The preoccupation isn’t good for my work. I screwed up at least a dozen drinks over the last two days and my manager has been watching me the way I suspect someone that’s about to fire someone does. I smile broadly, trying my best to charm him out of the idea. It’s not my strength, charm.
But the distraction has been even more problematic for my nighttime work.
I arrive, nearly too late, on the scene of a man getting jumped in Central Park and am almost criminally absentminded when a man tries to rape a woman on a surprisingly crowded subway car. I’m frustrated and silently cursing myself on my way home, but simultaneously wondering if there’s any way to both be me and to have a new life, to have the boy. I feel like that day, on the subway platform, has pulled back some second skin I didn’t realize I had. And now I’m obsessed with making that other girl lurking inside me a reality. I try to keep my eye on the ball. On my way to my bookstore job I think of everything I can that isn’t the boy. I can’t afford to screw this up.
I’m slightly better at my bookstore job than I am at my barista job, but I’m still better behind the scenes in the quiet with the books than I am with the people and the registers. My bookstore boss seems to understand this better than my barista boss does and so I feel a little better about the whole thing. I have a few co-workers, mostly students, some nice and friendly, some not so nice.
Standing behind the textbook counter one afternoon stacking books on my cart and listening to Erica, one of the “not so nice”, sigh above me, I smell the boy from the train. I spin around, both anxious to see him and worried he’ll actually be there. It seems impossible. In this city of millions, it’s impossible…isn’t it? But his scent is burned into my brain from that night. I’ve spent whole days imagining his handsome shape, almost like he’s a cardboard cut-out I can pin all my other dreams to…I don’t think I could forget his signature if I tried – the sound and smell of him, the feel, and even taste – it’s all uniquely him. And there he is. Standing large as life halfway down an aisle, not twenty feet from me, and coming this way.
It’s him.
It’s unmistakably him.
I turn suddenly and move to duck down behind the counter in a panic, but I knock down a stack of books in the process. Erica mutters “klutz” under her breath and I ignore her, because now he’s seen me too. He pauses suddenly, mid-stride, and he’s cocked his head slightly, a spark of recognition in his eyes, and for a second I don’t know what to do. And then I just bolt, like a deer, through the door, dropping a handful of books. From the safety of the backroom I hear Erica sigh and mumble more rude things. I lean against the wall and listen. I can hear them talking through the thick wood door.
“Uh, hey,” he says, almost awkwardly, but in that same dark toned voice from the other night.
“Hi,” she says. She knows him, familiarity is obvious in her tone.
“Do you know that girl?” he asks.
“Um, who?” she asks, her voice seeming all sing song-y. I don’t know why she sounds like that. She doesn’t sound that way when she talks to me.
“The redhead that just dashed out of here.”
“Oh. She’s new. I don’t know her name…something with a B…or maybe a P…why?” Whatever! She totally knows my name!
“No reason. She just looked familiar to me.” There’s a long pause and I feel like I can almost hear him thinking, but he just says, “Well, never mind. Thanks.”
“Clark, wait!” Erica calls out, her voice high and false. Clark. His name is Clark.
“Yeah?”
“So…um…like what classes are you taking this semester…you haven’t come in for any books lately.”
“Oh…I’m not taking any classes right now, so…no new books yet.”
“Oh,” she pauses awkwardly and then starts again with a saccharine sound in her voice, almost a low animal purr. I can’t decide if I’m angry or jealous – I definitely don’t know how to make my voice purr. Then again, I just ran out of the room rather than talk to him, so what’s it matter if my voice could purr. “Well then, what brings you in?” she asks, but it’s all leading and sexy, and I can hear the smile on her face.
“I was just in the neighborhood, y’know, browsing,” he says, oblivious to the sexy voice.
“And did you find anything…worthwhile?” she asks. I feel like vomiting, I can imagine her twirling her hair.
“No,” he says, and there’s a finality to it that shocks the purr right out of her.