Bird As Fish

It was dark. I was hot with my leather coat on. We were laughing and walking down that street that was to become so familiar to us. Hitch was a funny movie, but what amazed him most of all was my laughing. I'm not so sure why he like me laughing so much.

"You liked that movie then?" he asked, sounding pleased with himself. He knew that he did not need to ask, but he wanted to hear it from me.

"I loved it!" It practically exploded out of my mouth. I was a little nervous, I knew, and nervousness always caused words to sound like they were trying to escape from my mouth. "It was so funny when his face swelled up." I laughed. "Or remember when all you saw was him talking to that girl through the peep hole! What was your favourite part?" I asked, partly in an effort to stop the effluence of words that I knew where bursting out of my mouth like mice out of a drainage pipe.

"I liked the part when he was coaching that other guy and told him when going in for a kiss, never go in all the way. When he said, 'A real man only goes in 90%. He lets the woman go the rest of the way.' ". I laughed.

It was late. We were passing by the downtown streets, bathed in yellow street lamp light, and misted lightly by the steam that seemed to perpetually diffuse out the manhole covers, bringing us the very air of an underground kingdom we knew nothing about. We passed over the bridge that separated downtown from the Village, where I lived. I always liked that road. It told me that I was almost home. It passed right by the park, where the trees grew tall and strong, as if they didn't know they were in the middle of the big city. The forest on the left, growing right up to the sidewalk, pushing the sidewalk aside, slowly and gently creeping into the Village. The lamplights were dull here, and I could not see him very clearly. Just his black, glossy hair and his soft lips and the collar of his shirt.

We turned off the main road onto my little street. I felt quite pretty, and hoped that my earrings sparkled in the dim light. We walked past the gingerbread house, passed the house with a garden full of ornamental cabbages, and straight to the old, tall, yellow-bricked house with the stuffed monkey on the porch, and the hanging basket of fake poinsettias. We walked past the landlord's cars: one, two, three, four, and down the crunching gravel on the drive. The door at the very back was mine, but it was pitch black back here - the night light had been broken since I'd moved in. I told Rick to wait and I would open the door and turn on the light so he could see. I fumbled a moment with my keys and then managed to find the lock. Voila, the lights were on in less than a second and the sunrise painted on the door was visible.

Rick smiled at me. I held the painted door open for him. He came in and took off his shoes.

"Umm, could you help me with my coat?" I asked, a little embarrassed. He took it off my shoulders and handed the coat to me. We talked for a little while about little trifles, sitting on my daybed. He asked if Iiked him. And then he touched my knee - an innocent, but a gentle touch, not wanting anything more. I smiled.

"You'd better get going," I said, "you've got to work in the morning." He agreed to my enormous relief and disappointment.
He took his keys off the ironing board that was doubling as the kitchen table and put on his shoes once again.

"Walk me to the van?" he asked.

"Sure," I replied and I did so.

We stood once again in the dim light, several bodies apart. I don't know if we stood apart because it was so awkward or if it was awkward because we stood so far apart, but suddenly, he took a step towards me and looked at me, shyly.

"So," he said, "I go 90%..." I blushed suddenly. He wanted to kiss me! I quickly looked down and shook my head and said, "Nah." I'm sure he looked disappointed, but I wasn't looking at him. He sounded disappointed when he said, "Oh." Trying to sound upbeat, he said, "Well, goodnight then." He got into the van, shut the door, and drove off down the narrow street.

As soon as I got inside, I picked up the phone and dialed Brother Two's number.
"Naing, guess what?!" I exclaimed into the phone.
He sounded puzzled and a little sleepy. "What?"
"I almost got kissed!"
He paused and then asked, "What do you mean, almost?"
"What do you mean, what do I mean? I almost got kissed!"
"But you didn't..."
"No...but that's not the point! Naing..."
"Mmmm. Okay, start again. What actually happened?"
I told him the situation.
"But you told him no?" he asked.
"Well...yeah...yes I did." He was obviously not getting the issue here.
"Well, WHY DIDN'T YOU LET HIM KISS YOU THEN?" he roared, obviously not in the right sort of mood for this kind of talk.
"Uh, well, I didn't really think about that..."
"MJ, no one is ever going to kiss you if you keep telling them no. If you haven't crushed his manly ego and he gets up the courage to ask again, tell him yes."
"Oh, well, I guess I could do that." He hung up.