I watch her from across the street.
She is a ray of sunshine, as always. She smiles at the guard as she exits the coffee shop after getting her cup of coffee, at the girl who waits at the bus stop the same time every day with her (The other girl smiles back. Who wouldn't? I know I would.), and then at the bus driver as she boards his bus.
Once her bus has rolled along safely, I fold up my newspaper prop, stand up from my waiting shed bench, and walk off to my own office. Tomorrow again, I console myself as that hungry, longing feeling starts welling up inside me. It's only five minutes since she left my sight and yet I already miss her.
Not to say that I stalk her, I don't. Oh God, I don't. I'm not a stalker. It just so happens that we're within the same area at the same time. If I was a neurotic idiot, I'd think that *she* was the one who was stalking *me*. (But she only glanced at my direction maybe once or twice. So I highly doubt it.) I mean, for the past half-year or so, I've always stopped by at that bench to read the morning paper every day since Paula left. It was my way of coping. My bench moments gave me a sense of calm and peace, a place and time to retreat from the chaos of the world.
And then, three weeks ago, she moved into town. If she had not tripped over at the coffee shop door and spilled her steaming cup of coffee all over the shoes of the matronly lady at the sidewalk, I wouldn't have noticed her.
Who wouldn't, anyway? Half the streets' eyes were on them at that moment when the matronly lady screeched at her. I could see her veins throbbing, bulging in her neck, threatening to burst any moment. (I half-expected them to.) I could hear her screams from across the street, calling the other all Godforsaken names from Adam. I understood the matron lady's wrath. I mean, like she said, coffee stains *are* murder to Italian leather.
And then I turned my attention to the 'clumsy girl'. She was biting her lip, and looking down at the matron lady's brown-and-white shoes. I thought she would cry, but she didn't. Instead, she looked up at the matron lady and smiled. She smiled. Her cheekbones went up, her eyes twinkled as they crinkled. She started to speak, had begun to talk animatedly and then laughed. I couldn't hear what she was saying, and I so wanted to. Especially when I looked back at the matron lady and saw that she, the erstwhile screaming banshee, had also began to titter with laughter. The younger, perkier one then rummaged through her huge, white bag and handed out a card to the matron lady. Her business card, I presumed. The matron lady took it, chuckled, and simply walked away. At one point, even looked back to wave back at her. The younger girl smiled, and waved back. And then she went back into the coffee shop. When she came out, she took careful measure of her steps, minded the cup in her hand, and managed to step safely into the sidewalk without harming anyone. The guard behind her had said something, and she looked back at him and smiled.
She smiled.
And I couldn't help but smile myself.
She smiled at the people who stood there with her, and then turned to look across the street. But even before she could turn her smile to me, the bus had arrived to block our view of each other.
And so from that moment on, she and her smile became my early morning ritual. I still bought the morning paper, but I neglected reading it now. Buying it now had a different purpose in my life. Now, it wasn't just to alienate me from the otherwise chaotic world, but to actually aid me in connecting to it.
In other words, I needed something to make it look like I wasn't just looking at her.
It's been like this the past three weeks.
I arrive at my office and greet the building guard with a wave and a smile. He does the same. I hear a comment from behind me, saying that I was in a pretty chipper mood today. As always. It's one of my officemates. I laugh. I know what he meant. I wasn't ever the one to be nominated for Mr. Congeniality.
Officemate asks who is it that's making me this happy lately. And my mind immediately goes to her. Which in turn, makes me feel sheepish. That's just crazy. I mean, I don't even know her name.
Which is weird, I think to myself. I've been watching her for almost a month now, and yet I don't even know the most basic thing about her.
By the time we get to our 15th floor office, my mind was set in finding out her name for myself.
The next day, I forego the bench and I go up to the coffee shop barista to ask for her name.
What, it wasn't like I would go up to her and actually ask *her* for *her* name. What would I say, anyway? "Hi, I've been watching you the past three weeks, and I was wondering. Can I have your name?"
Paula would rise from her ashes to kill me if I did such a thing.
("I left you specific instructions on how to pick girls up, and you come up to her with this?!" She'd say, no doubt.)
Anyway, her name is Clara.
Pretty name. Clara. Cla-ra. I let my tongue roll out the 'r' in her name slowly, savoring every rattling sound it makes. Cla-rrra.
Wait, that's just plain freaky.
I stop myself from saying her name out loud for the nth time that day. But that didn't mean her name stopped running through my mind the whole day, and that a smile made its way to my face at every single moment.
I'm going crazy, I think. Going about my day like this with Clara occupying every single space in my head when she doesn't even know I exist in this world. Talk about unrequited love.
Wait, love?
I'm in love with Clara?
That can't be, I tell myself. How can you fall in love with someone you only see from ten feet away, and whose interaction with you exists and happens only in your mind? That can't be love.
But, I tell myself, if it makes me actually go up to her and talk to her, then probably, it *is* love?
And so the next day, I forego the bench again and wait *in* the coffeeshop for her. The baristas were giving me strange looks, seeing as I came back and forth from the restroom a good five times before I finally settled in my seat. I look at my watch. 7:30 AM. This is right about the time she comes in to get her coffee.
And she does, like clockwork.
I watch as she smiles at the baristas. (Her smile is even more awe-inspiring at this short distance.) The baristas smile back and immediately work on her order. She orders the same thing everyday, as I had thought.
While she waits for her order, I watch. While she takes her order, I watch. While she turns around to head for the door, I watch.
I clench my fist and resisted the urge to punch myself in the face to wake myself up from the spell of simply watching her.
I watch as she glides past my table, and turn her head to me.
She smiles.
And I... can't help but smile back.
I unclench my fist and watch her sail through the door. (She's an expert at it now. A far cry from her earlier mishap.) She smiled. I thought to myself. She smiled at me.
I can die happy now.
("Die, and I'll kill you, idiot." I can still hear Paula in my head even after all these time.)
The next day, my redrafted plan of introducing myself to Clara failed. Again. This time though, it had nothing to do with *my* shortcomings.
She didn't arrive.
She didn't arrive for the next couple of hours that day. Or days that week. Or weeks that month.
The shadow re-emerged to make its home on my face yet again. The building guard was the first to notice, and then my officemates. Officemate pestered me with details on how and why the light of my life broke up with me. I'm still amazed at myself for not having punched him at that time.
I board the bus three months later, going home. And looking out to the window like I was making an angst-ridden music video, I saw her.
Clara. I called out through the glass window. The whole bus turned to look at me, but I could care less. She was walking towards the direction where my bus had just come from. I continued to call out for her until the bus stopped, a couple meters away from where I last saw her.
I scrambled for the door, shoved a good few people out of the way, unmindful of the hexes they left in my wake. I could still see her back (I know it so well from watching her come into that coffee shop.), and that huge, white bag of hers (Her favorite one. The one where she took her business card out from that episode with the screeching banshee of a matron lady.). It was rush hour, and the crowd was so dense (in all meanings) I couldn't almost breathe.
In what seemed like an eternal shovefest, the crowd finally cleared, and only then did I realize where Clara had taken me.
I looked up and saw the sign. Goosebumps prickled from the nape of my neck as I entered the wrought iron gate. There wasn't anyone around. No one was even guarding the gate. I saw a flash of white in my peripheral vision and instinctively headed in that direction. I stopped where the green Bermuda grass was spotted with white, fluffy things.
I went down on my knees. Dandelions. I thought to myself as I lifted my misting eyes to read the headstone.
Clara Mendez. January 18, 1980 to February 15, 2008.
Let perpetual light shine upon your soul the way yours have shone on ours.
I blinked away the tears, rubbed the gooseflesh behind my neck and heaved a deep breath.
No wonder she didn't arrive.
I looked up to the orangey sky and offered her a silent prayer. Of thanks. Of love. And smiled.
I could feel Paula looking from behind my shoulder. And I could feel Clara too, somewhere, somehow, smiling down at me.
I picked a dandelion up from amid the grass and blew at it.
I watched as its spores flew towards the setting rays of sunshine.
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