Romance Briefs

Romance Briefs: Just a touch of the fantastic

Is it Written on My Face?

She stood silently amidst the chaos of exuberant revelers; it was New Year's Eve in Times Square.

As she stood and watched introspectively, her thoughts took her back a year ago when she was on this very spot...with him, but she wasn't crying, nor was she sad.

She met him a few months before the New Year on a dating site; he found her out of millions of others just because of what he saw in her face and what she wrote in her profile.

And it was last year on New Year's Eve that they stood where she is standing tonight and after a long and passionate kiss at midnight, they retired to his place in Chelsea where they spent the next morning nursing their hangovers in painful bliss.

Over the next few months, she was getting more work as an actress, he was not and beginning to run out of options until one day he was offered a job with a theatre company in Phoenix. After that offer, their days seemed to be numbered. She offered to support him, but he knew he had to take the job for his own sanity. That was in May.

But tonight, here in Times Square, it was she who was leaving New York. Her show had closed prematurely in November and she was on her last financial leg. Something had drawn her to Times Square even though she was packed and ready to leave that next morning and move back to Charleston where there was a job waiting for her.

A voice broke through to her as she stood among the crowd."I couldn't help but notice that you are the only stationary person in sight. Everyone around you is jumping around, dancing and...you know...celebrating and yet, there you stand."

"Huh...I didn't notice" she saw the young woman who had spoken for the first time. She was young, alone and also noticeably sober. "I could say the same for you."

"I'm sorry if I'm intruding. I only noticed that the two of us are the only people who seem to be alone."

She studied her. She appeared to be as sober as she and...alone as well. "So what brings you here?" she decided to let her memories loose for a while.

"Just got in this afternoon from Olympia and I had always wondered what it would be like to come here on New Year's Eve, so I did; quite a scene."

"Let me guess; new in town and trying to have your brush with fame on Broadway." She said in a way that sounded sarcastic, even though she didn't really mean it that way.

"I'm afraid it must be written on my face. I should have scrubbed a bit harder when I took my shower" the young woman laughed, trying to lighten the mood.

"No, not really, your face is fine...it's a nice face and I'll bet you're a terrific singer and actress. It's just that this town is filled with terrific singers and actresses...can you dance?"

"Enough to get by...for a soprano anyway" she lamented

"Thank you for not being an alto. Those women always cause me to sing in uncomfortable keys." She also laughed.

"Have we met...I mean before tonight" she said without thinking, her mind going back to the memories that brought her to Times Square to begin with.

"That would have been highly unlikely unless you spent time in Olympia" the young woman said.

"Right, near impossible, isn't it?" She was coming back to the present. "Say, what is it about this place?" she blurted out.

"I can't help but notice that you seem to be drifting between where you are and someplace else" they young woman observed.