The Girl Out the Window

The Girl out the Window…

He was calm and collected.  He was in his element, talking about his trade, his work, his dorky passion.  He looked at clean cut finger nails and could not remember the last time he had bitten them.  He used to eat his nails.  There was the one time he had completely bitten the thumb nail off.  That though was another time and in another life.  

Person after person came into the little conference room.  Person after person sat down and gave their spiel.  They wanted to find a break in his armor.  They asked questions from all angels.  They gave him warnings.  They tested him and his knowledge again and again. 

He sat there in his sports coat and khakis with a sly type smile on his bearded face.  He folded his hands with his unbitten nails in front of.  He took their badgering with his sly smile, and gave off a heir of confidence not smugness.  No, this was his element.  Of all the things he did well talking about him was one of the best.  

He had a gift for weaving stories that were untrue.  His creativity was both his gift and his curse.  It was a gift because he had longed to use it and make his living from it.  However, he was terrified to because what is no one liked it?  However things were different when he was talking about himself and he had lived through the events.  In those situations he became the maestro.  He would weave the words like a conductor would weave notes of an orchestra to form a beautiful melody.  

Writing or talking it made little difference to him.  Once he got started he could go on and on without stopping or without pause.  He would weave together a tail that you wanted to listen too.  You wanted where happy when he started and you didn’t want him to end, it left you always wanting a little bit more. Here in this room.  It was no different, jus0t a different canvas for him to work on. 

 

He was doing well.  He knew he was doing well.  When it came to his craft he knew his business well.  He would say few new it better.  He had made is a study in excellence.  At once point his minded wanted more knowledge than anyone else could have and he went out and acquired it.  That like the nail biting had been another life.  Now he considered himself in the rare class of expert.  Was it Caesar who said I came I saw I conquered?  Well wasn’t it actually “Veni, vidi, vici”?  He couldn’t tell but he had done just that.  

His mind would race in these mini palavers.  Although this was his element, that didn’t mean he wanted to be right here right now.  Being present even in your own life was always hard for him.  He was a dreamer.  His mind wandered even when he needed it to be most focused.  That is what happens when you are the creator of worlds and speaker of tales.  However, he knew the stories well enough and what he had done well enough that he didn’t always have to be entirely present.  Not unless something tripped him up and today was going to well for that.

Calm, he was by definition just that.  His heart which sometimes beat to its own rhythm no matter what was going on was in alignment.  It was calm.  He the one his coach had once told he sweated the second most of anyone she knew, had not sweat today, because it was unwarranted and unneeded, because he was in control.  It was after all his game now.  It was the element of tale spinning and he was a master. 

His full attention came back as this part of the interrogation appeared to be over.  Having been taught manners from a very early age and not matter what the situation was he stood up and offered his hand as the person excited the room.  They made offers to make him more comfortable but he assured them he was right as rain, because after all he was.  

He chose not to sit immediately down after he saw them out.  He instead wanted to stretch his legs and he paced up and down the line of windows he had chosen to sit in front of.  Truthfully he was looking at everything that was out there and nothing.  It was a chilly spring day in California and he saw clouds rolling in, he doubted there would be rain, rain was a rarity in California these days. 

He studied the building across the street.  It was just a building.  However it held his attention but just for a moment.  The next person was coming in and he turned from the window and extended his hand and sat down.  

One meeting was much like the other.  The conversation rolled on and the tales were spun.  Each question was answered with the same zeal and passion.  The smile that said I am so interested and not too cocky hung on his face, but when his mind did it’s ever present doubling this time it was not a new world, or race but the building that loomed now behind him.  

The building was thought like so many others that just got stuck in his mind.  He couldn’t get rid of it if he wanted too. It mattered little his game was still at “A” level.  He answered the questions with well weaved tails.  He probably talked too much, but he cared little because what he would spew was pure gold and he knew it.   This after was his arena.    

Again his mind gathered as the conversation came to an end.  He stood and he shook hands and said pleasantries and did the dance of a well behaved man.  He sad back in his chair with a bigger grin than the one he normally wore.  He felt good.  He wasn’t the same man he had once been.  He laughed a little to himself and said to the empty room that he was defiantly on his game and one more of these and he would be completely in the driver’s seat.  

He sat back in his chair and did a half spin and glanced to his left out the window.  He ran his hands through his long hair while his eyes scanned their cool graceful scan.  As always they were seeing everything and nothing once again.  Then they stopped gliding to the right and shot back to the left.  He almost started to panic because he could no longer feel his heart beating.  Had he looked down he would have realized it was gone because he had lost it.  

He wanted to stand up and walk to the window and stare like a goof.  He couldn’t stand because his knees were too weak.  His usually powerful sturdy legs felt like Jell-O and he could not move them even though he commanded them too to even move forward in his chair.

He was not sure if the grin on his face could get any bigger but somehow he felt it grow on his face.  He wanted to lean forward but his body was no longer his own.   He just stared out the window and across the street.  He wondered if what he was looking at was real or if some mad vision brought on from one of his other worlds.  He knew at once it was not.  He knew he was not looking at angel or a demon.  No he was just looking at a girl out the window.

Just a girl wasn’t a fair way for his mind to put it though was it?  She was not just a girl.  No she was a beautiful woman his eyes couldn’t take in enough of.  A car passed and he hated it for blocking his view of her.  However it passed and there she stood and he felt his heart again but now it was racing.  It was the conga and he the rhythm was fast and damn near out of control.  He felt a stir in his groan.  A sense of lust and longing washing over him and his mind went from calm and clear to absolute mush. 

She stood there with her dark hair blowing in the wind.  It didn’t seem to bother her it was in her face.  Her face wore a frown, but not because she was sad but because her face just naturally went into what appeared to be a frown. He didn’t get the sense from her that she was melancholy just out walking with a place to go.  The wind stopped moving and he could see her brown eyes and they were kind and inviting. 

She waited there on the other side of the street.  She wore a pink shirt and wrapped in a gray sweater.  Her arms were crossed under her ample breasts.  What she was waiting on he couldn’t say.  Then another car passed and she started to move forward.  He saw that her shoes were brown and looked soft and comfortable.  She crossed the street and poof just like that walked out of his life much like she had just walked into it inadvertently and without ever knowing.

He almost jumped out of his chair when someone spoke to him from behind.  It was the last caller of the day.  But instead of standing at attention and walking towards them to great them, he looked back to the window longing to see her just one more time. When he realized there was no such luck.  He turned and shuffled towards the man and his outstretched hand.

He sat and for the first time his mind didn’t split.  It didn’t split because it couldn’t because his entire focus was on the girl he had seen out the window.  He had to pull hard in his mind to try and regain some focus.   He mustard all he could.  He tried to weave tales and orchestrate but his mind just kept going back to the vision in gray and pink out the window. 

The next half hour moved like molasses.  He tripped and fumbled over his own words.  He told and retold the same stories.  He couldn’t find that calm, semi-arrogant person he had just been.  He couldn’t do it because he was infatuated with that beautiful girl, that passed by and he glimpsed out the window. 

His last meeting ended and he couldn’t get out of there fast enough.  He left the building and moved as quickly as he could to the street she had crossed. He wanted to see if he could see her again.  He rounded the corner and there she was.  She was crossing the street with two others.  He wanted to call out to her.  He wanted to scream hello.  He opened his mouth and nothing came out.  For once in his life he was completely and utterly without words.

He watched her walk away.  He turned and put his left hand into his pocket.  His right went to his mouth and he started to use his teeth to pick at them while he looked at his feet as he walked away.  His mind still stuck on the image of beauty in the window.  Wondering why nothing would come out, why the man who could weave such wonderful tales couldn’t find the right words to say to make her stop or even come back.   He glanced over his shoulder a couple of times.  Hopefully he would catch another glimpse.  That he would just get to see her one more time.  It was as if she had vanished though and walked out of his life forever.