I like the feeling of being pursued. It makes me feel pretty. It doesn't happen very often...almost never, in fact, so when it does, it's aces for my self-confidence. Betsy was pretty good at making me feel wanted in someone's life, unfortunately, our paths often failed to cross and instead veered only narrowly close to collision. That is to say, every time either of us tried to see one another, it was doomed to scheduling failure.
Since she had moved away, Betsy had taken to e-mailing me when she was coming to the city. "I can't believe I never thought of this before, I must have been having a blonde moment or something!" I think it was a sign from the universe that we weren't supposed to meet up again, because there was something about our schedules that ensured we wouldn't cross paths with one another.
She sent me an e-mail asking me if I "work[ed] on Monday," saying that she would be in town and wondered if we could see each other. Unfortunately, I did work, but I let her know what time my shift started and ended. She replied saying that, while she would be leaving town before my shift was over, she would try to come in during my shift so she could at least say hi.
Betsy's visit is what was getting me through the greater portion of the day, but as the hours wore on, I started to fear that, maybe, she just wasn't able to make it into the store, or something had come up and she didn't make it into the city after all. It wasn't until I got home at the end of the day that I checked my e-mail and there was a message waiting for me, from her, asking where I had been. The message mentioned what time she had come in, and that's when I realized that she had been in the store while I was downstairs on a break. I responded, saying that it was disappointing that we missed one another, especially since we were in the same building and didn't realize it, but that next time she should just ask someone to page me, and I could at least go out for coffee with her.
The next time I received an e-mail from Betsy, it was to ask if I worked on a certain day. Because of my Lundy-luck, it could be guessed that, yes, I did work, but I let her know what time my breaks were likely to be, and asked if she wanted to get together on one of those to chat. Once again, it was not to be: she was doing something downtown, and wouldn't be able to break my way in the middle of the day. She had been wondering if I wanted to meet up with her in the morning and keep her company during the day while she did whatever various tasks she needed to accomplish in town, and while I seriously considered calling in sick to work so that I could spend some time with her, I really couldn't afford to do so, so this became just another opportunity missed.
A few months later I would get the chance to meet up with her: she was coming into town with her friend for the day, and she asked if I wanted to tag along. It was, for once, a day that I wasn't actually working, so I told her that I would be there! Sure, her friend would be along for the ride, so it wouldn't be the greatest time I could have with Betsy, but I figured that something would be better than nothing.
The night before I was supposed to see Betsy, I got another message telling me that her friend needed to bail on that day. I briefly stopped reading the letter because I was celebrating the opportunity to spend time alone with her. I should have kept reading, because it continued to say that they would be coming up a day later, as they still had things to do in town together, and she was wondering if I was free on that day instead. Lundy-luck struck again: I was scheduled to work that entire day, from mid-morning until late-evening, and there was no chance that I would be able to see her at all.
That was the greatest disappointment, because of the false hope that I had had for the days leading up to the event, and for part of the message that I actually read before I stopped prematurely to celebrate my victory. Just to rub salt into the wound, I would get another message later on in the week stating that Betsy and her friend had stopped in to say hi to me that day, but, once more, I was on break and she just missed me.
Her timing wasn't always bad, though. There would come a day that I was working and was paged to call the front desk. The service specialist would then tell me that it was time for my break, and as I hung up the phone and turned around, Betsy was standing right behind me.
"Hey! How's work going?" she asked, giving me a bear-hug. "Great! It's time for my break, wanna go for coffee?" She nodded vigorously, and a few minutes later we were sitting in the coffee shop next door, talking about...I dunno, probably the jerk-hole manager that used to constantly scream at us. The point was that we had finally made the timing work, but had she been one minute later in finding me, we probably wouldn't have seen each other, and I would have had another opportunity missed.
The next time I would see her would be on what I thought was a date...but she knew better.
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