Eye On You
By Eli A. Susman
I can’t feel my toes. That’s what happens when your car breaks down on the side of an Idaho road in February and you’re forced to walk to the nearest rest stop in the snow to find a landline phone that has cell reception. I was on my way to a blind date with a girl I met on BlindDate.com. Her profile says she always wears flannels, likes fly fishing, and best of all, she was into me! At this point, that’s all I need to be interested in a girl. A blind date is risky, but if my online dating profile had photos, nobody would match with me.
The Applebees we are supposed to meet at is five miles away, and with the snow, that’s unwalkable. At this rate, with a rest stop nowhere in sight, and my body slowly feeling like it can’t move, I want to give up on the date.
Finally, through the snowy darkness, I see a light. I squint and can see that a gas station is up ahead on the left. I begin to jog, though my feet feel like stumps, and I come close to losing my balance every few steps.
Once I open the door and enter the gas station I feel my entire body begin to defrost like Han Solo and carbonite. I cross my arms and curl up as much as possible, trying to warm up a bit before asking for a phone to use. The cashier looks at me. I look down at the floor.
“You look cold.”
“Yeah, no shit.” I say, without looking at him.
I see someone emerge from one of the aisles and walk up to the register. A girl is standing there, holding flowers and a bag of name-brand popcorn. She looks over at me, and we make eye contact. She quickly turns away. My embarrassment helps to warm me up just a bit.
I want to look away as well, but I can’t stop looking at the girl standing before me. Her blonde hair falls down her shoulders like the smoothest waterfall I’ve ever seen. She is short, but her hair is long, hanging down to her lower back. She’s wearing dark brown boots, tightly fit blue jeans that accentuate her nice legs, and a Bass Pro Shops t-shirt covered by a red flannel jacket...a red flannel...could this be her? Could this stud of a woman be the girl I am supposed to be on a blind date with at the Applebees five miles down the street? It couldn’t be. Why would she be here?
The flowers, she could be buying the flowers to give to me. But the girl giving a guy flowers, that’s unusual. And the popcorn, why would she have popcorn? Okay it’s not her, the flannel is just a coincidence, that’s all.
I am about to ask for a phone to use, then I look at the shirt she is wearing again. Bass Pro Shops. She probably likes fishing, fly fishing. My heart starts to beat a little faster, and most of me is warm besides my still frozen feet. She turns and walks in my direction, heading for the door. She is wearing a necklace, “RB” it reads in cursive. I guess learning cursive in Elementary school has finally paid off. RB, as in Ruby Brinkley. She passes me, giving me another quick look as she does. I feel the cold air brush against my backside for a brief moment.
“You gonna buy something, or just stand there?” The cashier says to me.
But I’m gonna do neither, I turn around and rush out the door. Standing just up ahead of me, she turns her head slightly to take a peek at me, then instantly turns away. She opens the door of her car.
“Ruby?” I ask, though no part of me truly thinks it could be her.
This time, she fully turns around. She looks me dead in the eye.
“Brandon?” She says as she hesitantly raises her arm to point to me.
I’m in disbelief as I nod my head, “BlindDate.com?”
She nods her head back in return.
“Woh, um, hi.” I say, “You, you look great.”
She doesn’t hesitate. “So do you.” She says with a smile.
We stand in the cold admiring each other, and I feel like the luckiest guy in all of Idaho.