“Do you like her?” He asked questioningly from the passenger seat. The driver turned quickly, “what?!” The passenger sat carefully into his seat, ready to take an explanation, as the driver began, “yeah, sure I guess, she’s a nice girl, so I guess I don’t hate her.” The passenger half laughed as he gazed out the window, “not that kind of like.” It seemed to be obvious what he meant, but why would someone answer a question that directly. The driver came back with an immediate response, “no, not really. I mean she’s really cool and nice and all but I don’t know, it’s just…not.” The passenger slumped again and laughed, “uh huh. So that’s why you kept gazing into your mirror as she looked out the window?” the driver appeared mad, “I was looking at the traffic behind us. Besides, I told you, it just doesn’t, it…oh why are we talking about this?” The passenger sat back up and laughed again, seeing as he found this rather funny, and replied in a rather serious tone, “every week at the very least if not every day you complain to me about how you don’t have a girl. And yet there’s a girl in your backseat, next to you at the game, and later at dinner. She’s pretty,” at this point he began counting on his fingers, “she’s smart, she likes HOCKEY, and she’s nice. I guess I just don’t see why.” The driver held the wheel with one hand as he rubbed his forehead, “she’s just…she’s just, well, Annie.”
“So what’d he do?” came the voice on the phone. Well at the game we sat together and we had some good convo about the game, but it was like he was really uncomfortable. Then at dinner I kept bumping into his leg and he was all antsy like. The whole way home I just kind of gave up I guess and looked out the window. Kind of pointless, but it was a really good game.” The line laughed back, “sorry, I missed this game.” The girl sat on her bed, phone cradled on her shoulder, and played with her toes as the other line chattered away something about taking action, and maybe he was missing the signals. At that point it really didn’t matter, there was nothing she could do. She counted her toes, and over again, still only ten. She interrupted the other line to tell of this somewhat of a discovery, “why do we have ten toes? I mean why not 8? Why ten?” The chattering other line had become silent, “are you ok? What do you mean eight toes? That’d be insane, we’ve always had ten…” Again she trailed off onto some topic the Annie wasn’t interested in.
The passenger tried again, “really, I mean man, is it possible that you do like her it’s just you’re so stuck on the fact that it’s her?” The driver pushed it off again, “dude, leave it alone.” The passenger brought his stare from the window, “fine then, you can never complain about a woman again then.” There was a silence in the car, not as if the ultimatum was real but just a comfortable silence where each as trying to guess what the other was thinking. The driver started, “I don’t know what to do, I mean it’s kind of weird that it’s her, ya know? And if I do do something then how do I know what will happen, or I mean will it be weird? There’s just too many questions. The last thing I need is another girl who feels uncomfortable around me.” The passenger’s mouth hung open, “where you at the same dinner table I was? She was all over you, I mean she was sending signals left and right, I thought you saw them.” The driver slowed and switched gears as he looked over, “signals?”
Annie had to interrupt again, not about toes this time, about signals instead. “I was kind of all over him, I mean I’d bump him, purposefully push my chest out, lean over when I got out, or lay on his shoulder when I was ‘tired’.” The other line laughed, “Annie, you never give signals and when you do, believe me they’re obvious, maybe he’s just stupid or something.” There was a break as Annie thought, “but, maybe he just doesn’t like me then…” Her voice trailed off as she thought she heard a car door open and shut. Just then she thought of something, “oh no! I’ve become that hopeless teenager talking to her best friend about boys, I gotta go re-examine my life.” There was more laughing about her insanity and then an agreement that she’d better hang up. Annie paced about after she hung up the telephone, wondering why this bothered her so much.
The passenger finally left the car after repeating about nine times that there were signals at that dinner table, that even he, an involved man, was interested. Scott didn’t believe him though, at all. And a very unusual thing happened next, on his way back to his house, he was supposed to drive by hers, and instead of driving by it he drove to it. It took him a while though, first he opened and shut his door, then leaned on the car for a while as he saw the shadows in the single lit room move about. It took a lot of courage for him to go up to that door, but this night he felt especially courageous, like he could confront all of his fears. Once all of that courage had welled up he walked up to the door and prepared himself to knock. It took a few seconds as he stood there just staring at the door, but finally he made the move, and knocked softly, three times.
Her head whipped around as she heard a noise, being right over the front door she peered out and saw him, he heard a noise and looked up as she pulled her head into the door. Both afraid of what the other had seen they froze, stuck in a moment.
[To be continued…]