Eye Contact

Writer’s Cramp prompt: Write a short story or poem starting with the following line...He refused to make eye contact.

Eye Contact

He refused to make eye contact with me, but I would have known him anywhere. He’d starred in seventeen movies, movies I’d seen repeatedly until I could whisper every line. That dimpled chin, eyes of turquoise, locks of golden hair that fell loosely over his forehead.

At home, his poster spanned the wall beside my bed. I looked up at him every morning. That same smile, the flash of his perfect, milk-white teeth, the cocky little sparkle in his eyes.

As I sighed from the headiness of seeing him in person, my elbow slipped. I knocked over my glass of cola and sent it flying. At the noise, he shot a glance in my direction, but he didn’t see me. Pimpled from nose to forehead, red-cheeked no matter the temperature outside, and eyes too small to notice -- no one ever saw me.

I sighed again and picked up a napkin to pat at my wet jeans. My hamburger sat congealing, catsup mixing with fat. My fries had turned limp. Who could eat with him here?

He was Garph Zonel. A long ago Hollywood agent had named him that, but I knew his real name. I knew what he liked and didn’t like, his favorite color, his favorite book and movie. I knew everything about him; I read his Web page daily.

He was with an entourage, blondes and redheads with hair below their waists -- they all flustered about his wake. Tony, his manager was at his side, too. I recognized him from People Magazine.

“Garph,” the redhead purred, her hand draped over his shoulder. I hated her that moment, hated her more strongly than even my father the day he’d walked away without a look back, without a word of goodbye.

I knew who the girl was. She was Tamantha, Garph’s latest. She would last no longer than the others. He’d dump her in a week, but she had touched him. I felt no pity for the shortness of her good fortune. For a while she’d be near to him, touching him, stroking his hand, feeling the warmth of his breath on her face.

“Garph,” Tamantha said again, bending over him to dot kisses on his cheeks. “Would you like me to get you something?”

His laugh was coarse, not at all like in the movies. His laughter reminded me of my father’s, cold as winter sleet.

“Tamantha,” he said with the nasty, spiteful voice I heard the kids at school using. “Yeah, get me a chocolate cone. That’ll give you something to do – other than pester me.”

Despite the viciousness of his words, Tamantha bent down to whisper something in Garph’s ear. I strained to hear, but the murmur of their lips sounded like the low drone of an airplane climbing into the night.

I was wiggling on my seat, causing it to squeak. I couldn’t help it. I urgently needed to go to the bathroom, but how could I leave? How could I walk away when every second of his presence was a gift to me?

“Garph,” I whispered. “Garph.”

I could tell he felt my eyes on him. He turned away, pretending to look out the window. It was my fault; I’d been staring at him, but I couldn’t help it. Couldn’t he see how I felt about him? Couldn’t he read the love in my eyes?

He had turned his back to me, rejecting me, deleting me from his life like my father. All the boys at school did that, too. It was nothing new, yet from Garph it hurt more. He was part of me. He belonged to me. Didn’t he know that? Didn’t he feel the link between us?

I stood up. My chair screeched like a wounded pig. Everyone turned and then looked away. Garph’s eyes had started to swing in my direction, but he’d halted them. He was still pretending an interest in the window.

The bathroom was across the room. I’d have to pass in front of Garph. My legs trembled. My hands were shaking so badly, my purse fell to the floor. I reached down to grab it and felt Garph watching me.

It made me fumble. My hand refused to grasp the purse. My fingers chased it about. Finally I seized it and stood up, but it tumbled out of my hands down to the floor again. My face burned. I wanted to crawl away, but I was stuck like a dead beetle, pinned to the bottom of an insect display.

Then giggles freed me. I knew the sound of mockery. I knew it well. I’d learned it at school. I grabbed my purse and secured it against my body, gripping it as if the contents were valuable. Then I headed for the restaurant’s bathroom. But on the way, as I passed by Garph, my legs refused to take me further. I froze ten inches from his presence.

“Do you need something?” Tony asked, while the girls continued snickering.

“I . . I . . .”

“Get out of the way,” Tamantha demanded. I glanced behind. Her hand was outstretched with a single scoop of chocolate ice cream in a huge waffle cone.

“I’m sorry,” I said, but she didn’t wait for me to move. She rammed me aside with her elbow.

I lost my balance and slid. Tony caught me before I fell. “You all right?” he asked with a kind-hearted voice, but I didn’t answer. My eyes were on Garph.

He’d seen what Tamantha did to me, but his smile was flashing and his eyes had slid right over me. They were fastened on the beautiful Tamantha and her hand with the ice cream -- that chocolate dripping cone.

I pushed away from Tony’s arms and without another word continued on to the bathroom. When I was finished, I left the restaurant and its table of unfinished food.

The moment I got home, I tore down the poster of Garph Zonel.


(1,000 words)


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