I think about him being on the beach that day. Building a sandcastle like it was the most important thing in the world. It was strangely haunting for a man who looks like he does to be so…alone.
Maybe that’s what draws me–his isolation. I can’t be sure of course, but something tells me that he doesn’t have much of a life outside his job. He arrives sometime before I get up, which is early, and stays to work late, long after I give Emmy her bath. He eats lunch on the lawn by himself and I’ve never seen him talking on a cell phone or engaging the few people who pass by. He just appears to be alone. All alone.
We’ve fallen into a strange rhythm of sorts. It’s just one small thing, but it seems significant somehow. Every day, at some point, he will catch me watching him. Every day, he has. And every day he holds my gaze, even from so far away. It gives me chills, the way he stares back at me. But then he frowns, just like he did at the beach that day, before he turns away. It’s like I make him think of something he doesn’t want to think about. And my need to know what that is increases with every day that passes. Need, not want.
I’m not sure if brokenness is discernible with nothing more than our casual contact (if you can even call what we have “contact”) or if this is all in my head, but for some reason that’s the word that comes to mind when I see him–brokenness. Someone who’s broken.
From the outside, he’s practically perfect. Well not even practically perfect. He is perfect. Flawless. Breathtaking. But he’s too quiet, too withdrawn, too…solitary for someone as handsome as he is. Maybe that’s why I think he’s broken. Surely in a town this size, every single woman within ten miles would be banging on his front door, offering to help with whatever he might need. Or want.
And yet, he doesn’t seem to have anyone. I’ve noticed that his ring finger is empty, too. As empty as his life appears to be.
Maybe he’s got dark secrets that keep the town at bay. A scary skeleton in his closet, a maniacal monster under his bed. That’s probably reason number one, the only one I should need, to stay far, far away from him. And that’s exactly what I’m doing. Mostly because he stays away from me, never offering to come over or speak when we go outside. He just keeps to himself and I do the same.
But still, he pulls me.
So here I am. Watching. Waiting, it seems. On what, I don’t know. But I often get the feeling that something is about to happen. Only it never does.
A loud banging at my front door startles me and I spill coffee down the front of my shirt. I grab a napkin and wipe at it as I run, rushing to the door before whoever it is can wake up Emmy. She’s a late sleeper. Sometimes I think God made her that way to protect her.
I peek through the square of glass at the top of the plain wood door and find Jordan smiling up at me. She looks surprisingly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning, considering how she most likely spent her night.
I snap open the dead bolt and unlock the knob. “Hi, Jordan.”
“Hiya, sweetie,” she says, pushing past me and carrying a brown cardboard box into the living room. From that first morning when I met her, she’s taken to me like her long lost best friend.
She’s never come to my house before, but evidently she’s been inside it at some point prior to my arrival. She plops the box down on the coffee table and then perches on the end of the sofa like we do this every day.
“I always loved this material,” she says, rubbing her hand over the velvety cinnamon-colored upholstery.
“You’ve been here before?”
“A time or two. I dated the guy who lived here before you.”
“Dated?” Jason says from behind me as he walks in carrying another box. “You don’t date.”
“Why the hell don’t I date?”
“You’re like the town bicycle. You give rides. You don’t date.”
“Uh!” Jordan squeaks, insulted. “Are you hearing this?” She seems incensed, but then, just as quickly as she got riled, she waves him off and her smile returns, feathers no longer ruffled. I can’t decide if their mean banter is all teasing or if they have a love/hate relationship. “So, your landlord had some things ordered. Wanted us to bring them over when they arrived.”
“Landlord?” I ask in confusion. “I thought Jason was the landlord.”
“Nah, he’s just a lackey.”
“I’m a property manager, not a lackey,” Jason replies sharply. Then he turns to me. “The owner was going to replace a few things before you moved in, but there was no time. Better late than never, though, right?”
I nod, a little uncomfortable with my space being so abruptly and unexpectedly invaded. “What kinds of things are we talking about?”
“New microwave,” he says, indicating the heavier box he was carrying, “new blinds for the kitchen and a new coffee maker.”
I perk up at the mention of the coffee maker. “That’s nice. I’ve been boiling water every morning.”
“Well, not anymore,” Jason says with a smile.
Jordan gets up and wanders to the kitchen, stopping to stare out the window as I so often do. I wonder if she sees the sandcastle guy. Then I wonder if she knows him.
“Damn,” she says on a sigh. “It’s a shame to cover that view with new blinds,” she says. That’s how I know she sees him. There’s nothing spectacular about the view except him. She turns her big smile back toward me. “Unless that’s why he sent the new blinds.”