Interesting Guy

I first noticed him as he ran up the frozen foods aisle toward my checkstand, bringing with him a box of frozen garlic toast which the customer had asked him to help her find. I wasn’t alone in noticing him, either. Not only had some of the other checkers noticed our latest new employee—including David, the only male checker who was welcomed into our break room gossip group—many customers took notice of (and seemed to like him) as well. It was only a matter of time before you noticed him; he seemed to always be in an extreme hurry, and extremely helpful, and kind.

He wasn’t noticeably muscular, but he was in decent shape for his medium stature. He was just so nice, and “easy on the eyes”. (A friend of mine liked to use that phrase. She had moved to Long Beach about a year ago, so we now communicated mostly by e-mail, and she never actually met him, but I’m sure she would have made the comment if she had.) When he smiled, it made you want to smile back. It was almost an innocent smile. The first thing I noticed was his eyes; gorgeous green almost obscured his modest pupils. His hair was short and brown. He had clean, white, neatly arranged, not-too-small teeth. He smiled when he introduced himself as “J.C.” Then he said, “If you need any help over here, please ask me,” as he left my checkstand to help bag for a customer at an adjacent one.

He ran to the back of the store a lot, too. Eventually, Cindy, another checker, asked him if he was sneaking a cigarette each time and he told her, “No, I don’t smoke. I just have to pee all the time.” She laughed when he told her that, and we all laughed when she told me and a couple other girls later in the breakroom.
My curiosity didn’t go entirely dissatisfied. He would always run off after work, either leaving immediately after punching out at the end of his shift, or grabbing a basket full of things off the shelf (mostly vegetables), purchasing them, and running off to his car, paper bag in one arm. But he happened to come through my checkstand one of those times. “You must like vegetables!”

“Yeah, I do. That’s all I cook. I’m a vegetarian,” he answered.

“Not me. I couldn’t live without a steak once in a while. So, what are you going to do now that your work day is over?”

“I’m going swimming,” he said.

“At the swim center?” I asked.

“No, in the Necanicum River.”

My eyes widened at this. The Necanicum River was a shallow river in Seaside that led into the ocean. “Isn’t the water cold?”

He smiled. “Yeah. I like the cold water. I have some health problems and the cold water helps.”

“Health problems?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

“I have what’s called Candidiasis. It’s like a yeast infection of the gastrointestinal system.”

Hmmm… I thought. This guy certainly is different. I wonder what other problems he has. There’s always something wrong with the good-looking ones. The next customer in line seemed to be getting impatient, so we said a quick goodbye and he ran off with his vegetables.

I saw him on Tuesday, just after 2:00. He came walking into Safeway, dressed in short but baggy shorts and a white t-shirt. Maybe he was called in, I thought. He walked right up to my checkstand.

“Hi,” he said as I rang up items for a customer. “You’re Ashley, right?”

“Yeah. You can call me Ash.”

“So where is the one that worked in this checkstand—“ he pointed to the checkstand directly opposite my customer “—yesterday?” He paused. “Aren’t you guys friends?”

“That’s Danielle. She has the day off.” Then I asked, “Why?”

He looked uncertain, then he shrugged his shoulders and looked apologetic. “I… I wanted to ask if you two wanted to go out… to karaoke with me tonight. I heard they have karaoke at a bar in Cannon Beach on Tuesday nights.” He smiled a less-than-confident smile.

Without thinking twice, I said, “I don’t get off until 8:00—“

“That’s okay,” he interjected. “Do you want to call Danielle and see if she wants to go with us?”

“Sure. But she’s got kids, so I’m not sure if she’ll be able to go,” I said (not really intending to call her). “I have a son, too, but he’s at his dad’s for the week.” I tore off a receipt and handed it to my customer. “Thank you. Would you like some help out with your grocery bag?”

“No, thank you,” said the thin, short, slightly bent woman in a bright yellow floral dress.

“Have a good day. Enjoy the sunshine,” I said.

“Thank you. You, too,” said the woman, and she walked away, carrying her small grocery bag in one hand while leaning slightly on her cane in the other.

“Where do you live?” he asked.

“Astoria.”

“I don’t know where that is. I just moved here a couple months ago.”

Oh, that’s why I haven’t seen you around here, until you got the job, I thought. “I can show you sometime.”

Finally, we agreed to meet in the store parking lot at 9:00. “See you then!” He smiled, confidently again. “I better let you get back to work.”

I smiled and waved my hand in a gesture dismissing my short line of customers. “Oh, they don’t mind.”

“No, we don’t mind,” said the next customer in line, going along with the joke. “We only buy our groceries here so Ashley can have a job. We don’t really need any of this stuff.” I smiled, and J.C. seemed to figure out that this particular customer has shopped here many times before, and we had become like old friends.

J.C. laughed and said, “Take care, then. See you tonight,” and strode off quickly again, leaving me and my customer free to talk about him.

“Cute butt,” she said and I laughed, nodding my head.

“Yeah, it’s not bad,” I said and my laugh turned into a short giggle.

“So you two are going out to karaoke?” she asked.

“Yup. It looks that way.”

She nodded her head thoughtfully. “Where did you meet him?”

“Oh, he works here.” Her eyebrows went up. ”He just started this month,” I replied to her questioning look. We’ve talked enough so that she knows I don’t date much. She thinks it’s because I’m too particular.

“How much do you know about him?”

“Not much, except that he seems very nice, and he’s good-looking,… oh, and he goes to the bathroom a lot. And he’s a vegetarian.”

“Hmm…” she says. “Sounds serious. Just be careful.” Then she leaned over the checkout counter towards Ashley, adding, “And make sure he uses protection.”

I unsuccessfully suppressed another laugh-giggle. “Aye ay.”

I arrived in the Safeway parking lot at nearly 9:15, hoping my subtle perfume and deodorant would hold up against the onslaught of my nervousness. After my hurried shower, I couldn’t fix my hair, so I had simply sprayed it to keep it from getting any worse. I threw on some jeans and a sweater, flossed and brushed my teeth, and grabbed an apple and a cookie for the road. Once on the road, I started to eat the apple then had to throw half of it out the window because my nervous stomach wouldn’t accept any more. I maintained about 50 MPH down 101 back to Seaside, glancing frequently in my rear-view mirror and sometimes steering with my knees. In Gearhart, I lowered my speed according to the city speed limit. I knew my cell phone would work there, so I called my son at his dad’s.

“Are you and your daddy having fun?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you go out to dinner last night?”

“Yeah.”

My son wasn’t much of a conversationalist yet. I briefly thought about telling him about my date. Then I thought, No, not just yet. “Did you and daddy play at the park today?”

“Yeah,” then, as if the thought came as a surprise to him, “He bought me a baseball glove!”

“A baseball glove!? Wow, that’s great, honey! Now you can practice for the baseball team!”

“Yeah!” he replied.

Now we were talking about one of his subjects.

“Did you and daddy play catch?”

“Yeah. And he threw the ball to me and I got to hit it.”

“That’s great, Baby! Wow. That’s really great, Honey. Well, I’m gonna have to go now. Can I talk to Daddy?” I said.

“Okay.”

“Love you!”

“I love you, Mommy.”

Tim and I were polite to one another. He had cheated on me, but I didn’t hold any grudges after two years; I only wanted him to straighten up his life and be a good father. After he had moved to Washington, my prospects seemed to brighten a little. Only three months earlier, he finally got a night freight job and he started sending me regular child support checks. Not for the full amount he owed, but I was thankful for something.

As for my new prospect whom I was about to accompany on a date, I worried what effect this would have on Nicky. I loved my son desperately, but I also longed for another man in my life. I hadn’t had sex since Tim, and I wanted more passion in my life than my romance novels and fantasies in the shower. As much as I wanted to protect Nicky from the possibility of me trying and failing at a new relationship with a man, I felt I deserved someone who could make me feel good, emotionally and physically. The other girls at work had told me as much, although they probably didn’t have my same concerns in mind. They probably just wanted more to gossip about. I crossed the bridge into Seaside, gritted my teeth and put slightly more pressure on the accelerator.

I spotted him standing next to a dark green Saturn, parked facing Hollywood video, but close to the south Safeway entrance. He had abandoned the short, baggy shorts in favor of dress shorts that still exposed his somewhat knobby knees, and he had replaced the white t-shirt with a plain grayish-green one. His white teeth stood out in the dusk as he caught sight of my jeep. I pulled up beside him.
“Hi. I’m glad you came. I was worried neither of you would show up.”

I tried to maintain my smile, despite his reminder that he had asked me to invite Danielle along. “I’m sorry I’m late. Danielle said she was feeling too tired to go out. But I’m here!”

He tipped his head in acknowledgement. “Yes, you are. Are you ready to go?”

“Sure. Do you want me to drive?”

“Umm, I think I should take my car, too. I’ve got a lot of stuff in there, and it’s just easier if I drive my car.”

“Okay.” Didn’t he move all of his things in yet? Okay, he’s messy, but not verifiably crazy (so far), I thought. Following a hunch that I should drive my own car, I asked, “So, should I follow you?”

“I guess so. I’ve never been to this bar before, but the lady that told me about it said it was easy to find. It’s called Breakers.”

It wasn’t easy to find, since even the central road in Cannon Beach was poorly lit, but we finally saw the sign as we were about to pass it a third time. It was hanging outside the second floor of a building that held both shops and a realty office.

We parked across the street. As soon as I opened my vehicle door, I could hear people laughing and talking loudly from the second floor deck outside the bar. Despite this, I could also hear the rhythmic sound of the surf just beyond the houses and over the ridge behind me. As I watched J.C. emerge from his green Saturn and stand erect, his green eyes finding mine, I thought to myself, I am glad I live here.

Thankfully, the bar—just as small inside as it was from the outside—was not filled to capacity. A group of four or five was still talking outside. The furniture consisted of three booths and four tables, two large and two small. Both of the large tables were occupied, and at one of the small tables, close to a microphone stand, sat a tall man with shoulder-length blonde hair and a goatee, putting a cigarette to his lips with a slightly trembling hand. No one was singing yet, but the bass of the DJ’s music caused the floor to vibrate up into my shoes, not to mention in my eardrums. A strong smell of smoke pervaded the air.

J.C. must have noticed me wince. “Sorry about the smoke. I love singing karaoke but I hate the bar smoke.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “As long as I can step outside once in a while to catch my breath, I’ll be fine.” I told him I needed to use the restroom and he went up to the
DJ booth to pick up a songbook.

He briefly looked up from the book when I returned. In fact, he was bent over it, apparently intensely interested in finding a certain item, no longer conversational.

So I said, “What song are you going to sing?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m just looking for something new that I know I can sing, but that I haven’t tried yet.”

I nodded, but didn’t reply, and he didn’t look up at me. I looked around the bar.

Even at this hour, the people seemed happily intoxicated. As the speakers in the close corners of the bar pounded on, I could understand most of the conversation taking place on the deck, although the conversation between a large but short bearded man and one of two women seated at one of the large tables provided a healthy competition for my auditory attention. My eyes wandered to the well-lit kitchen, where I could see bodies bustling about. The drinks were normally served in an adjacent room, where bartenders made and served the drinks from a small space in front of the kitchen. They must have been bringing drinks right to the individual tables, though, because the serving room was presently dark. I had to walk through it to reach the restroom. After briefly scanning the doorway into the darkened room, my eyes once more rested on J.C. He was looking at me.

“What songs do you like?”

Suddenly my face felt warm. I prayed the light in the bar did not reveal the color of my skin. I had already imagined him singing this song to me. “Well, I like ‘Amazed’. I think it’s by Lonestar.” I smiled, hoping my shyness was not obvious.

“Yeah!” he said, visibly brightening. “I know that song. Okay, I’ll do that one first.

That’ll be my warm-up song.” He picked up a pen and wrote some information down on a slip of paper and then got up and handed it to the DJ. The DJ looked up and said something to him, then he smiled and said, “Thank you,” and sat down, smiling quickly at me before looking down once more at the songbook.

The first singer was the large, blonde man sitting at the small table. He held a beer in one hand as he picked up the microphone in the other. He sang, “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction,” bawling the chorus into the microphone, which was apparently turned up to full volume already, because his enthusiasm came across to us in a painful, off-key way. By the time he was finished, we all clapped just to thank him for returning to his seat. He seemed quite pleased with his performance.

The next singer called up was J.C. Taking the microphone, he looked right at me.

It wasn’t quite how I had pictured it; the large tone-deaf man beside us joined in, and, even without a microphone, he nearly overpowered J.C.’s soft voice. But I could still hear him, singing the song I had suggested he sing. And he looked right at me, except when he closed his eyes, which he did during the high notes. And when he finished, he sat down in front of me, asking for my approval with his green eyes and his uncertain smile. “That was really good,” I said. Although he denied it, his smile grew a little bigger. And we made jokes about his overly enthusiastic, off-key accompaniment in the audience without a microphone, who nearly overpowered him, forcing him to try to sing even more loudly.

He selected other songs to sing that night without any more suggestions from me, but I will never forget the first song he ever sang to me.

Some time had passed since our first date, when he asked me to go swimming with him. I didn’t try to hide my delight at the prospect. I was at his little cottage apartment in Seaside, and the sun had already begun to set, but it was still light outside, and the day had been a warm one. He said he needed to go to the bathroom before he could go, and I waited almost half an hour—asking once if he was okay—until he came out with a towel wrapped around him.

“Are you naked under there?” I couldn’t resist asking.

Reddening and smiling like a child overwhelmed by the affection of grown-ups, he said, “No.”

And we drove just down the road to the youth hostel. On the way, he mentioned his early morning swim. “The only living things to keep me company are the seagulls flying overhead. Every time I turn my head to breathe, I can catch a glimpse of them if they are right above me. It’s almost as if they are my friends. Sometimes they land in the water only a few feet away from me. They are probably wondering, ‘What kind of crazy creature are you, and what the hell are you doing out here all alone in this water?’” Upon arrival, he got out, grabbed a couple of towels and a portable stereo, and, without waiting for me, headed toward the steps down to the river. I reached down into my purse to make sure my camera was there then grabbed it and followed him. He stood there in his swim trunks, already shivering, waiting for me. Beside him stood a bench, about five feet or so above the level of the river on the back lawn of the hostel.

“Would you mind holding this?” he asked, extending the arm that held the stereo.

“Sure,” I said.

“I have to swim twice a day, and I have to get in right away, or I will lose my nerve. The music helps takes my mind off the cold,” he explained. Nevertheless, he spent the next ten minutes working up the nerve to fully submerge himself into the chilly, darkening water.

He swam to the opposite bank and then returned. It was a narrow river, so it didn’t take him long, and he had completed ten laps before he clumsily climbed out of the water, dripping wet in the recently-drawn darkness. I had snapped a few pictures of him swimming. He would appear almost too small to see in those. I snapped a few more as he climbed out of the water and back up the steps to me. Then he smiled when saw the camera, a question in his eyes.

“It was too good to pass up,” was the only answer I gave him.

We went back to his apartment, where he took a shower—a cold shower. He explained that this was healthy for him, too. And he spent another half hour on the toilet after that.

In retrospect, I suppose this should have signaled to me to leave this guy alone. He was going to bring me nothing but unease and impatience, and maybe even embarrassment. But I had determined that I was not going to leave his apartment that night without at least a kiss. When he came out of the bathroom, he was again wearing a towel.

“Are you naked under there?” I asked again.

“Yes,” he said smiling and looking down. “I left my clothes out here.”

I brought my camera out again. “Smile!” I said.

He did, and proceeded to pick up some clothes from a corner of the room. “Do these look okay?” he asked, trying to hold them up and keep his towel on, too.

“I don’t know, why don’t you try them on… right here?”

His face grew bright red. Looking down again, he said, “I’ll be right back out.”

Once he was dressed, he joined me on some blankets I had laid on the floor of the single room in his apartment. He told me how he had once been an electrician, but he had refused that career path for another in medicine, eventually ending up in Seaside. As we talked, I rested on my elbow, but this became rather uncomfortable, and, finally, he offered to massage my back, which I accepted, and I gratefully lay face down on the bottom blanket and turned my head to one side. I don’t recall how long it lasted, but at one point, while he was working on my neck, I turned my head to the side. He continued to rub my neck and didn’t seem to read my intentions, so I got up on my elbows and turned my body towards him. Finally, my lips met his for an exciting moment and then he pulled away and turned his eyes from mine.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know if this is right.”

“It feels right to me,” I said.

“It feels good to me, too, but I don’t know if it’s right yet. I just want to do the right thing.”

“I know,” I tried to commiserate with him, unsure whether I understood what exactly he was talking about.

Then he said, “I like you a lot. But I don’t know if I am good for you. I have so many problems, and I don’t want to make you unhappy because of my problems.”
“I don’t mind,” I responded. “I think I can handle them.”

He shook his head, “I don’t know.”

I took his face in my hands and turned it towards mine.

“I don’t mind. Whatever problems you have, I can handle them. I like you just like you are.”

He held my gaze, looking for something in my eyes, then turned away again. “I don’t know, Ash. I don’t ever want to hurt you.”

I took his face in my hand again and said, “Then don’t,” and kissed him once more, longer this time. Warmth flooded my body, and the touch of his lips on mine brought a feeling of almost relief, mingled with a longing that was slowly emerging from the rest of me.

“I can’t,” he said, standing up. “I can’t be intimate with you until I know I love you, and I don’t know if I can ever love you.”

The warmth receded, and a chill like the waters of the Necanicum replaced it. I began to shiver. I didn’t say anything for a long time. I laid down, face in the blankets, and several tears flowed from my eyes. I hadn’t told him I thought I loved him, but it was now obvious that he wasn’t ready for that, and the pain of realizing that he didn’t feel the same was suddenly too much to bear.

He apologized more, and eventually we talked some more. The night hadn’t turned out at all how I had hoped it would, but at least we were still friends when I left his apartment that night.

He had his problems. He was lonely. I was lonely, too, despite my son’s companionship. I needed adult companionship.

I never gave up on J.C. I kept watch regularly when he went on his swims, and eventually he moved into my son’s and my apartment, and, after that, my son began to go watch him as he swam, too.

He lived with us for nearly two years before he met someone else and moved to Hillsboro to live with her. Even though we had made love, he had communicated to me that he would never feel for me what I felt for him, although not in those exact words. It hurt me to discover that he had found someone else, although I tried not to show it—and succeeded, too, I think. It’s lonely again now that he’s gone. I have gone out with some other guys who I met online since then. A few times I slept with an old boyfriend who always came to stay with me when visiting his family in Astoria, but I realize now he’ll never divorce his estranged wife. In fact, I think they’re living together again.

J.C. and I still keep in touch by e-mail, although less frequently than I’d like, now that he and Angel are married. I got a new job working for the “Daily Astorian” that I like very much. Nicky is in football and baseball, and, having grown a great deal in both height and weight, is doing very well. J.C. seems to have overcome his health problems (he told me that it was not candidiasis after all, but hypothyroid—not to be confused with “hypochondriac”), although he still eats a lot of vegetables, and he still likes to swim whenever he can. We still conclude our e-mails with “Love, J.C.” and “Love, Ash”. I still invite him (and his family) to come see me and Nicky during one of his free weekends. He says he will try, but I haven’t seen him for over a year now.