It was a Monday, an ordinary,
unremarkable Monday, and I was riding the bus to work. The Sun-Times
sat open on my lap, the sports section read, waiting for me to get
back to it as I ruminated, looking out the window.
I was wishing for a cigarette and
trying not to remember that I had quit a few days before as the bus
pulled to a stop on 31st street and a redheaded woman
climbed on board. Couldn't help but to notice her brilliant green
eyes as she flashed a shy smile, noticing my glance. Redirecting my
eyes to the paper, ostensibly examining the prospects for germination
of the human race from asteroid residue, I examined her further.
No ring on the left hand. Hmm, I
thought to myself. That's a good sign. Her hair was tied back in a
ponytail, cinched by a small butterfly, the colors of which clashed
with her sea-green blouse. A small chain disappeared down into the
neck of her blouse, inviting my eyes to follow it down into her
cleavage. A stray shaft of sunlight caught her in its glow at that
moment, rendering that blouse translucent enough for my to see that
it was a Celtic knot, before averting my eyes again to the paper.
She sat down across from me, smiled
again. "Hi," I said, over the paper.
She crossed her legs, revealing a
length of tanned, well-formed calf, and a tantalizing peek of the
thigh that the calf was attached to, beneath the fabric of her
blue-gray skirt. "Hi yourself," she said, in a voice that
could melt dry ice.
I'm only human. I confess that the
mental images that formed in my mind at that time are not suitable
for family publications. To hide my state of flusterhood, I buried
myself once again in the newspaper, reading about the doings of City
Hall. Periodically, I glanced up from under my eyebrows. Each time, I
watched her eyes shift away, just avoiding mine.
Okay, I thought, and put down the
paper. "What's your name?" I asked.
"Carla. Yours?"
I told her. "Never seen you
riding this bus before," I began.
"I've never ridden before. My
car is broken." She smiled again, tightly. "This isn't my
idea of transportation..."
I laughed lightly. "Granted.
It's a long way from the limo you deserve to be riding in. Are you
going far?"
She reached up and pulled the wire
that told the bus driver she would need to stop, making her right
breast bob enchantingly and project against the material of her
blouse. "Not far at all. This is my stop."
I reached into my back pocket,
pulled out my wallet. "Here," I said, proffering one of my
business cards. "Would love to continue the conversation
sometime."
She produced a card of her own,
stowed mine away in her front pocket, next to her heart, disembarked.
The possibilities of the universe
are endless. Who could say where a chance meeting could take you?
I arrived at my stop shortly
thereafter, alit, and repaired to the small restaurant where I
habitually dawdled over coffee. The Baker Street Cafe, it was called,
though nowhere near any street of that name. Somewhat irregular, but
a nice little place nonetheless.
Took a seat in a booth fronting on
the sidewalk, ordered coffee, pulled out her business card. Carla
Moran, it said. Manager, Human Resources. The company name was so
stylized as to be unreadable, but the phone number and email address
were legible. I made a mental note to send out a note, put the card
back in my breast pocket, unfurled the paper.
Colleen, the perky (too perky!)
waitress, brought my coffee, offered pie, which I took her up on,
dimpled at my suggestion of sharing the pie (but declined). I knew
her name was Colleen because her butterfly-shaped nameplate said so.
Enjoyed the pie, read the comics,
watched Colleen flit about, batting her big green eyes at every male
in the place, wiggling her small bottom as she walked in her
slightly-too-tight skirt and trendy high-heeled sneakers. Too young,
I thought, leaving a tip.
Began the walk to work, across a
busy street, where the aperture moment of the blinking green eye of
the traffic light didn't last long enough, making every crossing an
adventure. Distracted by thoughts of the two lovely Irish lasses I
had encountered, and by thoughts of an old flame, an Irishwoman
herself, who had moved away to a far southern land years ago. Hadn't
thought of her in ages...Cathy, how have you been, what are you up
to...had visions of a houseful of carrot-topped kids, a puzzled
husband still trying after all this time to figure her out (never
will happen), momentary pangs of regret that I didn't go with her.
Dodged cars trying to make a right
on red, successfully crossing the boulevard once again, strode with
hands in pockets toward the office, still with shamrocks on my mind.
Used my id badge to unlock the outside doors, trudged up the stairs
into the office proper, unloaded the newspaper into the garbage,
booted up the computer.
I noticed that Sharren, who usually
gave me a ride home, wasn't in attendance. That was not a good sign.
There weren't any buses at 5:30 am when I got off work, and it was a
long walk home. Big sigh, and then diving into the night's work,
fixing supply-chain problems between the florists that filled the
work orders and the customers requesting arrangements. Took my time
trying to work with each, customizing the standard emails to the
florists and the customers in my own inimitable way, distracted by
the prospect of a long walk home, thinking about my newest flame, who
was out of town for a conference, missing her cool voice, gentle
touch, and wild Irish passion. Eventually got lost in the work,
forgetting to take breaks or lunch.
At 5:15 am, one of the girls who
worked in my row of cubes stopped by briefly and offered me a ride,
saying that she lived nearby. I looked directly into her gleaming
green eyes and thanked her from the bottom of my heart. Could see her
soul there, waving.
Several minutes later, the group
leader informed us that the assignment was ending, and there was no
need to return tomorrow, or indeed any other day. Ouch! Two weeks
premature...on the heels of a writing site closing down, owing me a
month's rent. My mental gears began whirring, trying to determine
where, at six am on a Tuesday morning, I might derive some income.
We left early. Jean, the girl that
had offered me a ride, turned out to be an interesting and funny
conversationalist, attractive with her connect-the-freckles cheeks
and those fabulous eyes. Enchanted as I always was, and since my
current and I had no commitment beyond continuing where we had left
off the last time, I took a chance and asked her out to a barbecue
Saturday.
She accepted, and forgetting that I
had quit, I asked for and received one of her cigarettes, to quiet my
pounding heart. We arrived at my building, where she let me off,
clutching the little piece of note paper with her address and
telephone number on it. Too late, I remembered that I had already
asked Joan, my main flame, to that barbecue. That fact filed in my
mental archives for later consideration, I went upstairs into the
apartment, tiptoeing so as not to wake up my roommate, who was asleep
on the couch with the tv on, as was his custom, and entered my
office.
My email box held plenty of
messages. Deleting the ones that I knew I wouldn't read, spam and ads
and whatnot, and saving the one from my friend down under for later,
I dived into a series of messages concerning a place called Penumbra,
from an Irishwoman in the southwest, and a chatty message from yet
another Irishwoman, this one in the southeast, replying in my usual
fashion, half-crazed from caffeine. Following this, I booted up my
browser while replying to the message from Mr. Russell, heading
immediately to Penumbra.
By this time, the sun was up, and
the morning commuters were making their way down to the depot.
Feeling frisky, noticing a particularly attractive brunette
sauntering by, I dropped a round candle out of the window to attract
her attention, asking if she would save it from rolling down the hill
into the street.
She was kind enough to do so,
giving me a moment to make conversation. Thanked her most profusely,
falling deep into her lustrous green eyes, and invited her to lunch
the next day, which she graciously accepted. "By the way,"
she said. "MY name is Melissa. Melissa O'Neill."
Imagine my surprise. By then I was
convinced, and am still, that the universe has determined to plague
me with redheads and other Irishwomen until the day that one of them
drives me finally over the edge. It is most assuredly a conspiracy of
the gods, I tell you.
This story wants to become much longer and more along the lines of the Arthur Conan Doyle tale that it's very loosely based on.
That reconstruction is at last underway.
