seems everyone i know has lived here, or knows someone who has; my insulated condominium community providing the perfect habitat for upwardly mobile twentysomethings or their retired, decrepit grandparents.
it's been home for a while now, but i still occasionally cross paths with acquaintances whom i never knew were so close; just across the way in another building, or sharing an adjoining wall.
this can be a good thing, or a bad thing. and sometimes, it is both.
• • •
it's unusually humid out, and i am walking home from the grocery store after spending the afternoon laboring on a construction project. i am tired and unshaven; dressed in cargo shorts and a whimsical print tee that becomes all the more ironic in my haggard state. i want to be home. done with the day.
i fumble and shift the plastic bags in my hands and punch in the gate code. gate opens. i am close. focused. anxious to unload.
just ahead is a black luxury sedan slowly rolling my way; the windows dark and anonymous.
it begins to slow down. slowing. steady. steady. stop.
i cut in front and across. the passenger side window glides down.
my name is called.
it's her.
• • •
it wasn't uncommon to have attractive women visit our boutique. most were professional housewives who doubled as socialites.
they carried themselves with a certain sense of entitlement, though they were no different than any other soccer mom. they just had more money. and more plastic surgery.
when she walks in, i am caught off guard by her kindness. her vivaciousness. her beauty. she smells like angels, sex and cotton candy. completely transcendent.
the room stops. my coworkers peer out from the back; watch me float around from the contact high.
and then i notice she is married. with children. to a successful man who looks like he walked out of a ralph lauren catalog.
• • •
I am renting out a bedroom in the back corner of a nondescript house. I have just quit my one and only real job to work in a small specialty shop. i drive a 1986 mazda sedan that has more oxidation than paint. my only focus and purpose in life is running. everything i do, everything i eat; everything is built around this simple function.
she happens to run too.
we begin to train together. our worlds collide.
• • •
we use to wake at four in the morning to train on desolate roads under the glow of the moon. i don't know if i would have done it for anyone else. or if she would have either.
one morning, after a particularly long workout, we stop by a juice bar. we sit and talk for a while. she tells me she's getting divorced.
explosions.
• • •
over time, we begin to lose touch. she eventually remarries, finding comfort in a beautiful mass of muscle that's every bit as physically impressive as herself.
they eventually divorce as well. and as an odd bit of coincidence, i see him around fairly often. he never says a word. when he looks my way, he burns with contempt.
• • •
on this day, more than ten years removed from our first meeting, i am my ordinary self; my disheveled, hairy, sweaty, manchild self.
i am in no condition to meet with anything or anyone extraordinary. but here i am, in the parking lot, hands full of bags, head full of baggage.
i lean in thru the passenger window and her unmistakable scent warps time and practically drops me to my knees.
she looks amazing. pristine. and harbors all the charming characteristics i remember from years ago.
i awkwardly hunch down and take in the cool air circulating thru the cabin; aware of my personal disarray and completely consumed with every one of my countless flaws. but i don't want to lose this moment. this temporary reconnection.
she tells me that she has been busy with work. that things are good. and that she lives around the corner, and has for a while.
i tell her i moved in recently. that i work nearby. that i'm sure i'll see her again soon.
after a while, we say our goodbyes. the window slides up and she rolls away.
i fall back to earth, grab my bags, and walk back toward my ordinary life.
