GIRL 98
AIRPORT GIRL
While I was agonizing about how to finish out The Hundred, as I'd come to think of the project, I was called away on business.
At the Continental departure gate, where I had an hour to kill, a woman kept staring at me. She seemed attractive and vaguely familiar. I didn't think much about it. My looks are startling to some people. I have this old-young look about me that makes me seem of an indefinite age. I'm either a distinguished looking 35 year old or a youthful 55 year old. I'm dark, which a lot of women like, my features are a mix of feminine and macho, and bartenders ask me which episode of Law and Order I was in. So when the blonde stared at me, I smiled back. More friendly than interested.
But then she came up to me.
"I know you," she said.
I stood up and shook her hand. Really, I asked.
"Yes, you're that guy from Match with the kiss-and-tell journal. I was dying to date you, but then I got a look at some of your entries." She smiled both shyly and hungrily all at once, and I may have been imagining it, but she seemed to blush when she mentioned the journal. It made me think about how Girl 94, The Great and Powerful Bat Girl, described how my entries had kept her up all night touching herself.
That's me, I said.
"I stopped writing you right then, but I never stopped reading what you wrote."
Why didn't you want to keep writing me? I asked.
"I was afraid you'd put me in that journal of yours," she said, frowning.
Oh, I said. You realize, don't you, that the only people in it are those I meet in person?
"Oh, no, I didn't," she said, relieved.
Which means, I said, smiling, that now you're in it. You are Girl 98. Airport Girl.
The color drained out of her face.
"Oh my God, no," she said. "Please don't put me in there. I'm asking you, please?"
Sorry, honey, I said. I have to. It's the rules. But don't worry. No one will know your identity. And I won't use your real picture. Just one that reminds me of your spirit. And even her eyeballs will be blacked out.
"I have to go," she stammered.
I watched her leave, wondering if I were damaging every female I ever met. So far, it certainly seemed that way.
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