Too Cute

The way they were meeting, how would she tell her friends and family? It was too cute of a meet.

Brooklyn was as suburban as Maia ever wanted to live in. She knew that was an insane comment because Brooklyn was part of an infamous metropolis, but she always managed to live in a part of it where she needed a bus, a train, and a mule to get to Manhattan for work. So it felt suburban because it was so far removed from the city that everyone thought of, the polished Times Square that was nothing like it used to be populated with all of its now orphaned adult movie theaters.

But it was all still there if you really looked. She and her friend Negra went to one of the sex shops there, and Maia felt awkward and retrospective at the same time. There was a peep show as well as garish toys that she would never buy, but it was stuff Negra needed for a shoot. She and Negra both preferred fancier sex shops where they at least gave you a glass of champagne with strawberries and gold-covered toys.

But Maia was far from that now, the sun was not even up yet, and she was headed to the office. She was a few blocks from the express bus–she had moved to taking it when she moved to this part of Brooklyn. A fierce subway rider for almost her entire life, the stories she could tell about her practically subterranean life made her more prolific than Scheherazade. Including the time she participated in a threesome without her consent. The couple next to her went at it so hard they were pressed up against her and did not even notice. Maia braced herself. She had left the guy she wanted to go home with at the bar, him never being the wiser, but she was getting action vicariously through that exceptionally amorous couple.

The move to the express bus was like getting a seat in first class for Maia. As soon as she got on the bus, she felt like she was on her own planet. She stuck her air pods in her ears which was a subway habit that she had so that no one would bother her. But once she sat in her seat, no one existed around her. It was like nothing she was used to. She was able to get engrossed in her novel, podcast, or music. She could text a friend so that it felt like she was with them and almost missed her stop once or twice.

It was after months that her planet was invaded. She was usually the only one at her stop. One morning she was running late, and she saw him at her stop. He held a suitcase, wore a suit and horn-rimmed glasses. Maia stood next to him only when the bus came, he moved to the side so she could get on first, and it took her breath away.

“Thank you,” she said breathily.

That was it for weeks. What else would she say to him? She had been single for so long. She did not even have game for him. She was not going to say something ridiculous just to have something to say. He always let her get on the bus ahead of him. Maia almost felt he did it on purpose so she could get that whiff of the cologne he wore, which she was not sure what it was, but it was distinctly him.

Once he sat behind her, and she squirmed all of the way to work because she wondered if he was looking at her and at the same time thought she needed to get over herself because why would he be looking at her? They had never spoken.

In the beginning, Maia would look out of the bus going home, wondering if she would see him on her way. She never did, so her commute home was much more relaxed because he was not on the bus, and she was not preoccupied with him. When he was on the bus, her thoughts and eyes gravitated to him. The bus stop she got off at was in front of her wine store. Most nights, she went home, but when she needed to restock, she filled up her reusable wine bag for the half dozen discount.

Her wine acumen was self-taught. Maia had learned what she liked by trial and error. She had sipped a lot of frogs to discover what her prince vintages were. There was a wine tasting that night, and she picked up the bottle at the table, and as she did, it was him. It was the guy she got on the bus with in the mornings. He was already looking at her,

“Would you like to try a Torrontes?”

She looked up at him and licked her lips — his eyes lingered there.

“Sure,” she said as he offered her the tiniest wine glass. He poured for her, his eyes on hers the entire time.

“Don’t you recognize me?”

“Should I?” she smiled and drank the sample like a shot. She looked at him the entire time, and he smiled.

“No, I thought I knew you, but you just have one of those faces…”

Maia pouted, and she saw the smile at the corner of his mouth. A smile crept into the corner of her mouth because this was too cute. The way they were meeting, how would she tell her friends and family? It was too cute of a meet.

But the omnipresent strung-up lights in the store above them were like a constellation, and they looked at each other just as bright and complex.

“Would you like more?” he asked, armed with an inviting bottle of Torrontes — its floral scent filling the space.

“Oh yes,” Maia said.

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