THE LINE

A random encounter of the spontaneous variety.

You were an enigma. Confused the hell out of me. Every time I saw you I was caught up in this web of happiness, entangled by your charm and good looks. Distracted by the cloud of fun that hung on your every breath. I breathed in this intoxicating aroma of spontaneity and forgot. I forgot that it was less than it was. As soon as you left, I questioned myself. What the f**k am I doing? How can I spend my time with someone who only wants to get in my pants. My self-esteem was beneath the floor so I let myself cater to your beck and call. Granted we never had sex, I refrained somehow, but that was always your biggest regret. Whenever, you’d talk to me I would once again be caught up in this otherwolrd, vastly different from reality where I no longer cared about stress and everyday concerns. One day we went skiing. I had always wanted to go and you were an avid skier of the douchebag variety. Low pants, expensive goggles, wearing your thuggie with nonchalant pride. I had assumed as I was a mere downhill skier you would have left me anyway to terrain with your friends, so I was unsurprised when you left me in the rental line to go and ski. As I convinced you I was fine to wait alone, I felt that awful shudder down my spine. That dreaded uncomfortable awkwardness that comes when you want someone to stay even though they are dying to go. You immediately left and I was filled with the sort of expected disappointment that comes when you want someone to surprise you and be different than who they are. Now this is not about you. I imagine some people are thinking to themselves, oh this poor girl, so typical, complaining about how a boy treats her, hung up on someone who doesn’t care at all. Now see here, while the above was a rant of sorts, this is not a story of a mismatched duo, but of an opportunity that emerged from the said boy’s departure. While this girl stood in the line (quite a long line actually) she met a young girl and her grandfather. I stood there, wondering how long I could wait in this line before peeing all over the floor, the man behind me started talking to me. I was unsure at first as I was half standing the other way, yet as I turned his eyes crinkled and gave me a wry smile. “Who me?” my raised eyebrow asked. His head tilt answered “Why of course!” He began by talking about the length of the line the other day. You see his granddaughter was staying with him and his wife over the March break. Every day, minus one exceptionally blizzarding day, they had braved the lines and the icy cold to go skiing. He wore a hideous woolen pea pullover and a red parka with thin gold rimmed glasses. I immediately noticed that he said the word ‘yesterday’ quite oddly. Most people say ‘yes-terday’ while he managed to say it in a rather appealing way of elder folk, something along the lines of ‘yesder-day’. You were a pilot in the Air Force based in a French area. Your wife was European and spoke French. You moved to the area after you retired and had been there for at least 25 years. You described the city as being able to do things right while other cities were lackluster. I agreed, but really only in a complacent manner as I didn’t really know what to say. You spoke with an accent that comes with living in many different countries for truncated periods of time. We exchanged travel stories. I learned about the perks of pilothood. Your daughter studied aquatic biology and spent two years on the likes of ‘The Deadliest Catch’. She had moved to Seattle, things got a little fuzzy here, but I believe she was divorced and then moved back to the country with her daughter- your granddaughter, who was also there. She had a deeper voice than one would expect of her stature, she was compelling. She took karate with her mom and knew terms unexpected of her age like ‘muscle memory’ and ‘discrepancy’. You both were longtime friends, joking with each other about the exactness of the time. You were not there to ski, just to take her and wait. You told her you would try and be in the same spot as ‘yesderday’ (I will never be able to recreate that right) and would be recognizable by your white hair. She disagreed, it was your sweater that would be distinguishable. We shared a laugh. As we talked and exchanged intimate details of our lives, I realized I didn’t know your names. The first hour had ended, it seemed like an odd thing to bring up after so long. After all, we were one occasion friends; never to meet or greet again-bound by unexpected circumstance, such as sitting next to one on a plane or in a line perhaps. As we ended our time in the line and parted ways, the boy returned. He expressed distaste at the state of the snow and said it wasn’t worth it to ski anyways. You looked at me in shock, unable to believe that I had just waited in a line for 2 hours for no apparent reason. This time, your raised eyebrows said “I can’t believe you just waited in the line for nothing!” and my wry smile answered “I didn’t.”