This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
46
She read on the bus with a pensive
expression. Sometimes other girls from
Finally when she
school rode with her. She listened more
than she talked. She watched more than turned the corner
she listened. She reacted more than
she watched. She dwelled on things I and i saw her
didn’t pay attention to: wet footprints on
the bus, how people pulled the cord to
approaching she
announce their stop, the effort of people
struggling to ignore yet clandestinely
looked the same
monitor strangers in a closed-in space.
She seemed offended by how many
as when i’d first
people were plugged into something –
music, phones, puzzles, magazines – but
seen her half our
she liked people who read books. She
smiled at them, and her smile was like a
lives before, only
gift certificate into her own satisfaction.
I remember the first time she noticed
she was smiling.
me. An old man brought a dusty, ancient
hardcover book onto a crowded bus and
the book passed very closely to her face
as he tried to get by her and continued
on until he sat next to me at the back of
the bus. She was startled for a moment,
then turned back and stared. As soon
as the old man sat down and opened
the book I could smell how pungent it
was. She noticed me noticing. She got
up, zeroed-in on the book, and began to
make an approach when, very suddenly,
she saw me admiring her. It was all
over my face. She froze. She looked Just before I saw her lugging her
away at the window but really was just suitcases at the arrivals and wondered
consulting what I was doing in reflection. what she’d make of my warehouse of
Then she sat, tensely, for the remainder baggage, I was thinking how it’s funny
of the ride and got off from the front of how from a glance, on the page of a
the bus for the first time since I’d been letter, over the phone, meeting in-
riding with her. She exited the bus and person, and sleeping together can all be
I watched her walk back toward my part of the same conversation between
direction on her way to the traffic light on two voices. Or each step is a start-
the street where she lived three blocks over – maybe a fresh-, maybe a jarring
down the hill. She pushed the button and start-over.
waited. My breath was fogging up the I’d rewritten a first-kiss for myself
window so I wiped it and right then she with this girl and now she knew it.
glared back at me. Fiction has to make sense, whereas real
life doesn’t.
*** Finally when she turned the corner
Which is to say that it took a and I saw her approaching she looked
little while for my undertaking to be the same as when I’d first seen her half
appreciated. our lives before, only she was smiling.
I borrowed a car and drove over to
the airport to pick her up.
avantoure | anthology of temptation
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72
Produced with Yudu - www.yudu.com