One of the great (or not so great) things about being single is that everyone assumes you’re available to do work around Valentine’s Day. This year was no exception. I worked as a researcher in a small division of a really large company, and being young and single was unusual in this group. Thus when the job came up to spend several days in Ottawa working in the high-tech research facility that was there, I got landed with it. The schedule worked out so that I headed up there Wednesday evening, and worked Thursday and Friday. Since I was there anyway, I decided to tack on a couple extra days in the hotel on my own coin so I could do some sightseeing and skating on the canal that weekend. Thursday was Valentine’s Day.
It was a quick drive up to Ottawa. I left early from work on Wednesday, and found and checked into the downtown hotel at about nine o’clock. Since I had an early morning and long day ahead of me, I decided to have a quick swim and hit the sack. I was in bed before ten.
At eight the next morning, I was wide awake and working hard with one of the researchers at CANMET. Though I was happy being single, I tried to avoid looking too much at the decorations some people had posted around their workstations. It’s nice being single, but somehow not having a date on Valentine’s Day gets to you. I found myself occasionally slipping away from the task at hand and wondering what I was going to do that evening, if everyone was having romantic dinners with their significant others.
That got a little too depressing, and I found it easier just to do my best to ignore people’s cheesily romantic cards and focus on my work.
Before we actually managed to get anywhere on the work, I found myself coming out of a deep, thoughtful stupor to a loud rumbling. It was accompanied by an intense hunger in my stomach. I looked at the clock. No wonder I was starved- it was after 1:00! A quick glance at my research partner told me he wasn’t focusing well anymore either, so I suggested lunch. He’d packed his, and wasn’t interested in the free one my company would have bought him. So I went alone.
Wandering outside, I looked around to get my bearings. I didn’t know this area of Ottawa very well, so without thinking about it I just sort of walked in the same direction most of the people around me were walking. Sure enough, the destination involved food. There was a whole block of restaurants of every kind you could imagine; from fast food to fancy places you’d bring a client. Being alone, I opted for a healthy sandwich in a little deli.
As I wandered in the door, I glanced around at everyone in the place. This is a habit I’ve formed- no matter where I am, I always think there might be someone around that I know. Besides, you never know when you might get a good look at some eye candy…
I wasn’t disappointed. Right beside the window, sitting alone at a little table for two, was one of the most gorgeous girls I’ve ever seen. I think the first thing that caught my attention was the light, curly-brown hair- you could almost call it blonde, but not quite. That wasn’t what kept my attention, though. A quick once-over told me that when she stood up she’d have an absolutely stunning body. She looked tall, maybe five-nine, and wore a short skirt and blouse combination of the kind I like- dressy enough to look smart, and sexy enough to show she didn’t mind being a woman. And tight enough that it left only the most delicious parts to the imagination. The blouse was white, and you could see hints of a black bra underneath with enough lace to go a little beyond ‘professional’.
Funny. I could walk into my own office and not notice that someone had removed the computer, but in a quick up-and-down glance, I had pretty much figured out this girl’s measurements. Shows where my priorities were.
My eyes wandered up to the face, which I usually try to leave for last. Hot bodies are a dime a dozen these days, but a woman who’s truly beautiful is rare. When you’re out looking just for entertainment, you always look at the sure things first, before looking at the part that ruins it all.
Not the case here. She was focused on the book she was reading, and her dark blue eyes darted quickly across the page as she read. High cheekbones, full, soft-looking lips, and a nice, sort of tanned complexion. No make-up, which is always a plus with me.
I was standing in the line by this time, and had my head sort of turned to look at her. I was focusing on those eyes; the sunlight reflected off the table made them look really bright blue. Then they were looking at me as she raised her head to take a break.
This used to get me completely flustered- not a day would go by when I didn’t have a girl catch me staring at her. I’d go red, cough, look away, turn around, and usually trip over something. But I guess repetition is good practice, because I was getting better. Sometimes I just pretend I’m in the middle of a scan of the room, sometimes I shift my eyes slightly so I’m looking at something Beylikdüzü Escort behind them. Other times, like this one, I let them see I’m looking at them, but try not to make a big deal of it.
I let her see me looking for just a second, smiled slightly (I have blue eyes too, and in the right light my smile can really catch people’s attention), then turned away with the annoying feeling that I knew her.
I call it annoying because my habit of looking around is accompanied by the continuous impression that I know someone, often whether I know them or not. To try to clear my head, I looked at the menu and tried to decide what to eat.
But I couldn’t get those blue eyes out of my head. There was something flirty in the expression- not flirting directly with me, but just generally flirty. It was irritatingly familiar, and despite trying to concentrate on the menu I found myself thinking about where I’d seen her before.
By the time I reached the counter, I had stolen several glances in her direction, which didn’t help except to reinforce the certainty that I knew her. I’d just decided to go over and ask her once I had my sandwich, when she looked up and our eyes met again. Something in the expression (and my body’s reaction to it) put me in mind of being a young teenager, full of hormones and empty of confidence, wishing I had the guts to talk to… Oh…! Tracy…
Back in high school there’d been this girl named Tracy, who was drop-dead gorgeous, friendly, and athletic. She actually (I learned later) had a job with a local modelling company. I had only had a couple of classes with her, and having been the nerd of the school (with associated level of confidence and attitude) I had almost never spoken or interacted with her. My general impression of anyone who was popular in those days was that they were also dumb. Looking back, I guess it was a one-dimensional view, but it helped save my sanity when I was five-ten, weighed a hundred and twenty pounds dripping wet, and wore binoculars over my eyes. You have to have something to brag about, after all.
But there was more to the memory. Later on in high school I’d developed my own version of confidence, which allowed me to occasionally (without an audience) flirt with girls I knew. For some reason, this one time, that confidence extended to a girl I really didn’t know…
It was after school one time, when I had practice for one team or another. I often stayed late after school to work on something anyway, but three or more days a week I was practicing cross-country running, volleyball, or some other sport into which I threw myself with a fervour only available to the nerd trying to prove himself as something else.
I was wandering down a hallway of the school, on my way somewhere, when Tracy came out of the science area. I flashed her my nervous smile and said, “Hey,” as I walked by. She flashed her much more confident smile at me and said, “What are you still doing here?”
Now, I could write an essay with all the vocabulary in the world, write poetry with eloquence and feeling that brought tears to people’s eyes. This did not reflect itself in my spoken vocabulary when I was talking to a model. I always felt the need to justify myself…
“Cross country practice. We have a meet next wee-“
She was already past me. I never got the hang of telling when someone really meant it when they asked me a question like, “How’s it going?”, so I assumed she really didn’t care. Not wanting to stop on a stupid word like ‘wee-‘, I asked her what she was doing around.’
She turned around as she passed me, and was walking backwards to talk with me, as was I.
“Working on an assignment- I missed my early bus.”
“Oh. Physics?” It was the only class I shared with her.
“No, English.” She smiled, and my paranoid mind swore it was because she knew I only knew about that one class, and of course she expected me to know her entire schedule. Fortunately, I was saved from stumbling into a pointless apology by her stepping backwards into a garbage can and sending it banging across the hallway. Swearing, she spun around to try to grab it, then jumped across the hall to catch it before it fell over.
“Oops,” I said, sympathetically, “You almost fell for me.” Good job, stud. That’ll get you a date.
Incredibly, she smiled as she was turning to walk away, and tossed that now-familiar flirty gaze over her shoulder. “Don’t you wish…”
With that comment, she continued down the hallway to the washroom and disappeared inside. I doubt she heard me mutter, “Like you wouldn’t believe…”. In fact, I’m not even sure if I said it out loud.
“I said, can I help you, sir?” A sharp woman’s voice broke me out of the reverie state I was in. Amazing how I can literally disappear inside myself like that sometimes. My head snapped around, realizing as I did so that I’d been staring at Tracy and she’d been looking back at me. I think she had a sort of worried look on her Beylikdüzü Escort Bayan face. Not surprising, all things considered.
I looked at the woman behind the counter, completely forgetting what I was there for. After a moment, I think the fog lifted from my eyes and I ordered my sandwich. She smiled knowingly, and went to get it.
“That’ll be six-thirty-five,” she said to me, taking my ten and changing it. Then, just as I reached for my lunch, she leaned forward conspiratorially and stage-whispered, “It works better if you actually talk to her…” With a smile, she turned to the next customer. Finally coming back to the present, I said right back in a normal voice, “I think I will.”
With that, I turned and purposefully walked straight to Tracy’s table. She was reading again, but as I got close she looked up at me. The worried look was gone, but the expression had been replaced by that one women use when they are getting ready to discourage a come-on.
With a mischievous (I hope) expression, I sat down across from her without asking. She started to look uncomfortable. Before she could speak, I hit her with it.
“Hi, Tracy.”
She blinked. The sentence that had been about to form on her lips disappeared as she stared at me trying to figure out why I knew her.
“If you can remember who I am, any dinner or lunch between now and Sunday, anywhere you want, is on me.”
That set her back. She stared at me, mouth open, for a minute while I opened my sandwich. I love doing that to people.
I kept the expectant smile in my eyes, knowing she would never guess it. You see, I’ve grown up a bit, in a lot of ways. I’m still five-ten, but I now weigh more in the vicinity of one-sixty. Several years of working out regularly, playing sports constantly, and eating like it was my last opportunity to eat, have packed my body into a fairly muscular form. Not Mr. Universe, exactly, but toned, anyway. I also got rid of the binoculars, and started wearing contact lenses. I’m not sure how much of the ensuing change was due to the appearance and how much of it was just added confidence through not feeling like a nerd, but the end result is a much more confident guy, who happens to be pretty decent looking- especially around those eyes I mentioned earlier. Definitely a change from when I was seventeen.
So needless to say, I felt pretty comfortable watching her as she stared at me and tried to figure it out.
“I know you?” There was a tiny bit of doubt in her eyes, as though she did know me but couldn’t quite place me. I smiled and nodded.
She sat back, put her book down, and stared at me determinedly. I started to eat my sandwich. Now she looked like she was into the challenge. A little smile played across her face, and her mind was obviously going a mile a minute while her eyes darted over my face trying to place something.
“How long ago did I know you?”
“Sorry, only yes or no questions. Dinner is at stake, after all!” I grinned and continued to eat. She sighed, but she was obviously enjoying herself and the sigh was more humorous than exasperated.
“Ok. Have I known you for a long time?”
“What’s a long time?” Again, that expression shifted as her mind shifted gears. She took a slow breath, let it out, and regrouped.
“Did I know you five years ago?”
“Yes.” Then I hesitated. Five years ago, we’d both been about twenty-four; this was more than six years after we’d last seen each other. “Hmm. Tougher question to answer than I thought. Hold on.” I thought about the wording. While I was flipping it around in my mind, she interrupted my thought process.
“Ok. Are you a friend from high school?”
Alarm bells went off. “Yes.” She must have seen something in my face, because she giggled slightly. “I’m close, aren’t I?”
“Yes.” I grinned, too. After all, even if she figured it out I was taking her out for dinner… unless she reneged.
She stared at me again. The full smile was back in those eyes, and suddenly I felt like I had that day after school when she’d flirted with me. I couldn’t resist…
“You know, I’ve never forgotten that gorgeous smile.”
She blushed slightly. Now, when a girl is truly beautiful, a blush just intensifies it. That was the case here. Suddenly I realized that I wanted her to guess, I wanted to owe her dinner, and no matter what else I had to take a shot at getting a date with Tracy.
She must have seen my reaction, because her smile got even wider. “I think I’ve got it. Hold on a sec…” (Yeah, right.) Her eyes closed, and her mouth opened slightly as she thought hard. I stared at that mouth and put every ounce of willpower I had into staying in my seat. To distract myself, I focused on my sandwich.
It was a turkey sandwich with all the fixings I could think of. I now noticed that the bread was really thin, the turkey was minimal, and the veggie fixings were kind of dry. Figures. You can never get a good sandwich nowada-
“Alex!”
Holy Escort Beylikdüzü shit.
I think I must have said that out loud, because she burst out laughing and said, “Gotcha!” Then her mouth dropped open like she’d just realized who I was, and she sort of stretched her arms out to me.
“Oh, my God! How are you? You look so different!”
I grimaced. “Obviously not, since you guessed who I was so quickly!”
“It was your voice. That’s why I closed my eyes- I remembered your voice, and I knew if I just thought about high school and your voice I’d figure it out. You really look almost completely different… more… confident. Better looking.” She grinned again- that flirty, confident grin that used to make me forget my name.
I was focused still on trying to reconcile how quickly she guessed who I was. “But we almost never talked! How did you ever remember my voice?”
She smiled, a little shyly. “I had a crush on you.”
I nearly spat my sandwich all over the table. As it was, I barely contained it and broke into a coughing fit as I tried to keep from swallowing a mouthful without chewing. She just watched me with that shy smile on her face until I finished chewing and said, “You what?!?”
‘
She laughed. “You look surprised. I thought it was obvious. We barely ever saw each other, but every time I saw you I grinned from ear to ear. Every time I thought about you I would grin. Drove people nuts, because I swore I’d kill anyone who told you.”
Mentally promising myself that if I ever ran into any of those other friends, I’d kill them slowly and painfully, I murmured, “I always thought you just smiled a lot.” At this, she burst out laughing again. I chuckled, too- it did seem kind of funny. And suddenly I was thinking of Valentine’s Day. No- too hopeful.
“So what are you doing with yourself these days?” Her well-timed question drew my attention away from the death circle my thoughts were in, and we chatted a bit about what had happened to us over the last ten or twelve years.
Turns out she had gone on to university in Guelph, taking a degree in commerce. Over the following years, she’d worked as a cost accountant and eventually completed school to become a CA. Now that was her job- working in a local company as an accountant and doing some business for herself on the side.
The phrase ‘local company’ set off an alarm in me, and I looked at my watch. 2:30. Damn. I had to get back to work- the company was paying me, after all, and someone would start looking for me and asking about me.
She seemed to take the cue as well, and we both started to say, “Damn, I have to go.” Then we grinned at each other. I still had to bolt some of my sandwich and finish my drink, so she was leaving before me. I was desperate to catch up with her later. As she stood up, I blurted, “Two questions, before you go.”
She paused, “Ok. Two.”
“Are you…” How do you say it? I never did figure an easy way out, “-attached?”
She smiled. “No. Not at the moment.”
“Can I take you out? After all, I owe you dinner.”
The smile got wider. “I’d like that. How about I call you at your hotel?” I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach that she wouldn’t call me. But how do you walk around that one? “Sure. I’m in the Western, room 435.” She nodded. “435. I’ll call you tonight.” Yeah, right. I thought.
“It was great seeing you again.” She smiled expectantly as she started to leave. I turned in my seat to watch her go. “Yeah… it was…” I said, thoughtfully.
Resolute, I turned and crumpled up what was left of my lunch. Getting up, I threw on my jacket and headed for the door. She was already outside. Once out, I scanned around and noticed she was headed in the same direction I was. So I dropped all pride and ran after her.
It didn’t take long to catch up- the sidewalk was pretty crowded, so she wasn’t walking quickly yet. I even managed to not look winded as I brought up beside her and matched her pace.
She looked at me quizzically. I smiled sheepishly, said, “I’m going this way anyway, so we might as well keep chatting, right?”
We talked a bit about high school- people who we both knew, what they were doing now (she was in touch with many more of them than I was). Before I knew it, we were approaching my stop and I hadn’t tried to secure things with her. As we came up to the door, though, I was hit with another surprise. Apparently I should have asked her where she worked, because she was turning in the same place as me!
We looked at each other in surprise, then laughed and walked in together. My research partner was in the front lobby (no doubt just about to come looking for me), and he looked at me, looked at Tracy, and just shook his head, apparently impressed. I realized what it probably looked like, and grinned.
I walked Tracy to her office, then stood in the doorway for a moment as she went to sit down. All of a sudden I felt like a customer or something.
“I have an idea.” Her eyebrow lifted. I took a deep breath.
“Rather than you calling me tonight, why don’t I just pick you up here and we can go straight to dinner after work?” Made sense to me…
She looked around a little dubiously. There was a very large pile of paper on her desk that apparently she had to work on.