13) Gail Monday

This Monday Gail was not as quiet as the one before. She did not cry, at first. She asked about my day, and I told her what I shelved and that someone had stepped on my tail in juvenile fiction, but that was a child and did not really hurt. Gail smiled. Of course I did not mention May, how I stared at her through the cart I sorted in the workroom as she sat at the drive-up window. I thought I was relieved that May did not appear to have read my blog, but I am not. I do not know what I feel, instead. I do not even know what I see when I stare at her. I could look at her in pieces--the smooth, glossy skin and the hair of a color I can not determine and have never seen on someone else; the tapering fingers that seem too long for her small hands--but though they are all beautiful they are not the beautiful that she is. I want her to notice me.

Gail helped me bring in the groceries and place them in the refrigerator, then I asked her, "Why did you cry last week?" I had to know if I had done something wrong. I wasn't sure she heard me, because she was silent and did not look at me. Even when she finally spoke she did not look at me, but glanced around my spare room.

"I was hurt."

"Did I hurt you?"

"Yes. No. I hurt myself. I expected too much." Her voice teetered. Still she did not look at me. As I craned up at her standing there so rigid, I saw a tear fall and followed it to the carpet.

"I did hurt you."

"Stop it!" Her hands flew to her face and she sobbed into them.

"What did you expect? What was too much?"

She sniffed hard. "It's my fault!" She let her hands fall and hesitated before wiping them on her pants legs. She took off her glasses and knuckled each eye. Dropping suddenly to her knees, she finally met my eye, and I couldn't help but see deeply into her left one, olive green bursting rusty brown from the center. "Dammit, Book Monkey! I'm in love with you!" But then she smiled, not to my face but to herself, or to my arm, which she stroked lightly, once. I felt something deeper than her touch.