Nearly Naked Woman

I had awoken one hour previously to the realization that I had ten minutes to dress myself, pack a bag and hail a cab if I had any hope of catching my train. I did it in fifteen. As I raced out the door Dalreen shouted at me, "You're in the newspaper!" "I know!" I shouted back.

I ran out to a bright hot morning sky and the street curiously shining. With fifteen minutes to departure I was standing at the end of the driveway, realizing that the cabbies had not in fact conspired to facilitate my dramatic dash to the station. I set my suitcase down on the unaccountably wet pavement and peered up Greenwood Ave.

I had forgotten my cellphone. I hurled myself inside to call a cab. "Somebody's in a rush!" Pat sang out. Back on the curb I tried to hail a cab from a different company just as my cab pulled up. What the hell did I think I was doing? We arrived at the train station with two minutes to spare. I did a hard sprint all the way to the gate, where I was told that I had just missed my train.

Half an hour later I was sitting in Tim Hortens a block away reading. I felt weary, bleary, smelly and hot. For all that, I had three hours and two cups of coffee between me and the next train and I wasn't unhappy. Then I looked up and discovered a woman wearing only a bra, very short shorts and sneakers standing right beside me.

I could see her very clearly, though with the reflective window pane between us I don't think she could see me. She was close, maybe three feet away, standing very still, typing into her phone. She didn't shift her weight, tilt her head or make any other small gesture. All that moved were her fingers and a few strands of hair around her face.

To say that she was beautiful would be wrong, though I think she would be generally regarded as one of the beautiful people. Her nose reminded me of my father's, but I don't think this was the only reason the total affect of her face struck me as fairly masculine. Whatever her appearance, I was deeply unprepared for the sudden proximity of her approximate nudity.

She stood against a concrete backdrop, standing in an alleyway in the financial district. In fact, she had no idea I was there, sitting so raggedly in such a stale atmosphere at a distance that could be measured in inches from her exquisite physical personage. Her skin was mahogany brown, a perfect, ungraded, unfluctuating tone. It looked expensive.

This situation went on for three or four minutes. Never did she so much as twitch, though I myself sequenced through every conceivable posture and attitude of voyeurism: staring, glancing, peaking, studiously ignoring. Twice I picked up my book and put it down again. Finally I looked up and she was gone. I decided to buy a donut.