Neanderthal Seeks Human

Elizabeth stood up abruptly and ran to her kitchen, “Wait! I have a picture!”

My eyes widened as I watched her go; I called after her: “What do you mean you have a picture?”

All knitting abruptly ceased. The last time they all stopped knitting mid-row was because a good looking pizza guy arrived and they all wanted to give him the tip. Everyone started talking at once, their chatter trailed off as Elizabeth reentered the room with her phone and flopped down on the sofa next to me.

“I Kinneared him a couple times.” Elizabeth volunteered as she thumbed through photos on her phone. She looked up to our silent blank faces and lifted a single brow, “You know, ‘to Kinnear’, to stealthily take a clandestine picture of someone without them knowing. Hello? Don’t any of you read the Yarn Harlot’s blog?”

“Oh yeah, I heard about that. Didn’t the Yarn Harlot do that to Greg Kinnear at the airport or something?” Ashley placed her knitting on her lap, pointing at Elizabeth.

“Yes, yes. She wrote about it on her blog then it was put in Urban Dictionary and the New York Times yearly review thing or something-er-other.” Elizabeth turned to me and looked from my open mouth to my eyes, “Oh, don’t look so shocked about it.”

“I still want to know who him is.” Sandra stood up and leaned over Elizabeth’s shoulder as she paused on the first in a series of pictures of Sir Handsome McHotpants. I drank another swallow of my wine. All the ladies stood, except for Fiona, and clustered around the couch as Elizabeth drew her thumb over the touch screen of the phone. The group let out an audible gasp.

“Holy hotness, Batman. Who is that?” Ashley’s blue eyes were round as saucers.

“That’s Sir Handsome McHotpants.” Elizabeth sounded almost proud, “He’s a security guard at Kat and Janie’s building. Janie’s been lusting after him since he started a few weeks ago. I don’t know is real name but Janie might.”

Kat nodded, a small smile curving over her lips, “I recognize him. Janie isn’t the only one who has noticed.”

Marie started to laugh as she straightened and moved back to her discarded yarn, “No wonder you’re like: Jon who?”

“Damn, Janie, did he cuff you?” Sandra punched me on my shoulder, “Did you have hot elevator eye sex? Is that why you’re the shade of my red sweater right now?”

I didn’t realize that I was blushing until that moment. I put my wine glass aside and pressed my hands to my cheeks. It wasn’t that I was embarrassed by their comments, quite the opposite; I enjoyed their good natured teasing. I knew I was blushing due to the memory of his gaze, the intensity of his blue eyes as they moved over my body, the warm, charged strength of his hand on my back and arm. I felt more affected by him than all the other events which proceeded his presence, even all these hours later, after my day from hell. I moved my hands to cover my face and shook my head.

“Janie, did something happen?” I felt Elizabeth shift her weight on the couch as she addressed me, her voice contrarily laced with excitement and concern.

“No, nothing, except I talked to him and you all know how well that always goes over.” I left my hands on my face and sighed.

“What did you talk about?” Fiona’s soft voice made me feel a little calmer.

“I- I talked about the days of the week and the international standard for assigning numbers to days of the week.” My hands dropped from my face as I met their stares.

“Oh, geeze, Janie! What brought that up?” Ashley snorted as she laughed, moving her attention back to the soft mass of stitched yarn on her lap.

“No, wait, tell me everything.” Elizabeth said as she passed the phone to Fiona so she could see the pictures; Elizabeth grabbed my hands in hers and forced me to meet her pale blue eyes, “Leave nothing out. Start at the beginning and repeat what happened word for word- especially everything he said.”

So I did. I tried to stay focused as I repeated the story without allowing my mind to wander and expand on some meaningless tangent. When I repeated the part about ISO 8601 and how he’d asked me to expand on the ‘seamless intercourse’ between government bodies they all gasped.

“Ah! What did you say?” Sandra was leaning forward in her seat, “I can’t believe he flirted with you! Did you flirt with him back?”

“What? No- no, he wasn’t flirting with me!” I shook my head emphatically.

“Oh, Janie, au contraire mon frère, he was most certainly flirting with you.” Ashley wagged her eyebrows at me, her teeth sliding to the side in an impish grin, her thick Tennessee accent applied to the French colloquialism causing everyone to giggle, “Although he sounds like the strong and silent type. You must have made an impression. Kinda weird, though, him flirting with you right after you’re fired.”

Kat nodded, “I agree his timing could have been better but you must have obviously made an impression.”

“Of course you did, look at you- you’re stunning.” Fiona’s tone and expression was matter of fact as she gestured to me with one hand.

I stared at her wide eyed, “You call this big bottom of mine stunning?”

Marie started to giggle, “One man’s big bottom is another man’s idea of stunning; don’t hold it against this guy if he likes curves on his girl- on second thought, do hold it against him.”

The room roared with laughter and I couldn’t help the small, breathless chuckle which abdicated my lungs. I couldn’t fathom that he would have been attracted to me let alone flirted with me; it all seemed too strange. I interrupted their merriment to finish the story and everyone frowned when I explained that I left with the female guard and hadn’t talked to him or said goodbye.

“But he told you to wait.” Kat said, “Why didn’t you wait for him?”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean it that way, he meant ‘wait here’ or ‘wait for the papers’” I explained.

Ashley shook her head, “No, didn’t he say,” she lowered her voice to a manly tone which actually sounded a little like Batman, “‘Don’t move. Wait for me.’?”

“I think you’re reading too much into that.” I stood and began collecting empty wine glasses, stretching as I did so. The weight of the day made my shoulders feel heavy; I was tired.

“I wonder.” Fiona gave me a sideways glance as she continued, “You’ve always been clueless with guys.”

“Oh really?” I countered.

“Yes, really.” Elizabeth chimed in, “You are beautiful, even if you don’t believe us. A lot of guys- and, I mean, a lot of guys- like the big boobs, small waist, big butt, long legs, amazon woman thing you have going on. Pair that package with your curly auburn hair and big green-hazel eyes and some people, myself included, would call you gorgeous.”

I tried, with various levels of success, to change the subject as the evening came to an end. These were all women who loved me just as I was; of course they believed I was beautiful. The truth was I just didn’t especially like dwelling on my looks. So, I didn’t.

As I lay on Elizabeth’s couch that night I was surprised by the nature of my thoughts: I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I played the mostly one-sided elevator conversation over and over in my head trying to discern if he had actually been flirting. Not that it mattered as I would likely never see him again. I felt almost normal as I obsessed about something as mundane as whether a guy I liked, albeit based on physical attractiveness alone, thought I was attractive enough with which to flirt. However, before I let myself believe I was behaving completely rationally, I reminded myself that I just ended a long term relationship with someone I thought I was going to marry and lost my job in the same day.

A normal person would have been obsessing about one or both of those life-altering situations.

My last thought before I succumbed to sleep was to check the definition of ‘to Kinnear’ on Wikipedia.

CHAPTER 3

It was announced to me Friday morning, one and a half weeks after the worst day ever, that Friday night was going to be outrageous. And, by outrageous, Elizabeth meant that she’d secured VIP passes to a much sought after ‘club experience’ which I think was the trendy way of saying: we’re going to a new bar.

I was very motivated to find a new job and new apartment, although Elizabeth hadn’t made any complaints against my presence. In fact, she’d gone so far as to mention her lease was almost up and suggest we find something larger and continue to room together.

The idea appealed to me. Living with Elizabeth would be excellent prophylaxis against my natural reclusive, agoraphobic tendencies.

Even in my relationship with Jon we’d both recognized that I required a generous amount of space and alone time in order to behave with appropriate affection when we were together.

Maybe that was why he felt the need to cheat.

The idea struck me as one with merit. I tucked it away as a data point.

Over the last several days I did a fair amount of practiced focusing on the present: my present “lessness”- homelessness, joblessness, and relationshiplessness. Less was not more. Less was an unstable, uncomfortable place to be.