You were doing homework, taking up most of a small table at the café, and I hated to disturb you, but my stepfather’s story was too fresh. I had to do something because you looked like the girl my sisters dreamt up for me: you’re comfortable with yourself, slim, pretty, smart, and you looked like you could sit on a sofa in a high-rise metropolitan apartment, reading a book, feet tucked up underneath you, wearing glasses, engaged by your book despite the lights beyond the windows painting a city.
This must have been 1996 because “Long December” had been playing in my head. And the most amazing lyric I’d ever heard, stunningly beautiful not for its own words but for what it evokes, had to do with the way that light attaches to a girl. And there you were. At Starbucks, early morning with the early morning light attaching to you, and for some reason I was not only awake that early, which was odd, but I was also out of the house, at a Starbucks, sitting four or five tables away, writing in my journal and also browsing a book I’d just bought at the bookstore next door.After gathering my things and scribbling my number on a piece of paper I forced myself to stand up and walk to your table. “Hi,” I said. “Can I bother you for a minute?”You smiled yes.“Can I tell you a story?”I gathered from the look on your face that you hadn’t heard that one before.“Just a few nights ago, Thanksgiving night, my stepfather said something that made me come over here. We were talking after dinner, the whole family, all drinking wine and reminiscing about the cool and crappy things that have happened in our lives, and he said: ‘If I could change one thing about my life, if I could do one thing differently that I didn’t do this time around, I’d approach more women I was attracted to.’” “So that’s what I’m doing. I know you’re busy doing your homework or whatever all this is, so I don’t want to keep you, but I saw you sitting here and thought you looked great, and I just needed to let you know.”You looked like you wanted to talk more. My story had more than its intended effect; it opened a door that I wasn’t prepared to walk through and you may have said something inviting more conversation, but I panicked and flushed, maybe put down the slip of paper with my name and phone number, answered your question quickly, smiled and walked away.You never called. I probably should have prepared myself for more conversation and stayed, summoned some wit instead of relying on a sort of prepared script and then bolting. But the goal isn’t always to move the relationship forward. Like skydiving, it’s not just about the freefall; even more, it’s about taking that first step out of the plane.
