A warm, sun filled Saturday was a perfect for a day for exploring her new found surroundings. With these last few weeks of unpacking, moving furniture and working, it was time to get out and familarize herself with her new hometown. Who knew that 3 months would go by so quickly?
She had to hand it to her real estate agent, she truly earned her commission finding her a small but completely renovated house within walking distance of the city's artsy area. There were shops, restaurants, galleries, bookstores, bakeries and a coffee house or two. Music from the areas local bars spilled out into onto the sidewalk.
Having walked for well over an hour, she was ready to find a spot to sit, eat and rest her feet. A coffee house appropriately named Java Sip with it's corner location and al fresco dining seemed like a good place to sit and do some serious people watching. She ordered a green tea and a toasted apple raisin bagel with a side of Javas famous homemade cream cheese. The staff was warm and friendly welcoming her to the area and throwing in a complimentary order of a popular citrus fruit salad.
It took a few minutes of scanning the outside seating area to find an empty cafe table but she finaly spied one and swiftly made her way to it before it became occupied. As suspected, the bagel, fruit salad and tea was delicious. She added herself the list of people who loved the homemade cream cheese and made a mental note not to love it too much that she would forget that she was trying to lose some weight.
She sat back and looked around the dining area while she sipped her tea. There was a young couple seated with their toddler, two tables of older women all wearing red hats and laughing heartily. A tall, leggy redhead typed steadily on her laptop while pausing to take big gulps of her coffee.
Satisfied that she had seen everything on one side of the cafe, she shifted slightly in her chair to get a different view. The table next to her was empty but the corner table was occupied by a brother who seemed deeply engrossed in his newspaper. He sat back, one of his legs was causually moving left and right as he read and sipped. From what she could see, he looked like he might be kind of cute. He was wearing cuffed, off white linen pants. His multi colored cuban shirt covered what looked like very broad shoulders. With the addition of his sandals, he looked comfortable and well put together. 'I bet he smells really good,' she thought. She no sooner finished her thought, when he looked up from his paper and directly into her eyes. She quickly averted her attention to the top of her table, spilling a little tea on her t shirt. She glanced back at him which made him chuckle. His light brown eyes still set on her. Oh my God, what was he thinking?
She stared off into the opposite corner and nervously sipped her tea as she willed her heart rate back down to normal. 'Damn', she thought, 'how embarrasing'. She was just about to turn to offer him an apology, when she noticed that he was making his way towards her table. She was wrong about his being cute, he was fine and the closer he got, the more she wanted to melt into her chair.
"Hello." he said.
She strained out a greeting that she thinks sounded like a hello but she wasn't really sure since she was holding her breath.
"I'm David and you are?" he asked.
"I'm, um" She cleared her throat, ," I'm Valerie." She finally managed to get out. She was wondering what he would think if she stood up, put her hand in his partially open shirt and started rubbing his chest. She sat there looking up at him, hoping that he wasn't a mind reader.
He smiled at her then reached into his pants pocket. She tried like hell to keep her eyes from going there. His hand produced what looked like a business card. The background of the card was black and it was peppered with gold musical notes. On it was an address and a telephone number to a place called Revel, all beautifully written in the same gold letters.
"Welcome to Charleston, Valerie. " He winked at her, placed his straw hat on his head then turned and strolled away.
She watched him walk down the block noting that the view from the back was just as impressive.
(29 more days)
No comments:
Post a Comment