H MEETS A

Hamish watches people go by while sipping irregularly from a cup of iced espresso with oat milk that he picked up from an NBA player’s side hustle artisanal coffee cart.

Hamish notices a woman walking up the street and aiming toward him. Although he watched it happen, he is caught off guard and surprised as she incredulously lands intimately close to him, planting a foot on an upper step an inch away from his lap.

Amanda bends over her knee looking directly into his eyes. She pauses as if she is appraising him. Hamish feels a tinge of adrenaline and confusion for the personal interaction and respite from his otherwise isolated afternoon.

Amanda has winter blonde hair, she is standout pretty, a confusion of ski and surf in a short Dior skirt with worker boots. She is uptown weary and downtown wise and her smile portrays both attitude and acumen.

Her voice is soft and more timid than he imagined her, “Excuse me sir.”

Hamish falls back on his arms supporting himself behind his back to create some polite distance to her and he replies, “Um, sure, how can I help?”

Now Amanda is more direct, expeditious, determined, no-nonsense, that New York style, “Can I get past you, these are my steps,” as her head looks up to point out that small fact.

Hamish jumps up embarrassingly and out of her way on to the sidewalk as Amanda misses steps with leaps up to the door.

As Hamish walks away, he twists his head to watch her stride up the stairs and then hears Amanda sing, “He’s so handsome,” knowing that she intended for him to catch it.

The door opens for Amanda and then falls to a close behind her. Amanda never looked back at Hamish since she lifted her head to point up the stairs. Hamish smiles, impressed by her game play.

His walk is more purposeful now, Amanda’s fleeting fly-by feels ephemeral and thinking of her, like a muse, formulates and nourishes his maturing sense of being.

Over the next weeks, Hamish intentionally passes that black townhouse countless times and he never sees Amanda again. On each occasion the trees became incrementally heavier with leaves that turned greener and the shade more essential as summer in the city crept up on them.