deck of the bar around the corner from my apartment. I immediately grimace, thinking it's one of my classmates (none of whom I'm in the mood to see).

I look up, and I see, not a classmate at all, but my ex-coworker Victoria.

Victoria was my best buddy in an office full of morons. We used to bond over our mutual distaste for everyone around us. She also used to keep me updated on her secret romance with a fellow employee. We worked in HR, and he was in a group that she supported - not technically an off-limits relationship, but probably still frowned upon in some circles.

In January of 2008, Victoria informed me that her boyfriend was being transferred to our company's Mumbai office in April. And...she was moving with him. So the boyfriend went in April, and Victoria went in May. It was only on her last day at the office, during her last hour of work, that people finally found out that she was a) moving to India, and b) that she was moving for her boyfriend, who worked at our company. I pretended to be shocked along with everyone else.

So in May of 2008, Victoria moved thousands of miles away. We tried to meet up when she came back to the U.S. for a visit in November 2008, but it didn't happen.

And then all of a sudden, nearly a year later, there's Victoria, enjoying a beer at the bar not sixty seconds' walk from my house. Insanity.

As it turns out, she was in the U.S. for a few weeks, gravitating between NY and MA, where she grew up. Though she didn't grow up near where I live now, she did go to my current school for one miserable year (before transferring to the school down the road), and still knows some people in the area. And decided, on a lovely September day, to have a beer with one of them. Around the corner from my house.

A lovely surprise indeed.