The girl on the stoop

She was there. Sitting. Waiting. Looking like a siren perched on a rock, searching for mariners to enchant. She had placed pillows  on her stoop so she could lay there looking at ease as if she didn’t have a care in the world. During the hot days of summer she would put a fan on inside her apartment, but it wasn’t enough, so she moved outside. Not wearing much. Her blond hair glistening in the sun. Her door was always open.

As the days went by - a year and a half - I would wander by her place on my way to get coffee. Not wanting to look at her, but still looking at her askance. Once I took a picture of her. Not a good one on my old cell phone. I looked at it later, and decided to erase it, but didn’t. Because that is all I have left to remind me of her. She is gone. Gone, long gone. As bone dry as an Australian station that she came from. The curtains of her place were always waving at me - like her blond hair beckoning me over. They still move now that she is gone - a cruel joke to remind me of her.

What did I have to give her? A sick body; an old man teetering on the edge of death. Just one push and I would be gone. Therefore I walked by her. Not every day. And I watched her, sometimes in bikini top, sometimes just relaxing at ease as if she was on a beach. Her faithful dog went in and out, guarding her. (She later described her dog as her shadow.) She seemed oblivious to the attention she attracted. Men would stop and chat her up. I wasn’t one of them at first. It took me a long long time to muster the courage to address her. ( In the back of my mind, I had the premonition that she would break my heart…)

When I finally talked to her I was surprised that she was nice and kind and welcoming. And her accent. I was recovering from my cancer treatment, I was feeling better. I doubt if I would have if I hadn’t  felt free from the sense of death I had been carrying around for a year like a invisible man perched on my shoulders, like a vulture looking down at me. We began to converse and exchange pleasantries. Nothing sexual. I was trying to amuse her. Until one day I fell over on my face near her place.

It would be been funny, if not so stupid, to be so silly. I turned around, got my feet twisted and down I went flat on my face. As I was falling I kept telling my self, 'don’t put your hands out because of Colle’s fracture, and don’t get hit in the face'. I did fall on may face at the end, just a scratch, but when I showed it to her she was concerned, even taking a picture of me. Why? I don’t know.

I was a goner after that. I had fallen for her. She told me about her family and her ex boyfriend. She was sharing personal information. I read that when people are falling in love they start sharing intimate details of their private life with each other. I asked myself, “Was I falling in love? “

I didn’t know her. And I desperately wanted to know her. She made me happy. She smiled and laughed at what I told her. Was this puppy love, a May December quirky affaire? Was I crazy? It seemed so innocent. And easy. I had a crush on her, that was all I knew, and all I cared to know. So why did she tolerate me?

She was like Wonder Woman with her rope of truth; when she asked me something I replied with the truth. I never lied. To my detremeint.

Then I asked if she wanted to see my art and we arranged a time to meet for tea at her place. I got there, had to wait while she conducted her business, then I went into the inner sanctum. I immediate looked around, curious. I spied a Hawaii licence plate and told her we had been on our honey moon there. She was trying to put away her professional affairs then gave up and asked me to sit outside on the stoop. I complied, she looked at my work and she said that she felt she was there. I don’t remember what I showed her. Greece maybe? I had just returned from vacation. It went by so fast, it was like a dream...

All dreams come to an end.

"Peaceful Easy Feeling” Eagles

I like the way your sparkling earrings lay

Against your skin so brown.

And I wanna sleep with you in the desert tonight

With a billion stars all around.

'Cause I got a peaceful easy feeling.

And I know you won't let me down

'Cause I'm already standing on the ground.

And I found out a long time ago

What a woman can do to your soul.

Oh, but she can't take you anyway,

You don't already know how to go.

And I got a peaceful easy feeling.

And I know you won't let me down

'Cause I'm already standing on the ground.

I get this feeling I may know you

As a lover and a friend.

But this voice keeps whispering in my other ear,

Tells me I may never see you again.

'Cause I get a peaceful easy feeling.

And I know you won't let me down

'Cause I'm already standing

I'm already standing

Yes, I'm already standing on the ground