She was relaxed without seeming bored, responsive but not overeager, effortlessly revealing so much ready warmth and quick wit as we laughed and gossiped that I had one of those flashes of transcendental certainty, the kind usually sparked by a woman’s word or gesture, a deep appreciation of something I hadn’t even been able to see before, in this case the qualities of Kathy – her good nature, her optimism and sweetness, her sheer comfort in her in her own skin despite an appearance that many would find uncomfortable – that her many female friends (including, of course, Virginia) appreciated, and, ironically, it was my appreciation of those qualities that allowed me to appreciate the things guys usually appreciate, i.e. the erotic perfection possessed by her body below the neck, qualities which, because she wasn’t pretty and didn’t present as a slut, had hitherto been largely ignored.
And it was that realization, the charm and gravity of her as she took a last sip of coffee, the sharp morning sunlight outlining and illuminating her, that wouldn’t let me let her walk away for what I knew would be for all intents and purposes forever, that made me want to change what might have been into what WAS, to say Wait a minute, Kathy just as she was picking up her tray to leave.
This has, uh, been really nice, I said.
She stood there with a thin, tenuous smile. Yes, it has.
I mean, well, I was wondering if there wasn’t any way we could get together again or something…
Get together?
Yeah, you know, at night for a movie or a beer or whatever…
Are you asking me for a date, UBU? She asked with an ironic emphasis on the word date.
And in context the irony was entirely justified because at our college people didn’t really go out on dates. It was such a small school in the middle of such a large amount of nowhere that there was no place to go out TO. Everyone just sort of ended up at the same party or one of the two bars and paired off. It seemed like people were either sleeping together or unattached with no middle ground, rendering meaningless all the complex dating etiquette I’d only begun to master by the end of high school. But I’d never seen Kathy at the bar in all my misspent hours there, and we moved in such radically different social and academic spheres that that morning had been the first and, if I didn’t do something about it, the last time we had ended up together.
Whatever you want to call it, Kathy, I said, feeling the growing flush of anxiety of someone who’s been turned down more than once. I’m just saying I’d like to see you again. I mean it’s ridiculous that we’ve gone to the same schools for so long and we’ve never, you know, really gotten to know each other…Her silence drew me on to ever more embarrassing waters. I had this feeling right now that I really, I’d really like to get to know you…
O.K., O.K., All right.
She laughed, deciding, perhaps, that I was too agitated to be handing her a well worn line. It sounds like a good idea to me too.
A Leak In The Safe 