Chapter One

At First Glance

 

In the spring when the weather first turned warm, the women from the college nearby would appear dressed in thin, bright-colored tank tops and tight shorts. Alex had graduated long enough ago that the life-gap between him and these beauties had widened, eliminating the thought of a relationship. Still, those first sunny days brought nostalgia for more than pleasant weather.

His first day off during that early stretch of warmth, Alex decided to take a walk through campus. This had become a tradition. Timing his trip to catch the students between classes, he would meander from one popular sunbathing spot to the next. Finding a beauty lying out confidently in a bikini, soaking up the sun amid rejuvenated spring grass, as a warm breeze moved easily through stick-trees that proudly shook light green shoots, made the arrival of spring official. Alex never lewdly groped with his eyes. He kept his distance, looking over only when he could not. Even if he found a pair laid on their bellies with their legs parted and glistening wet with lotion, their faces angled together as they talked and giggled, Alex would only give them a couple appreciative glances and continue on.

His favorite thing was to pass a girl walking up the sidewalk the other way, legs exposed for the first time that season in short jeans shorts or a colorful skirt, a backpack strapped over a tight short-sleeved T-shirt, and flash her a shy glance, letting his gaze linger long enough for her to notice. Then he would stare down at his shoes. A blush would fill his face that he wouldn't need to fake, and then her lighter blush would follow. Only her chin would not droop but lift up. She would smile, inspired by the compliment of his attention, and not look back at him. A moment like that, on the right day, felt a lot like love.

At the edge of campus, Alex stopped in a coffee shop. His interest in traipsing across campus admiring bikini-clad girls left him the instant he saw her and would never return. She appeared dimly at first, alone at a table in the center, and seemed to brighten as Alex's eyes adjusted to the room filled with dark mahogany that absorbed and hid sun light that entered from rectangle windows near the elevated ceiling. Shelves of old books lined the walls, and a maze of wooden stairways led to tables tucked into nooks at raised levels leading to a loft that hummed with conversation and laughter and squeaked with sliding chairs. To Alex, the stepped arrangement of the room served to sharpen his focus on her. He noticed her feet first, tapping away under a table that came almost to her shoulders. Her leather sandals were nearly the color of her skin, only slightly darker, giving a smooth lightness to her toes, though she had a somewhat dark complexion-skin that seemed to have held its tan from the previous summer. Her legs disappeared in the table's shadows. Her cool green eyes rose to the windows, and she nodded her head lightly to her private music. Then she squeezed down across the desk and the blue pen pinched between her fingers un-spooled into a notebook she guarded with her left arm.

As she lifted her pen from paper and peeked up again toward the window to refill her mind with phrasings, Alex could only wonder about, he knew he stood staring conspicuously, but he didn't seem capable of moving farther into the room. He was unable to stop gazing at her, tracing the minute curves of her face.

She began writing again but stopped mid-word, it seemed, and didn't lift her head again. Only the green eyes rolled up and captured him. He noticed a faint trace of irritation or anger, or something else, and then she did raise her head but fixed her gaze at him instead of musing up at the light in the window. If her eyes had captured him, her smile enslaved him; but, before he could return it, she had bent over her notebook again. Alex stumbled past to the counter. He ordered a Vicente drip, conscious of his words and his voice, though her headphones would have kept her from hearing. Dropping a dollar into the tip jar, Alex lingered at the counter. He nodded at the barista, who looked anxious to find something to wipe.

Thinking back quickly, Alex realized something he'd never thought of before: he had never in his life done the stone cold approach. Not without a degree of pride, in that he knew he stood out with a quiet confidence that matched his tall fit frame, he recalled that the women from his past had usually approached him, had become known to him without any concerted effort, and even then, usually either made a romantic gesture toward him or made it so clear they were receptive to one that he'd sort of fallen into the situation. How did a man even approach a woman when feeling this flustered and enamored with one who was an utter stranger? Alex turned, aware of his every movement: his elbow awkwardly leaned on the glass counter, the angle of his arm as he held out his drink.

Her pen waved across her hidden pages; and, bent toward her writing, her dark, curly hair fell down her shoulders, exposing the sensual curve of her slender neck. He knew he would have to approach her. Leaving without an attempt at meeting her was not an option. If he went up to the loft and watched her disappear, he would never forgive himself. He had to take the chance and hear her voice, even if hearing her stung him.

Resolving not to take the coward's way and sit across from her, continuing his uncontrollable glancing, he pushed from the counter, passed her table, and turned.

She immediately set her pen down and slid her headphones down around her neck, as if she had been waiting for him. Her awareness of his thinking seemed like clairvoyance, as if she knew from his first stepping in about his impending approach, and this further unnerved him.

"How are you?" He stretched his hand out that didn't have the benefit of having something to hold, wanting to do something with it, but when he realized it was about to touch the chair across the table from her, he pulled it back. Touching it would have been presumptuous as if he expected her to invite him to sit. She nodded, smiling still. A more fixed smile than the whimsical one she'd given to the light in the high windows, though one not less beautiful. He had to do more than ask a common question that friends ask of each other, but he was petrified that, if he opened his mouth again, he would tell her he'd never seen anything more beautiful than the sight of her sitting in a coffee shop and writing, which would have sounded like an awful line, though the sentiment would have been absolutely genuine. "I noticed when you write you look up and to the right. That must mean you're using the creative part of your brain," he said, which also sounded like an awful line as he listened to it again in his mind.

Her eyes remained on his, her smile never wavered, but she remained quiet for so long that Alex expected her to dismiss him, then she said, "I've heard that, too."

His knees buckled as he heard her voice, the calm and confidence in it. He took a tiny step forward, then another back. "Are you a student?"

"Not for long," she said. "I graduate this quarter."-she pointed down with her hand that clenched her pen-"I'm writing a paper for my women's studies class." Her smile twisted into a playful smirk. "My professor says I don't leave room enough for variance of opinions in my works, which is a lot of bunk." She laughed, allowing Alex to release some nervous laughter.

"May I ask what it's about?"

She smiled and gave a slight nod. "I'm arguing that feminism is too reactionary. Women should assert themselves not as a reaction to a maleish society, but as an organic movement focused within."

"Maleish?"

"That's my word. I made it up." She laughed again.

The conversation seemed to be moving along, the nervousness Alex had felt had effervesced away, and he felt completely calm. Admittedly, his social clock ticked in unique seconds, but he felt certain things were going well enough that, by then, he should have been sitting with her. Only she hadn't made any motion suggesting he was welcome to her table. The eyes throughout the shadows of the room that he had first felt were envious of his approaching and talking to such a beautiful woman now seemed to beam on him with ridicule as she refused his joining her. His cup burned the tips of his fingers and the bottom of his palm. Still, he would have stood there a week to keep talking with her. "That sounds intriguing. I always think that of people who morph themselves with huge earlobes or skull piercings. No one would do something that drastic to be different unless they were affected by society."

"Exactly."

Alex motioned to the chair across from her. "May I sit?"

"Yes." She pushed the chair out from under the table with her foot. "You may."

Alex felt his pants tighten at the treasure of her foot emerging from under the table into the light, squeaking the chair across the hardwood. The pinch made him realize he'd been aroused for most of their conversation; and, glancing down, he saw the fly of his shorts bulged out. Though he didn't think it could have been noticeable to anyone but him, his face darkened with a blush as he sat.

"Are you in school?" she said.

Rather than her reciprocating question feeling like a normal courtesy, her expressing interest in him stirred Alex with hope and pride. "No, I graduated last year," he said, "from the master's program." A foolish boast to add that, but he felt desperate to impress her.

"In what?"

"Business. I'm in insurance right now. Insurance for drivers, I mean...auto-insurance."

"I considered graduate school, but I'm anxious to put my degree to work. Too many people use school to put off life. I'm ready to make my way."

"Oh. Well, I just thought graduate school would help me..."

"What's your name?" She grinned and tapped her pen against her notebook.

"Alex."

"I wasn't saying anything against you going to graduate school, Alex. I was talking about me."

"I know."

"You're allowed to have gone to graduate school."

Alex lowered his eyes. He couldn't look at her. She'd caught him complying with her opinion, and called him on it, but it was hard to help. He felt compelled to agree with her. "What's your name?"

"Kim."

"Is that short for Kimberly?"

She nodded. As they spoke, Alex enjoyed attributing grandiose characteristics to her. She was ready to graduate and get a job, and Alex considered her a self-reliant entrepreneur. She mentioned that she hated how people worshipped the nice weather when it returned in spring, and that she liked all the seasons the same for different reasons, and Alex considered her a champion environmentalist.

After a while, she began gathering her things and mentioned that she should get going. Alex had to fight an urge to slide the table in front of the door to block her way. "Can...can I get your number?" he said.

"Can you get my number?" Under her amusement, a trace of irritation, or something else. "You were doing so well, Alex. Try that again."

Alex smiled, stared down at his fidgeting fingers and noticed how still hers were across from him. "I would like to call you sometime. Could I have your number?" When she didn't respond after several seconds, he added, "Please?"

Kimberly reopened her notebook, fanned to the back and wrote. She tore the sheet out and handed it across. In fluid, flawless cursive, she had written: 'Kim,' her number, and 'Call tonight at 7:00.'

Alex read the message then looked up at her. "I will." As she stood, Alex rose to a bow. Lifting a black, shiny backpack, she slid her notebook inside and, feeding her arms through the straps, hoisted the pack onto her shoulders. She came around the table, smiling at him. When Alex said "goodbye," her smile lifted and she gave a slight nod, then she left without a look back.

After she left his sight, Alex looked around, having forgotten that the coffee shop was filled with other people, and now, he realized, expecting their applause. He sat back down and lifted her handwriting into the air.

The 'at 7:00' intrigued him. Strange enough that she would write a time at all, but particularly strange that she wrote the numbers instead of writing the word, 'seven.' Alex checked his watch. He knew already that he would call in six hours, forty-two minutes, and fourteen seconds when his watch face read 7:00.