Behind The Wall
I’m not gonna lie, some days it’s a bit of a slog. Sitting here, filing one legal document after another. I mean, it’s putting me through grad school, but this wasn’t really what I had in mind for my 30s, you know?
It’s not all bad, though. Our building is on a busy street corner and the whole front is glass. That dark glass that looks almost like a mirror if you’re out on the sidewalk but looks like a tinted window from my desk. My desk faces the window, so I like looking out at all the people walking by. Businessmen going into the restaurant across the street. All the college women and young moms doing yoga above the restaurant. Parents with their high school kids walking around town like they’re in Manhattan or something. Everybody wearing orange and blue.
Yesterday was a good day for people-watching. Especially in the morning, because of this one couple. I saw them coming down the sidewalk, holding hands. He was wearing jeans and a blue-checked button-down shirt. She was in jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. They looked good together, smiling like everything was brand new. My guess is they’re still at the beginning of things.
Our building is set back from the sidewalk a few feet, and there’s a little overhang supported by a brick wall that’s maybe four feet across. You can stand behind that wall and be off the sidewalk, out of the sun. But of course you’ll be standing right in front of our office windows. They didn’t seem to mind. I saw her pull him behind the brick wall, put her hands behind his neck while he put his around her waist, and then that’s the last I saw of their faces for 10 or 15 minutes. Except every little while he’d pull back, hold her face in his hands and look into her eyes in that way that you know means he’s got it bad. She had her back to me, but my guess is the same look was on her face, too.
Then I heard the church bells across the street, and they must have heard them, too, because they stepped back from one another. I saw him smile at her and take her hand and then they were walking back up the street. After maybe 10 feet I couldn’t see them anymore.
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