If my memory serves me right it was a Saturday. I hate Saturdays for reasons which I dare not disclose. Not here at least, but just think hours and time not spent window shopping and you get the picture. This particular Saturday was interesting though because somehow I had time on my hands and I was going to explore the world.
Who explores the world at 19? A girl who lived a sheltered life and kept thinking, “this isn’t normal but I am not missing anything”. What was there to miss if it included a lime somewhere on Main Street with a few dollars left of weekly allowance, money and clothes you would rather wear home than be caught dead in public with.
So there I was, this girl, no I mean young woman of 19 about to explore the world. I say woman because the only thing I remember lacking was street-sense and that other sense – how to not appear a bit dumb when it is obvious. I used to look at people with a straight face and ask where Camp Street was and other silly questions like if I was really going to drink something with alcohol in it when we went out.
With the sun in my face and my girlfriend in tow, more like me in tow, we set for a walk, then a drink. There is something about a woman in shorts that attracts men, it is almost as if they get high on flesh or rather legs, and a fair portion of it could be catastrophic on a quiet Saturday afternoon with not much happening in the city. I wasn’t the one in the shorts, was too conservative back then and truthfully, still am. My girlfriend was rocking the shorts and rocking it well. There were catcalls everywhere, whistles and horns… it got too noisy at one point, but she loved it.
I remember looking at her face and seeing the smile of a woman in control and again honestly, I was happy for her. I simply thought that at her age I too would have my moments when men would desire something they could not have. We must have walked for a good two hours, and I loved every moment of it. I took in the fresh air, tuned into some of the howling directed to her and was just happy to be there. Those days would never come again because they were meant to happen only once in my life.
And that is how I feel about him. Yes, him, the same guy I started this story with but got side-tracked somehow. We were meant to meet that day and just that day. If it had happened any other time, if I had turned a corner only seconds earlier things would have been different and we would not have crossed paths. Here is where I have to mention my girlfriend’s shorts again. He actually saw her, well her legs to the exact, and pulled over to say hello. Trust a man who feels confident and is brazen enough to approach two women, one of whom he thinks he knows.
The rest, as they say, is history or not. He said hello, she said hello, I said hello and that was it. We met on that day, still got the date, time and year in my head but some things are meant to be private. I always smile when I remember that day because my life was never the same after then. Oh, I forgot to mention that the story was never really about him. (thescene@stabroeknews.com)
