Get your own Free Home PageIt was dark. Thats always one of the first things I remember looking back on that time with her. It didn't start out dark so I have to wonder exactly how much time I did spend in that booth with her. I always come to the same answer for that particular question: "Too little! I spent too little time there, no matter how long it was!" And I still feel that to be true. To just think, that this wild, rampant hair I cursed so as a young child has brought me something to keep in my heart always. As I said... it was dark, but didn't start out that way. I know how it started, but that part of the story is more humourous than I feel like relating now. This is the more important part. She sat down first, the youthful hostess, and patted the seat beside her for me to sit, so she could finish braiding my hair. I thought she was doing a good job, I couldn't tell. She shifted to the back of the booth and I leaned back and rested on her. She put her hands into my hair and remarked again how soft it was, and how curly it was and what was my secret? Well, I couldn't very well tell her that, could I? Then she could feel her own hair, and not bother with my auburn shock. Her eyes looked determined as she sifted through it all, looking for another strand to braid. And that was how it went. We talked there, and she braided what she could, and the dishwasher would come out of the kitchen every now and then and talk to us there. I bet we looked like a couple. I really bet we did, I'm sure of it. She'd finish a braid, try to make it reach my mouth so I could wet the end, but it would never work and she would put in her own mouth and pucker her lips to wet it through. She said it even tasted alright. Never have I been more envious of a single, non-feeling part of my own body like I was. She had small lips, they weren't plastered in any fake colour like the lips of the other girls that worked there. They were pink like a winter night's sky, and they were neat and controlled. The way the corners arched when she smiled was perfect. Not the smile of a supermodel... no no, the smile of an actual person... who was often sad and troubled. I held back some of my mound of hair and her hand fell on top of mine to help me keep it there. It felt... it warmed me. Maybe she didn't really want to have her hand on that of a simple busboy, so I moved it a little and her hand found mine once again. I smiled, facing out away from her and just let it be. I savoured everything. The band played off in the far corner, it was an all cover band and they weren't too bad at all, really. We talked a little about school, because she used to go to my school and remembered me from there. We talked about me, we talked about her, and then she gave me the best compliment I have ever received in my life. "It seems like you're just so intelligent you're on the verge of going insane." Wow. She was still braiding, working those skinny fingers in a hypnotizing manner, but could only do one side of my head the way we were sitting. So the left had many more neat clusters than the right. She took a break and rested her hand on the table, which had brown paper over it like all the tables there did, rested it right next to my hand and touching it a little. I just sat and looked at it for a fair period of time. I could... I could just overtake her hand in mine right there. It would be one swift easy motion to cover her silky little hand in my roughened busboy grip. Things suddenly became very hard for me then. Then non-thinking flow of things just sort of took a detour. I never really got to coast along in life, and leave things to other people... and I sort of had that night. And it felt good, to let someone else take the reigns, if only for a little while. So I closed my eyes, heard the band off in the corner, took in this lovely young womans 'girl smell' into my person... and didn't do one other thing. No. I wasn't going to ruin anything, being forward and awkward like that. Believe me, it was a very hard choice, but I made it and didn't think about it again until she was on her way home and I was sweeping peanuts up off the floor. No. I couldn't spoil this moment, because as it was... it was something. Some beautiful moment in time that I could always look back on. A waitress just got off her duties and came back to our booth. She took a single glance at us and said, "Aww, you two make a cute couple." A little stirred, with my heart beating a little faster I sat up a little and said, "what?" a little breathlessly. She didn't repeat herself, but smiled, tipped us and wandered off. With a hand she brought me back to how I was before she came by, back leaning and relaxed in her lap. But it was late, and I was still on the company clock and the manager appeared and hustled me to work. After some time, I did get up, and she said it was past time for her to go anyhow. It didn't hit me then though. She gathered up a couple glasses in her tired grace and took them to the bar as I found my old friend the broom hunched in the corner. She came to me then, and told me goodbye. I jangled my keys in my pocket and asked if she would like a ride home, it was winter and cold... but no. She pointed out how she only lived a few blocks away, and how the manager would tan my greasy hide. I didn't... I didn't give one care about anyone else in that damned bar about then. I offered again anyways, with a weak smile that cried for her to stay, stay with me and talk to me and share with me, but no. It was late after all, and she was supposed to have been gone hours ago. I had helped her forget a few things for a while in that booth I suppose, but now the lights were back up and the drunks at the bar were still making a mess even past last call. And it was just time to go. I guess thats when it finally hit me.
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