I am a young stockbroker and I been working for few months in a new brokerage firm. The work is very much routine, and in the last year, I have noticed the market almost in a continuous downward spiral, this alone makes the job very stressful, protecting clients from losing too much money. Even so, I am well-paid, being I a beginner. Not having many friends in the great city, and much less, in the financial district, I go only from my apartment to my work, early in the mornings, and return home at dusk. Since the time in which the markets make transactions is very limited, there is not much overtime work, except when I take orders for transactions in foreign markets, and sometimes, the procedure is even stranger: I return home at the usual time, but I have to wake up in the middle of the night in order to go to the office and work in front of the computers long before dawn.
While walking on the streets of the city, I see all kinds of people, and I don't pay much attention to them, but little by little, I get accustomed to some faces and garbs, but not finding anything in common with them, I let them get lost in the sea of people.
One Tuesday morning, a few blocks from my office, I see a very pretty young woman pass by me, blond and of fair-skinned, dressed as an executive with a high-fashion style, in which black dominates, as if she were in mourning. She looked like a top model, although she is not so tall. She smiled when passing near me, and I don't assume that she meant that smile for me. But the next day, we crossed paths again and she smiles at me again. This is already too much coincidence, but nothing else. On Thursday, not only I see her passing as usual, but during the afternoon, when most of the markets have closed and we only have to follow up on the clients before the day is done, I have seen her coming into my firm, and she even entered the office of a middle-aged high executive. She was there for barely twenty minutes, and she left. I avoid her gaze and she passes without noticing me; it is better this way. Other employees whisper incoherently, but they soon put their attention back to work.
On Friday, not only she finds me while coming to work, but I even see her on my way out, as if making the trip back. She even greets me:
"Hello."
This lady must be crazy! I turn around, to see if she called somebody else standing behind me, but she stops exactly in front of me and she speaks to me again:
"My name is Angie, pleased to meet you."
I should feel I flattered, but what I feel is exactly the opposite: annoyance, distrust, fear. In the big cities of the world, one suspects a deadly trap lurking when somebody comes near you within arm's length. She asked with tactful insistence:
"How are you? I see you passing by a lot."
"Who are you? What do you want...?"
"I have already told you: my name is Angie. What's yours?"
I wanted to walk away, but she directed me an incredible look: she smiled timidly, and at the same time, she frowned, her brows, exquisitely shaped and with a slightly darker color than her hair, which had highlights of that color. Her look was between cheerful and pleading, it even inspired me sincerity. I decided to answer, as a courtesy:
"I Am Andrew."
Breaking the tension between us, she extended a delicate hand for a soft handshake and she answered:
"My pleasure! Come with me, let me buy you some coffee."
We went to a delicatessen, and after having a cup, she began to make small talk:
"Have you been working for a long time?"
"Less than a year. And you?"
"No, I don't work. My father is a millionaire and I don't have to. But I already have the things for which I wish, so I no longer go shopping much, and I prefer to walk in the city. Isn't it beautiful?"
"Impressive, I would say. I believe that the museums and theaters are in another district, there should the beauty of this city be."
I didn't intend a double-entendre, but it happened.
"To those places, I already go from time to time. I do go to the theater; especially, I like the ballet. Look, I am hungry, so let's order. I'm buying."
"You shouldn't, we b..."
"I insist."
I accepted a turkey sandwich with salad and a soda. She ordered the same, but with bottled water, as giving me a lesson on healthy eating. She mentioned that she was twenty years old and I told her I was twenty-five. After finishing, she asked:
"Where do you live?"
This already seemed too much, but to walk the streets with such a beauty as her by my side convinced me and I let her come along. While we walked, I remembered and it seemed to me that I might have also seen her on Monday, perhaps before, but it was not until Tuesday that I noticed a pattern in her reappearance on these streets. I didn't dare to take her hand, but I didn't allow her to stray from my side at any moment, jealous of my "conquest." I made the silly question:
"Why do you wear black so much, are you mourning for somebody?"