The hard-hatted man with the neon earbuds farted, completely unaware of Julia standing behind him.
"Until you did that, I was totally gonna fuck you," she stage-whispered in the deadpan delivery her favorite potty-mouthed comediennes used. She composed her very best disgusted face to accompany the line and checked the crossing light.
The man turned around and looked at Julia. The young lady standing in front of him was dressed in business casual leaning toward provocative. Suit jacket, pantyhose and a short dark argyle skirt riding unnaturally high. Thigh gap you could fit a quince through, he thought. He tugged the neon cable of his earbuds and dangled the plug in front of her. It wasn't connected to anything.
"What makes you think your scrawny ass could handle my dick?" he retorted, obviously insulted.
After what seemed like an eternity, her mouth started working again.
"Uh, so ... that wasn't supposed to be heard."
He nodded, "Yeah, I know that."
"So ... I'm going to be walking away now," Julia said in that same impassive comic delivery she favored and about-faced, only to do it again two seconds later and end up right where she started.
"As soon as the light turns, I mean," she nodded at the crossing and looked away.
He stared and repeated himself, "I'm serious, you couldn't handle it."
"OHH really?" Julia enunciated, chuckling at the absurdity. If her eyeroll wasn't enough to convey sarcasm, the head nodding did rest of the job.
"Right, ... now go on and tell me all about your ginormous monster dong."
He shook his head, "I didn't say it was big, I said you couldn't handle it."
Julia scoffed and looked away, ending the conversation.
"What, cat got your tongue all of a sudden?"
That pissed her off. Her comment was all a misunderstanding that she didn't want to explain. She hated every minute of this dragging on. Was she expected to bring him up to speed on her sense of humor and how it developed over the years? He didn't have to explain his flatulence.
"You know, I just don't care." She pointed with her purse at the building she walked out of moments ago. "See that place? I just walked in there and got a million dollar contract. And that's all me. So I don't care what you think of this moment because I'm feeling pretty good about myself today to be bothered. And goodbye."
The light turned green and started counting down.
"Yeah? Is that like a big number for you?" he grinned and took his hardhat off to scratch his head. His hair was short but the grain pleasing; for his age it held up firmly, and he wasn't halfway bad looking, she thought and blinked at herself for thinking it.
"Does talking down on strangers make you feel powerful?" he asked after putting the hardhat back on and walked off.
Her jaw dropped from the absurdity of it all. This moment just needed to go away and thankfully it now literally was. But then he turned around in the middle of the intersection and called out after her.
"You wanna see some real power, walk one block ahead and watch."
For a few moments she froze and then realized the crossing light would soon turn, so she sprinted after him best she could, her clicking heels betraying her pace. Once on the other side she watched him walk away, puzzled by his comment. What'd he mean by that? After a time, she followed him since she had to go that way anyway. Past the second intersection he just waited for her, standing by a construction fence.
Once she got closer, he nodded at her and moved into action. He opened a secret door cut in the fence that she walked by many times but never noticed before. He stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled louder than she thought possible and motioned with his other hand.
"Roll up! Roll up!" he yelled, "on the double!"
As she watched, men streamed out heading in every direction, not too slow and not too fast, carrying backpacks and lunch pails. But cleared out they did. Nearly a dozen of them, maybe more. One of the workers was a lady who winked at her lasciviously and made her blush.
The man pointed a finger at Julia and said, "wait one."
She walked closer to check out the door and realized it wasn't actually as secret as she thought it'd be. It had a handle and everything, she just never noticed it before. This used to be a small park with a big statue but now it was enclosed in a plain beige construction fence, the kind they use to hide ugly things in D.C.
He came back out of a trailer carrying a bulky blueprint and unfolded it with some skill. She had a tough time unfolding newspapers by comparison, she realized and then wondered why they called them blueprints if the paper was white. Some kind of anachronism.
"See this here?" he indicated a detailed oval and then pointed through the gate where some big water thing used to be before they walled the whole place off, Julia recalled. She nodded but honestly it just looked like a bunch of dotted lines, rectangles and numbers and arrows.
"It's just one of four, he continued, "This is the Bartholdi fountain we're working on. It's old. Made by some fancy fucker just after the Civil War ended. Otherwise, it pumps a bunch of water, they tell me. Big deal. And that's seven million bucks by itself."
Suddenly Julia felt churlish having flung numbers at him to justify her own importance. Unenthusiastically, she admitted having completely underestimated the man. Despite his crude behavior he seemed like he was a big deal in his own right. But unlike her, he wasn't shoving it in her face the moment he could just because he didn't like something about her. And to be honest, she sort of snuck up on him when she left the building.
So Julia apologized. In a way.
She tucked her right foot behind her left one at an angle, grabbed the two sides of her short skirt and pretended to lift it up as she dipped down a foot. It was the best curtsy she could manage given the circumstances.
