"Is there anything I can help you with, ma'am?" I said. She was good looking, certainly over 45 years old -- how much over that would be hard to say, but certainly younger than I was. A pert nose, red lipstick, red curly hair that L'Oreal would term 'bright auburn,' slate eyes lit up within so much that they could be called silver. Below the generic tee-shirt were smallish bumps, definitely not more than a B cup, perhaps even smaller. Jeans, medium heels that brought her up to, perhaps, five feet six or seven. I noticed the lack of a wedding ring or other big jewel. Not bad, I thought, not bad at all for a sleepy Wednesday afternoon in January.
She looked me over, toe to hair, as thoroughly as I'd inspected her. She stared straight into my eyes. "Oh, there are things, yes, definitely." I kept my eyes locked with hers, she gave up first. "I'm looking for a laptop for my friend."
"I've got plenty of them," gesturing to the two serpentines and one long shelf loaded with the devices. "What does she want to do with her computer?"
"He's a guy."
"Oh, sorry about that. So, what does he want to do?" We chatted about that, then she moved me on to other subjects. I certainly didn't mind, chatting with her was better than dusting shelves. We got into whether or not she needed a new printer. She laughed gaily whenever I gave her a little joke, and then she put her hand on mine, perhaps accidentally, perhaps not, when I showed her where the SD card went into the slot. "Do you print out a lot of pictures?" I asked.
"More than I should, probably."
"What are they of?"
"My friends, my dog, the travels I take."
"Where do you like to go?"
"Florida, the Caribbean, any place that's warm."
"Don't like this weather?" For the last few days, somebody had been shaking the snow globe, and there was a good seven inches on the grassy areas, and the mounds in the parking lot were nearly six feet high.
"Absolutely not," she agreed, "although nights like we're having can be nice if you want to stay by the fireplace."
There wasn't anyone around, particularly managers, and I didn't think she'd mind, so I quizzed, "What do you do by the fireplace?"
"Oh," she smiled, "sometimes I read, sometimes I watch TV, sometimes I romp around. Depends on the company I'm with. What do you like to do by a fireplace?"
"Drinking a hot toddy is always nice. Playing games."
"What kind of games?"
"Board games, Wii, or, even better, the ones you make up as you go along."
"Yeah, I like those, too," she agreed.
The sales manager roamed in the next aisle, we went back to the professed objective of the meeting, I gave her the specs of the two or three computers she'd been looking at, filled her in on the details of the setup service and protection plans. "If there's anything else I can help you with, just let me know. I'm Adam."
"I'm Kate. I'll be back. I promise." With a delicate finger, she poked me in the chest.
As she walked from me, I touched her on the arm. "I'll be disappointed if you don't come back."
"Oh, count on it."
These things happen at an electronics retailer. It wasn't the first time in my four years at the store I'd flirted, or been flirted with. The other times nothing happened, for I was loath to pursue the prey too far. I was still a few years from retirement, and I was working full time not for the money -- I'd socked it away fairly well when I was working for a living -- but for the health care. Paying for it before Medicare kicked in four years from now would drain my 401K pretty severely, and if I got fired for making advances toward customers, it would hurt my finances.
I daydreamt about Kate for a couple of nights, her smile and eyes coming to me in my fantasies. Other than her name, though, I didn't have the slightest idea of how to reach her. Three days later, somebody else flirted with me, and I forgot about Kate.
Then came a Saturday afternoon shift ten days later. It was mildly busy, time was going fast, and while I was taking care of one customer, another guy caught my eye. "I'll be with you as soon as I'm done," I promised. I finished up with them rather quickly, then looked for the short, mildly pudgy, bald-headed fellow. I found him standing by the laptops, looking at (surprise) the lowest cost computer. "Do you think this will do the job?"
"Depends on what the job is." Just then I felt a prod in my back. Turning around, there was Kate. "Oh, hello!"
"Hi. See you found Rich."
"I guess I did. You're Rich?"
He blandly admitted the coincidence. As the three of us chatted about his computer needs, I came to the discernment that Kate and Rich were a couple. An old Joe Jackson song came to mind. 'Is she really going out with him? / Is she really going to take him home tonight?'
Rich answered my questions and responded to my suggestions in a tedious monotone, Kate was boisterous and all over the place, interrupting my smooth sales pitch continually. "What about the little things over there? They're cute!"
"Those are netbooks. Excellent machines, if all you want to do is get on the internet and check email. Not much good for anything more."
"Maybe I should get one. I could put it in my purse."
"Maybe. Here's what I use." I reached into the pockets of my khaki, got my iTouch out, jumped on my browser.
"I've got one of those," she admitted. "Maybe you could explain a few things for me."