We Meet

I was living in my San Francisco apartment, alone on a Friday night, watching a movie on my couch with my two Siamese cats. Outside the rain blew in gusts against my bay windows, which overlooked the perpetually busy Lombard St., where undeterred motorists planed across it's rain drenched surface, spraying sheets of water from their vehicles on either side, spreading from underneath like enormous wings, and hissing like an open air hose.

Paul had a passenger that night, a raven haired stranger on her last night of a business trip. His brother's wife in Boston called him the night before and asked for the favor of showing an acquaintance the sights. "She's my friends' sister, and she is very sweet, Paul, and has one more night before she comes back home to Boston." After determining that she was hot and single, he had the Corvette cleaned and popped a breath mint.

But the night was a disaster. She was only interested in seeing San Francisco, but Paul was only interested in seeing her, preferably in a hotel bed. The night was slipping away from him, so he called a friend who happened to live nearby, and coincidentally at home watching a movie.

"Scott, it's Paul."

"Hey Paul, what's up?"

"I'm showing someone around town and I need a change of pace. Is it alright if we drop by?"

"Is this the same girl that your sister-in-law asked you to t..."

"Yeah," he said with a twinge of irritation, "so can we drop by?"

This wasn't like Paul, to bring any girl around that wasn't already his, and even then. At a party a few weeks back, he had sat at a table with a couple girls and made me and Eric stay at the bar. I confronted him later about it. "Does this mean that any time we meet new girls that I have to go home?" He hung his head, feeling ashamed and said, "Of course not."

The rain beat down harder as they trolled for a parking spot on the blocks circumscribing my apartment. They had given up and had resolved to leave when a car miraculously pulled out from in front of my building.

I answered the knock on my door. She was a head taller than Paul, standing behind him, but and her image burnt into the back of my eyes like an overlong glimpse of the sun. A purse hung from her left shoulder and her thumb was hooked under the strap, and her arm struck me as being perfectly shaped, not buffed like a body builders, or too skinny like an anorexics, but firm and slight, achingly feminine. Her long black hair flowed down and around her shoulders, framing an angels face, her penetrating eyes held mine with a cool confidence and untamed spirit, and inside those swirling brown crystal orbs I could see my future.