Ahhh, the joys of being retired!
It was warm this morning, still the first part of May, but heading to around 85º by the time all was said and done. Since I was already halfway there, having gotten out of my doctor's appointment – just a routine check-up; no acute problems – I figured that I'd head to the Kroger supermarket on Bypass Road in Richmond. I needed some stuff, shampoo and bar soap as well as food, and the eleven o'clock shoppers would be mostly women, and I do so love looking at women.
The hot weather brought out a few Eastern Kentucky University coeds in their frayed Daisy Dukes and t-shirts, certainly nice to look at, but they reminded me that during my own college days, bras were a fairly scarce commodity on campus, while it seemed like all of the coeds were wearing bras nowadays. ☹
But, of course, nineteen and twenty year old coeds were certainly nice eye candy, but they weren't going to be interested in a 67-year-old man who had led a rough life, and looked it. Oh, I was still in excellent shape for my years, and broader in the shoulders than the waist, but while I had a decently cut physique into my forties, I sure didn't look that way in my upper sixties.
That was when I spotted her. She was somewhere around my age, but unlike so many women in their sixties, who had their hair cut around shoulder length, if not shorter, this woman wore her hair long and flowing, almost down to her elbows.
Also unlike so many women in their sixties, she wasn't trying to hide her grey . . . and it was spectacular. I guessed that she must've been a brunette earlier in life, because most of her hair was a dramatic steel grey, but right around her forehead and face it had faded to a very light grey, almost white. If she had gone to a beautician and asked for that kind of highlight, it could have been no more perfectly placed that what Mother Nature had given her.
And she was slender, emphasized by her slightly taller than average stature; a quick guesstimate placed her around 5'8" tall. If she was using make-up, it was so subtle that I couldn't tell.
One thing about Kroger: unlike a lot of supermarkets, they had a lot of staff, always available to help shoppers, and keeping the shelves well-stocked throughout the day. There were times that meant too-crowded aisles, but today this one store employee helped me as well as anyone ever could.
The employee had a cart full of bread, and was restocking aisle two, and he just happened to be in the grey-haired lady's way, which wound up putting me right in front of her. She smiled, apologized to me for being in my way – she really wasn't – and I took a chance.
"Oh, I don't mind; it gives me a chance to flirt with you."
Now, I'll admit it: I'm a natural flirt, and not shy about it at all. To me, a bold statement like that is no big deal, though I know men who had to screw up their courage to the utmost to make a remark like that to a woman . . . if they could at all.
Of course, some women don't particularly like strange men flirting with them, and I can always tell after that very first attempt whether they dislike it, and in those cases I back off and let them go about their businesses. But this vision of loveliness wasn't offended at all, and smiled back at me, telling me that it's always good to be flirted with.
At that point, I checked her out a bit further. Even though it was shorts weather, she was wearing full length jeans, jeans which fitted her very well, without being the skin-tight things that younger women wear. She wore a simple white blouse, sleeveless, showing arms which had already seen the sun this spring, and Birkenstock sandals on her feet. But, on the third finger of her left hand, she wore a huge wedding set, one that went practically from her knuckle to the first joint; she was not leaving anyone in confusion about her marital status.
A couple more brief, unserious remarks passed between us, nothing memorable at all, and then we had to go our separate ways; we had been headed in the opposite directions down the bread aisle.
So, what was I going to do about this? Ninety times out of a hundred, I'd just smile and let the situation go, but there was just something about this woman, whose name I hadn't even gotten, that stayed in my mind. We were clearly shopping for different things, as she was not in the next aisle when I turned in. I suppose that I could have 'stalked' her through the store, but I'm not a 'deviated prevert' as Colonel Batguano put it in Dr. Strangelove.
Then fate intervened. At least that was how I put it to her, when, as luck would have it, her car was parked next to my truck, and she was loading her groceries into it as I got there.
"We meet again," I began, "and this simply hast to be fate smiling down on us. I'm Wyatt."
She looked up at me, giving me a sort of subtle smile, and just said, "Morgan," which I took to be her name.
"Do you have any plans for this afternoon?" I asked her.
"You mean besides driving home and putting away my groceries?" Her smile got a bit bigger.
