A Racing Mouth and A Blank Stare.

A Story by Hannah

The story of a one sided romance through one sided conversations.

It was like this every day. The same girl, the same time, the same area. Of course, I never complained or spoke out- when you are a boy in your late teens and working at your aunt's flower shop on a nice summer day, you only hope that no one from school needs flowers, and are not trying to have much fun. Most of the time I spent browsing photos on my lap top. I was assembling a sort of google images picture album on pages, of pictures I liked, a lot of them black and whites of celebrities from the sixties and seventies. Since the shop was almost always virtually empty, it was getting to be a rather heft document. So it was a wonderful thing that I, every day, got to take a break from my album making to witness this gorgeous, interesting girl for roughly fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes of heaven.

It was routine, and unchanging, like a movie. The girl would float in. Not walk, she would float. Her hair was so blond, like thin, gold thread, floating along on her back, always down. This made her seem even more angelic in my eyes. It obviously never occurred to her to wear it up in a chignon or a ponytail on some of the real scorchers. She carried herself with the grace of an old time movie star(though it didn't look like she brushed her hair often), and sometimes I wondered if she was. Certainly, she always looked like one, in a gorgeous dress reminiscent of the nineteen fifties, rotating on a perfect schedule. The seven dresses were the only inconsistency in the entire routine, and even that was stiff and frigid. It started on Sundays with the yellow sundress; Mondays a blue sailor dress; Tuesdays a practical green shirtdress; Wednesdays a boxy navy blue one; Thursdays a frothy, silky looking pink number; Fridays, a sleek black dress; and then on Saturdays she wore a pale purple June Cleaver dress. I think the Saturday dress was my favorite. She always looked very pretty in it. The girl was unlike anything I had ever seen.

Though she was obviously around the same age as me, she acted nothing like any of my girl friends. They were all tall, hard swearing, loud, and when the chance struck, rather nasty drunks. This girl moved with a quiet grace that no one I had ever met possessed. And there I was, smitten with a girl I had never spoke to. And I was too afraid to speak to her. So I only watched. I watched as she slowly glided the aisles of the store, always in order from the door, but she only actually touched one thing. In the boxes closest to the register, she always plucked a plump, white, rose in full bloom and mashed it to her face, inhaling the scent. After this she immediately left.

It wasn't until mid August that her and I began to have our one sided conversations. I was, as usual, watching her- she was in her Saturday dress, so I was particularly enchanted. I was expecting her to leave as she placed the rose back, leaving me with that familiar sad feeling of watching the most interesting part of my day float(not walk, remember this) out of the door. But not this time. This time she walked up to the counter. I felt my heart beating out of my chest. Dear lord. I was about to talk to this girl. What I had been secretly been longing to do all summer was about to happen. And the girl walked up to the counter and- stared at me. Just stood there, staring, blankly, no sort of light in her two round, brown eyes. Nervously, I greeted her. It was less than smooth or clever. "Hi." I began, my voice, though long ago had cracked, squeaked a little bit. "My name is Allen. You finding everything okay?"

She only continued to stare at me. Never have I felt so unhandsome or uncool held in anyone's eyes. I am not sure why I felt this way- there was no sort of sneer or frown or even any sort of line on her face that denoted displeasure, nor any other emotion for that matter. It was only blank. So I did what anyone would do in that situation. I talked. First I kept to dry, every day topics like what was on sale and the weather, though I eventually went on to more personal things, like how I was forced to work there for the summer since my aunt was recovering from an operation, and the fact that my brother had locked himself in the bathroom with my bag that contained most of my personal effects. And the girl just kept on looking at me, nodding at appropriate times, her warm wide eyes not twitching away even once. Finally, maybe fifteen minutes straight had passed and a felt a small, cool, hand fall over my racing mouth, of course belonging to Her. She removed her hand and tapped a thin watch strapped to an even thinner wrist, which hung limply at her chest. She then wiggled her fingers in a wave and left. As soon as I got over the whole situation, I realized I was out of breath. Anyone would be.

I began to plan for the strange girl daily. Her coming became even more anticipated for me, and I let go of potentially fun plans to work the ten AM to one PM shift. I even set up a brown folding chair for her to sit in if she wanted to, though usually she favored to lean on it. And very patiently, for exactly fifteen minutes, I told her everything. What had gone on with my family( such as an angry door slamming argument over frozen pizza the previous night), old girlfriends(like Lynda, who was always smiling but never seemed content, or Sam who helped me pierce my lip), even very intimate secrets that normally only went on in the most awkward and hushed conversations with my guy friends(If I absolutely had to get with any guy, I would have to pick young Truman Capote, no questions asked, and maybe this was just because there was one black and white picture of him I particularly favored). It's even a little scary now, to think about everything I had told her. But she was one of the few people that ever required me to talk, and let's just say that I had a lot that I was holding in, a lot to say that every day life didn't let me get out. Though she herself never said two words to me, she was like a best friend.

It was only natural that in the final days of my summer vacation I would work up the courage to ask her out on a date. I thought I had only planned it very cooly and romantically- I was going to give her two things: a white, fully bloomed rose like she always used to look at, and my very favorite picture in my computer album: A 322x426 of Janis Joplin standing outside of a store, smiling that amazing smile of hers with her tongue stuck out. (At this time in my life, the tie for the most gorgeous lady in the world was between Janis Joplin and the flower shop girl)

The girl arrived on cue as usual, wearing her Monday dress. With what I considered to be my coolest smile, I handed both to her, and for once, her immaculate blank face showed expression. Her barely there eyebrows clenched in conclusion and her she pursed her lips, looking at me. "I was wondering if you wanted to go to the movies or something tonight? We can do something else if you want."

Finally, the world became unreal as the girl started to speak. "Look dear. You are a nice guy, a little too open with people, but nice. But what honestly makes you think you know me enough to ask me out on a date? You don't even know my name." Her voice was surprisingly crackly, almost like pop rocks. She firmly placed Janis on the table, sliding her toward me, though she held gingerly onto the rose, again pushing it to her nose like she had so many days before in the summer. "I'm Peggy." she said very simply. And with nothing more said, Peggy walked (not floated) out of the shop. She left me dumbstruck, and I put the closed sign up in the shop, closed the blinds and sat there, listening to Cry Baby over and over again, on a loop.

Though I never ever told anyone about Peggy, I myself tried to figure out what got me so in love with her that summer. Maybe it was just mystery. Or loneliness, or the mere fact that it was summer and she was pretty. I even considered that maybe it was because she was an outlet for me to say everything I needed to. But in all reality, Peggy was just a strange girl in ill fitting dresses and unbrushed hair, who was probably pretty lonely herself.

Whatever the case, I tried to get a journal after Peggy disappeared(I never saw her at school, even when I scoured the yearbooks) but it only lasted three days. All the writing for what I had to say made my wrist hurt.