What do you say to a girl you met on Instagram, a girl you’ve felt vexed at for unfollowing you, one you’ve socially stalked and wondered if you’d ever meet, and when you finally do get the chance to meet her, you stare at her for long-friggin-minutes after she’d all but dried her teeth in the brightest of smiles and said Hello twice.
“Um…”
Guy, you did a semester at MIT, think fast. What comes after hello? Do we hug, shake hands, smile and say how do you do? Back home at Costner, a hello follows hugs, not those lame side hugs some prudish classmates insist on, but the full-on chest-pressing-chest hugs, and sometimes smiling into each other’s eyes as we ask how our night was. At MIT, a hello meant a slight nudge of the chin and in some cases of shared interest, it followed a small smile. What’s the culture here and now? Do I dare move close to her, accompany my hello with a hug? A handshake? Or do I simply say:
“Hello?”
“Hello.” She smiles, adjusts on her feet, and tuck her hair behind her ear.
What does that mean? Her tucking her hair behind her ear and shifting on her feet? Is that a coded gesture? A sign of impatience, irritation? I mirror her stance, shifting on my feet, and, unconfident about my ability to maintain my composure, I seek the support of the balcony. I’m close to her, she’s close to me, then a slight move on her part and she’s not so close anymore. I turn to her, manage a small smile. She catches my eyes, smiles back, and looks away.
“So, uh, I’m Naeto.”
“Eloise.”
“Eloise.” I chuckle a stupidly nervous chuckle and nod. “Hi, Eloise. I’m Naeto.” Why am I echoing?
“Hello, Naeto.” She smiles at me. Smiles into my eyes, drops her gaze to my stretched arm and extends her hand. We lock ‘em. First touch.
“We, uh, didn’t get the chance to meet the other day.”
“Yeah, I had some stuff that I needed to catch up on.”
What stuff? My brain asks. “That’s okay,” my mouth says.
She’s smiling. I’m probably still smiling too, still smiling and megawatts aware of the electric frisson of awareness orbiting around us.
Eloise. Ello-wees.
My smile deepens at my private play with her name, hers brightens like she senses them. She moves on her feet, I move on mine, intuitively curious if in the course of our first hello, first touch, we might somehow ease into a first dance.
“Nice to meet you, Eloise.”
She chuckles, slightly nudges her hand and a heated mass of shame burns my face because. Shit. I’m still holding her hand. What the…can I seriously get any creepier right now? I snatch my hand away, cover my embarrassment with a chuckle and palm cool concrete. What the flipping heck is happening to me?
It’s not like we haven’t met before or anything. Virtually, yes but a meeting nonetheless and on such meeting hidden behind our phone screens and marked with emojis, LOLs, IDK, and BRBs, I’d never run out of flow or stupidly repeat phrases like I’ve been doing since for-embarrassing-ever. Can I backtrack? Rewind a few seconds back, only better composed.
“So, uh…” I smile, she smiles, we tennis our smiles back and forth.
Skin-stretched-and-prickling aware I’m standing close, so close to her, I look unseeingly at the sky, flatten my palms on the ledge and turn them face up, wondering what’s to become of them. How does a hand live after its first brush with another that makes it tingle. Does it retain the memory, stop being a hand and become a keeper of moments? And… dear God now that she’s here, I’m here, we’re alone under a starry-skies night, what am I to say or do next?
Just go with the flow.
The flow…uh…what flow? I peep a sidelong glance at her, stare at her entrancing profile, whip my eyes away when she turns to me.
“I’ve not gotten the chance to say, ‘welcome to Charleston’,” she says.
“Oh.”
“Been busy and all.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Oh.
Can I just stop saying Oh?
“Ah.”
Jesus, worse!
“So, uh, welcome.”
“Thank you.” Our eyes meet, we look away, meet, look away, becomes a game of meet and look away.
“So, uh, I’ll see you around?”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” She smiles, raises a hand, and waves. “Bye.”
“Bye.” I watch her leave, she turns to see me watching her leave, we smile and wave again, and she disappears in through the door.
Jesus, Naeto what the—?
Damn, like seriously, I froze, like I literally, fucking froze. God! I palm my face, pace, crouch, and grit into my palm. Of all the million things to talk about! How in the sweet heavens did I end up with a brain freeze? I should have said I admired her solo in Pas de Quatre. Flex my fluency in the art by commenting on her adagio combinations, and even spoke a bit of French. Like an enchanté, perhaps? Because, yeah, I’m enchanted.
Her accent is cute by the way, it lilts with a succinct trace of Parisian inflection…does she sing? Funny how you meet someone on social media, and you think: Hey, I know that person, only to meet them and realize you knew nothing about them. You didn’t know nor had you seen the soft tease of golden tendrils flirting around her hairline. Or that her neck is angled such that she appears to be in deep thought. Eloise.
What was she wearing? Was it a dress, t-shirt, lumber jacket? I have no conscious memory beyond her face and neck. Such a captivating face. A face like that should be all over her social media page. Why has she been hiding beneath a fan then? I want to meet her again, alone. What did she think about me though? Did she like me? I hope to God she didn’t smell the choking remains of Woojin’s perfume on me. She couldn’t have. I had a shower and changed clothes before coming out. What if she smelled it on my breath? Ah, but, meeeeeehn, it’s like that girl was especially designed to burst my brains, stop me dead in my tracks. No wonder I froze.