She was a
strange and beautiful woman and I would often talk
at her, but never
with her.
I often had the feeling I was trying to have a conversation and she was reciting lines for a play. A performance only she was auditoning for at the time. Her eyes, intense and multicolored, usually focused on at a point just past my left shoulder. (Never at me). Her topics were never mine and she never hesitated to ignore a question I offered her way. Just when I would start to walk away, she drifted back into consciousness-giving me a smile and a tug on my sleeve. Giving me just enough rope.
When she exited, she left little comments for me, always vague and nonspecific-always with a straight face:
"you know, if you come to work wearing that kind of tie, people will think we are being audited"
"Did you know that half of your words bounce off me and never reach their destination?"
"Why would you say that, I have never given you a reason to flirt with me before now, why start today?"
I don't know what they meant, but I knew they were little breadcrumbs, spread in Hansel and Grettel fashion behind her as she walked away. Knowing I would ponder them, knowing I would follow her.