By Fernie Ruano Jr.
“Would you mind if I sit here?”
That’s the question a hurried brunette, her brown expressive eyes dancing behind a big smile while she cradled a cup of coffee and oatmeal with her right forearm, asked me at approximately 9:25 a.m. last Friday as a peeked over my computer screen at a table of a buzzy-downtown Miami food court.
Standing so close to me I could smell the wetness of the cream trench coat she was wearing, I extended the unoccupied chair next to me before answering, “No, not at all; my pleasure.”, and helped her put all her belongings down.
"I love the shoes you’re wearing,” I told her as she offered up another smile at the compliment of her brown heels with gold-ankle bracelets. “They’re from Kenneth Cole,” she replied without hesitation.
Unguarded, witty and communicative; and apparently rushed, tormented and confused, too. I liked her already.
Am I really sitting in the middle of a crowded food court in downtown Miami with a rapid-fire, Colombian county -property tax appraiser who is smiling and making direct eye contact while telling me she isn’t wearing her engagement ring because she recently had a flair up with the father of her child and how she would like to squash the homeowner she is about to meet upstairs in about 20 minutes like a grape because she can’t understand, “How somebody can be so incompetent?”, all in between short swigs of her coffee, interrupted just once to take off trench coat, exposing firm arms underneath a sleeveless dress?
“Are you married? Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked, just minutes after asking about every other question a woman that just met a man would normally ask: “Where do you live?” “Where did you go to school?” “What are you doing on the computer?”
She was being admired from several different directions and she knew it.
"I’m not really in the mood to go upstairs,” she said after letting me know marrying the father of her child might not be such a smart career move for her and that she wanted to go somewhere, but not upstairs to work. “I don’t really feel like working today.”
So, by 9:45 a.m., I already knew the gorgeous woman having breakfast across from me had a 13-year-old daughter with the man she only recently became engaged with, wasn’t very pleased with her professional life and wanted to go somewhere with me, and not up the elevator to face the man she disagreed with.
At 10 a.m., we picked up and headed down the escalator before exchanging pleasantries; no goodbye kiss, no phone number trade; no flirting.
I just listened to everything she had to say; and it was the last thing she thanked me for before turning her back and disappearing out of my view.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Happy Friday,” I responded.
And I really hope I see her again; seriously.
Do you want to know more about this 305-reeking, beach-bumming, Cuban food-obsessed dude? Well, then.. You can connect with Fernie @wordbyfernie (Twitter) and Fernie Ruano (Facebook) and visit http://www.latinbeatsvibe.blogspot.com. Who knows? If he really likes you, he might even give you his email.
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