A menu sails across my desk and knocks over my paperclip holder.
“Earth to Piper Karel,” my co-worker Melissa says, ignoring the destruction she just caused. “How interesting can reception work really be? I’ve said your name like three times! I’m calling in a lunch order soon and going to pick it up. Do you want anything?”
It’s 10:30 a.m. and I’m still nursing the tea I made earlier this morning. I’ve been too buried sorting out my inbox to even touch my granola bar, let alone to think about what I want for lunch. I wonder what’s going on in Melissa’s inbox that lunch is her priority.
I hand the checkered menu back to her and return my paperclips back to their little rectangular magnetic house. “No, thank you. I’m good.”
“Maybe if you ate lunch once in a while you wouldn’t be such a stick, Piper.”
“I do eat lunch, Melissa. I just like to eat at the park and get some fresh air instead of being in this office for nine hours straight every day.”
“You miss all the fun leaving the office for lunch every day. All the good stuff happens in the lunch room in this place.”
Ah, yes. The office gossip. Just last week I missed some drama. If I’m ever up for a promotion, I can guarantee I wouldn’t congratulate my competitor by dumping my salad into her lap.
“I just like some quiet time to myself sometimes,” I reply.
“Right. Enjoy your quiet lunch then. All by yourself. As usual.” She tosses her hair and flounces away with the menu tucked under her arm.
At twenty-one, I’m the youngest person in the office. I work for a small fashion design firm. Our activewear line is really popular nationwide and two seasons ago we partnered with a celebrity designer on a pair of yoga pants that put the company on the map. I started working here as a receptionist and general office assistant part-time my senior year of high school and was brought on full-time after I graduated. Answering phone calls and typing letters isn’t exactly my idea of a career, but it pays the bills. The company is growing steadily and there are always openings for new positions. I’m just waiting for the right one to pique my interest, hopefully in marketing or product development. For now, I’m happy learning as much about the products and the company as I can.
When I took this job, I hoped it would be a new start for me across the board. I was looking forward to being around people who didn’t know how awkward I had always been, and I thought I’d make new friends.
I was the girl who puked on the first day of first grade and who tripped wearing black pumps and a mini skirt on the first day of high school. I fell like a baby deer, legs sprawled, and flashed my panties with little kittens on them to half the school. They never forgot I was the puker, and they sure as hell didn’t forget I was the one with the kitten panties. The boys purred and meowed at me for months, and the girls nicknamed me Pussypuker.
Fun times.
I had such high hopes for joining the working world—a real professional atmosphere. I didn’t expect to be surrounded by married men who flirted with all the women. Or stressed-out coffee addicts who screamed about their spreadsheets. Or women who gossiped and stirred drama like they were paid to.
Welcome to adulthood.
And I certainly wasn’t expecting Melissa, who graduated from high school the year before me, to start working here a few months ago. She was one of the elite popular girls in school. She had the nicest clothes, the nicest car, friends who hung on her every word, and all the most attractive guys panting after her. My awkwardness and random mishaps were a great source of amusement for her back then. She’s much more subtle about mocking me now, but she’s still just as annoying.
Just before noon, I take two steps into the courtyard of the office building when something smashes into the side of my head. Hard, soft, and…flapping? I reach up and touch a small sore spot above my temple. A small blue bird flutters haphazardly on the ground next to my feet before it flies off into a nearby tree.
What the heck? I scrunch my eyes against a dull pain in my temple, wondering what it says about me that a bird flew into my head.
Laughter erupts from my right. Melissa and a woman from accounting are smoking and shaking their heads at me. I’m pretty sure I heard the word birdbrain thrown in my direction.
Shaking off my embarrassment, I retrieve a compact mirror from my purse. The quiet park is just a few blocks away, but I want to make sure I don’t have a gash on my head, which would only renew my humiliation. What I assume was the point of beak impact hurts, but after inspection, I see no blood—only faint redness… and a tiny blue feather stuck to my forehead.
“Crazy ass bird…” I mutter as I wipe the evidence away.
A horn blares and I jump, dropping my mirror, which shatters at my feet.
Shit.
“Pay attention, you idiot!” the driver yells. My heart jumps when I realize I’ve unknowingly walked into the busy crosswalk. The woman swerves her maroon sedan around me and the pieces of my broken mirror as I rush to the other side of the street, mouthing an apology.
Freakin’ Mondays. If a black cat crosses my path, I’m calling it quits and going home to hide under the safety of my fluffy comforter.
As I near the park bench I’ve inhabited during my lunch hour for the past three months, there’s something different in the breezy air that I can’t quite put my finger on. The usual sounds of children laughing and leaves rustling seem muted, as if they’ve faded into the background. I am intrigued by something I haven’t heard before—soft acoustic music.
The inviting melody grows louder with each step. The source is not far from what I consider my bench. I’m surprised to see it’s not a radio playing, as I first thought, but a guy who appears to be in his early to mid-twenties, sitting on the ground with a guitar. He’s leaning against a short decorative brick partition. A small, floppy-eared brown dog wearing a black bandana sits next to him.
As I walk past him to get to my bench, I notice that almost every visible inch of his body, with the exception of his face, is covered with tattoos. Black tribal designs peek from holes in his worn jeans. Faces, flowers, and clouds cover his arms, and the designs scatter over the tops of his hands and along his talented fingers. Yikes. I have one tattoo on my wrist—a tiny ladybug perched on a leaf—and it hurt like hell. Getting jabbed with a needle in the knees and elbows had to sting like crazy.
Maybe he’s one of those people who enjoy pain.
I eye the musician with as much discreet curiosity as I can muster and busy myself with taking my chicken salad sandwich out of an insulated lunch bag. I fumble with the cling wrap, which is now stuck to itself and holding on as desperately as a crazy ex.
The guitarist gazes downward, long brown hair hanging across his face and past his shoulders. He’s deeply immersed in the song. It’s a dreamy, hypnotizing melody that almost sounds like several guitars, rather than just the one. I don’t know the first thing about playing a musical instrument, but I can tell he’s incredibly talented.
I chew my sandwich as a small crowd forms around him. He plays on, not looking up. The only indication he’s aware of his audience comes when he gives a subtle nod to someone throwing money into the Mason jar set in front of him. I guess he doesn’t have to thank them because his dog is waving its onyx-padded paw at each donor.
Normally, I would expect people to pat the adorable dog on its furry head for being so talented, but they don’t. The dog has the same untouchable air as his companion, as if there’s an invisible stamp across both of them that says: look, listen, enjoy, but don’t touch.
I’m intrigued and probably chewing with my mouth open as I peer between two women carrying huge black shopping bags. I’m inexplicably drawn to his voice and his look. He seems unique, hard to describe but attractive in a rugged way.
His melancholy smile carries a hint of sensuality. He’s like an eclipse—simultaneously dark and light, and not safe to look at for too long without suffering a burn.
I frown when the women with the shopping bags throw change into his jar and walk toward the park exit. Throwing change into a water fountain is acceptable, but giving change to an actual person? That just seems wrong to me. I want them to give him fives, tens, or twenties—not quarters and dimes. Although he seems totally unfazed, I’m offended on his behalf.
Taking a sip from my water bottle, I slip off my three-inch black heels and tuck my feet beneath me. I pull a paperback out of my huge faux leather purse. This hour in the middle of the day is my time to relax and lose myself in the story I’m reading. To forget I still live at home with my parents and my teen sister who has more of a social life than I do.
At 12:50 p.m., I step back into my shoes, wishing I could stay here for the rest of the day, finish the romance novel I’m reading, and hear what the musician is going to play next. His music has swept away my annoyance over the head-crashing bird and the screaming driver.
Reluctantly, I grab my lunch bag and head back to the office, smiling at him as I pass. He taps his silver rings against the body of his guitar as he transitions to play the next song—a popular rock song. I can’t remember the name of it, but I know it’s going to be stuck in my head for the rest of the day.
On Tuesday afternoon the guitarist with his billboard of ink is in the park again. This time he’s playing a different type of music with a Spanish vibe. It’s fast and catchy—a burst of upbeat ambience under the dark clouds looming overhead.
I’m slightly unsettled as I sit on my bench. This is my place to come to relax every day, and now he’s invaded it with his musical backdrop and his odd magnetic pull. I kinda wanted to give in to the gloom today, to be sad with the absence of the sun. But his music, along with the bobbing dance of his head and the obnoxiously bright tropical bandana around his dog’s neck are making that impossible.
He looks up and meets my eyes as I chew my sandwich. The way he stares me down rivals the skill of my cat. Feeling slightly hypnotized and light-headed, I tear my eyes away from his and toss a small piece of bread to an impatient pigeon. A few seconds later I peek back and catch him grinning playfully at me as he shakes his hair out of his face, like he knows he made me feel spastic for a moment.
My stomach does a small flip, and I throw the last of my bread to the pigeon. I glance at the guitarist once more and my heart skips a few beats. He’s still watching me.
He winks, smiles the most adorably sexy smile I’ve ever seen on a man, then returns his attention to his guitar.
Determined to hide my interest in what feels like subtle flirting, I pull my paperback from my bag. But even the weather won’t let me distract myself from the guitarist. A light drizzle starts before I can open the book. The slightest amount of moisture is enough to make my hair look like I went and got a bad perm, which is not a good look on me.
As the rain comes down harder, I clutch my belongings against my body to keep them dry and sprint for the nearby gazebo. I curse myself for not bringing an umbrella today. I have them everywhere—about twenty of them at home, five in my desk, and two in my car. Not one of them with me when I need it.
Once under the shelter of the gazebo, I comb my fingers through my long hair, which is already damp and starting to curl at the ends. Ugh.
“Shit,” I say under my breath. The outline of my bra and my nipples are clearly visible through my white silk blouse.
“It’s just a little rain.” The deep, smoky voice startles me, and I spin around to see none other than guitar guy and his dog standing behind me in the shelter of the gazebo. He drops his old beat-up guitar case and a tattered duffel bag on the wooden floor then runs his hands along the dog’s coat, talking softly. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but I wish I could.
Shivering, I cross my arms over my breasts.
“If it’s only rain, how come you’re in here? You afraid your hair will frizz, too?” I say it playfully, but my heart is pounding as questions race through my mind. Did he follow me in here? Why? Is he just trying to get out of the rain, or have I made myself an easy target for who-knows-what by being alone in a gazebo?
He dries his hands on his dirty jeans and gestures to the dog. In a hushed voice, as if he’s telling me a secret, he says, “He doesn’t like to get wet.”
My fight-or-flight instincts relax as I watch how much care he lavishes on his dog. The guy seems harmless, but I smile and move farther away from him anyway, glancing down at my watch as I do so. My lunch hour is nearly over.
My gazebo partner looks up at the sky. “It’ll stop in a few minutes. It’s just a quick shower.”
I nod in response, my attention drawn to the earring he’s wearing. The small blue feather dangles on a silver hook and nestles against his mane of long brown hair. The effect is very rocker-cool and reminds me of the bird that flew into my skull yesterday and left its little downy feather on my forehead. I wonder if it was some kind of premonition or a sign.
“You work nearby? Or go to the college?” he asks.
“I work in an office a few blocks that way.” I point off to the right, even though my office is to the left. “And you?”
He tilts his head. “You’re looking at it.”
“So, you…?”
With a nod, he pulls a crushed pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and removes one with his lips. He replaces the pack and retrieves a black lighter from the front pocket of his jeans. “Yup. Work and live here.” He curves his inked hand around the cigarette, protecting it from the wind as he lights it.
Oh. I’ve never talked to a homeless person. Seen them around, yes. Talked to one? No. Another shiver shoots up my spine. Crossing my arms tighter around my torso, I lean against the railing, squashing my purse so he can’t grab it. He probably needs money to eat, or he could be a junkie needing a fix. Screw the rain and frizzy hair, I should make a run for it now before—
“This is one of the nicest towns I’ve been in.” His voice interrupts my racing thoughts. “The people are friendly. They don’t treat me like trash.” He exhales a cloud of smoke and snuffs the half-smoked cigarette out on the bottom of his leather shoe. I wait for him to toss the butt onto the grass, but instead he shoves it in his pocket.
A lump of guilt forms in my throat. I relax my arms as I raise my gaze to meet his. There’s no threat, no mania flickering in those eyes. I see blue—the color of the sky just before it turns to night, that subtle transition that marks one time of day to another. Perhaps his eyes are very telling, and he’s also in a transition of sorts, moving from one phase of life into another.
We watch the rain fall, waiting for it to stop, but I don’t really want it to. It’s soft and lulling and brings stillness with it. The park is empty, except for this homeless guy with the amazing eyes, his dog, and me. By the time the rain stops, I’m fifteen minutes late returning to work, but I’m in no rush to get back. Something about being with the quiet stranger is surprisingly comforting. We leave the gazebo together, his dog trailing behind us down the walkway that leads back to my bench, his guitar-playing spot, and the rusty wrought-iron entrance.
“Nothing more hopeful and beautiful than gray skies and rainbows,” he says as we walk.
I furrow my brow and wait in case he clarifies what he means. He takes his place against the brick wall, across from my bench. He sits on the wet ground and I wonder if rainwater seeping through his jeans will bother him or if he just deals with things like damp clothes. When he doesn’t say anything else, I give him a last look and head back toward my office without saying goodbye.
As I pass through the gate and wait to cross the busy street I see it—a rainbow arching across the cloudy sky. And he’s right. It’s beautiful and hopeful.
