"Your eyes betray you."
by Alan Nicoll
Copyright 2003 by Alan Nicoll, All Rights Reserved
"Your eyes betray you."
Sheila turned toward the voice, her long, blonde hair whipping around to lie over her shoulder. The voice belonged to a man, dressed all in black, darkly handsome, with a small black beard. "Are you speaking to me?" she said.
"Yes, of course. There is no one else here."
Sheila glanced around the bookstore aisles. It was true, they were alone in the paperback fiction section of Vroman's in Pasadena. "What did you mean, my eyes betray me?"
He smiled and gestured toward the book she was holding, a lurid romance, a "bodice ripper" as they are known in the trade. "You are looking for love, but aren't we all?"
Sheila felt herself blush. "I . . . don't usually read this sort of thing."
"No, I'm sure you don't, Sheila."
"How do you know my name?"
He gestured again, toward the name tag on her peacock blue blouse. He said, "Sheila Ward, USC Medical Center, Word Processing Tech. Sums up your whole life in, let's see, eight words."
"That's not my whole life!" This man was beginning to irritate her.
"Isn't it," he said, not as a question but as an ironic statement, as though he knew much more than he was telling her.
"Go away, you're bothering me," she said at last. "You may think you're the most charming man in the world, you certainly come on like you think that. But I find you obvious and boring."
"No, not boring. You don't find me boring. But I leave you in peace." He turned and walked down the aisle, his head never turning.
Sheila never saw him again, but she thought of him occasionally as the years passed. She had written the whole little story in her diary, and each time she read her dairy again, there he was, mocking, winking, leering at her, making her feel that this was the one, this one, this man. He was the one she could have loved, should have married, should never have tossed aside without giving him a chance to charm her. Because, she knew, he was a charmer, he had charmed her, but her silly pride had caught in her throat, choked her, made her say those unkind words that sent him out of her life forever. She had gone back to Vroman's many times, not looking for him---oh, no, never looking for him, but always for some book to fill that void that he could have filled so much better. Yes, a book, that was it, but maybe he'll come in again, maybe, just maybe.