Waiting For Heather Part Three (Disequilibrium)

Strangely enough, when I heard the sound of a car that night I didn’t jump up thinking maybe it’s her the way I had so many times before. Somehow I just knew, and I even sat there for a moment after the doorbell rang, savoring the certainty that I was finally going to see Heather.

Sorry we’re late, Katie said when I opened the door.

, Heather said, and they both giggled as they came in, their party evidently having already started.

. Katie leaned over to put her hand on my arm and kiss me on the cheek. Hope you don’t mind.

, I said. I wouldn’t want it any other way. If Heather’s here there’s got to be a party, right?

Heather smiled and wandered past. I was watching her and she knew it, shooting me little sideways glances as she circled the apartment, idly opening books and peering at posters as Katie stayed next to me, beginning another monologue about Bill.

Every time the door bell rang after that Heather answered it, accepting the offerings of wine bottles and six packs as her due, automatically assuming the role of high priestess of the party as it inevitably began to revolve around her.

I just stood there, feeling slightly stunned and disappointed, hardly listening to Katie’s tirade, which was, after all, familiar enough. Even though I’d diligently studied my little trove of pictures of Heather, there were times when I caught sight of her in the quickly smokey and crowded room that I hardly recognized her.

Before her face had always been veiled or at least shadowed by hanging bangs and oversized glasses, but now she had contacts and pulled back hair like all the others, creating too regular a frame for her complex, exotic features. Similarly her once layered and baggy clothes had been pulled tight, clinging to her body and baring her shoulders and arms, the effect disconcerting and unfamiliar, as if she’d been interrupted in an awkward stage of her metamorphosis from rumpled teen to polished lady, like a chrysalis clumsily unfolding or a sword only half drawn, equal parts gleaming steel and cracked leather.

The other girls had matured too, but more seamlessly, posing and preening in every corner of the room, ripe and secure, knowing they’d never be more attractive. Katie was also at her best, her low cut top emphasizing how very buxom she was – at school she’d been a dedicated gymnast until her budding assets had brought disequilibrium to her balance beam routine, not to mention her male classmates.

And yet, despite all that, Heather was the one I couldn’t take my eyes off of – the more I looked at her the more I wanted to look at her. She was just so much more there than anyone else, and she made there the only place I wanted to be.