This fall none of the courses she needed for her Bachelor of Arts in electrical engineering were being offered. She decided to stay home for the semester and work at her family's business. Most of her track events were in the spring so even without fall classes her scholarship would stay intact. She loved working at the family video store during the summer and semester breaks. It was an easy job. She could watch videos or do her homework with only an occasional disturbance during most of the day. Problems only occurred during the after work or beginning of the weekend rush.
Over the summer and into the fall she had gotten to know most of the regulars. She liked all except for a couple of drunks who would stop in between bars and one mean woman who complained about everything. Sure some of them were troublemakers, like the group of high school boys who would hang out out-front after school or the couple going through a divorce. But basically she considered them okay.
She liked to classify the people that came into the store, the retired, the teachers, the students, the workers, the homemakers, and the others. This was Thursday. She wondered if the new man was coming into the store. He was too young to be retired. He didn't work regular hours. He drove a clean pickup and was always dressed well so he wasn't a farmer or someone who worked in the woods. He was articulate. He loved to take his time examining the tapes reading the back of the cases carefully. He didn't match up with her classifications, which made her all the more curious.
Tabitha did her after run stretch and showered. She picked up her backpack filled with schoolbooks and supplies and walked the six blocks to the video store. Her brother had opened the store earlier and had a music video blaring from the screen over the counter. Tabitha turned the volume down on her hearing aids and took over the front counter. She got a paperback to read while her brother finished re-stocking the overnight returns. He would leave when he finished and she would then replace the music video with the Alfred Hitchcock movie she started yesterday.
* * * *
Maybe it was the staring, maybe it was the extra hours I took to finish the algebra textbook, but for the first time in months I thought about Hanna. We had been living together for five years and dating the previous two. I broke it off with her just a few months before I left Chicago for home. Hanna was a lovely girl, friendly, astute, self-assured, and loving. She had one problem, sex.
Hanna grew up in a family as the little princess. She believed the fairy tales about the princess in danger saved by the prince who took care of her forever more. The books she liked. The movies she watched. The family she was from. They were all the same. The woman was a prize that was taken care of. And the man had better appreciate the prize! Hanna in bed was passive. She was the prize that had to be honored, cherished, and served. Afterwards, she insisted on gratitude. Throughout the day, she would insist that she be honored for giving you the prize of her body the night before. She believed that anything that happened was subservient to her great gift of sex. It was frustrating having an argument with her and having her say, “Why are you complaining? You had sex last night.'
I started to tell her she had a Prince Charming syndrome. She became mad at my complaining and started to withhold sex. When we did have sex, she would stop after she was satisfied leaving me even more frustrated. The next day she still insisted that I thank her for her gift the night before.
When I left Chicago, we had not made love for four months. For some reason, she still felt we were together. She still considered herself a prize that I had to honor. As I left her, I could see in her face that she still didn't understand how I could let her go.
The eleven months I had been home had been filled with work. The only friends still living around the farm were my parents’ friends. Once in a while, they would try to fix me up with a niece or another relative but I still had memories of Hanna so nothing interested me until this fall.
I had gone to town to rent a video for the night. The local TV is sometime pretty bad. During the play-off season, all you might find are local high school and college games. When the local grocery store was out of tapes I was interested in, I went to the video rental store in town. Behind the counter was a cute girl. I asked her where the new releases were. When she answered, I did a double take. Her words were slightly slurred and the vowels were not quite right. I then saw the small hearing aid in her ear. I realized she had to be partially deaf. Not wanting to embarrass her, I went straight to the tapes.
I hadn't gotten out much so I took my time reading the backs of the tapes—trying to find a video that I hadn't heard of before, which still looked interesting. The girl came up behind me asking if she could help. Startled, I jumped and knocked a dozen video boxes off the shelf. As we put the boxes back on the shelves, I noticed that she had a hearing aid in her other ear and the brightest eyes I had ever seen. They were so sparkly that I never noticed their color that day. I was so flustered after the accident that I picked up the first tape on the shelf and tried to checkout without further embarrassment.
As I gave the girl the two dollars and change for the video, I saw the college textbook on the counter. I had proofread the text three years earlier. Trying to redeem my deflated ego, I asked if she was taking classes for engineering or electronics. I never forgot how her eyes locked onto my face in a penetrating stare.
“Both. How did you know?” she demanded.
Flustered again I fumbled out the words, “Laplacian transforms ... Aren't they used in engineering and electronics?” I pointed to the text, which had the words Laplace and transforms prominently displayed. I escaped the store as fast as I could.
It took me three weeks to get the nerve to go back to the store. Luckily a young man was behind the counter. As I checked out the tapes, I heard the bell on the front door ring. Turning, I saw the girl jog in with a sweat stained athletic shorts and top on. She was built! I could see the bundles of muscles ripple as she moved.
The boy said, “Tabby, could you come in an hour early this evening? I've got a date.' “Okay Joey but you owe me one already. How about trading my Friday shift? I don't like the weekend rush.'
“Fine. But if I do trade, you will have to come in two hours early today.'
“Deal?'
“Deal.'
She turned and saw me staring. She seemed to know what I was looking at. She gave me a silent smile. Turning, she jogged out of the store. Totally embarrassed, I left the store as fast as I could. After that day, I would stop at the video store on Thursdays just to see her. I had learned my lessons from the first two times that I met her. I let her lead the conversations and only opened my mouth the minimum. She was in her twenties. I was in my thirties. I wanted to ask her out but I knew this being a small town the gossip would be hard to take. Instead, we talked about movies and her college classes for fifteen, twenty minutes every time I came in. That was enough for me after my problems with Hanna, girls were unfathomable.
Today I had to see Tabitha just to get Hanna out of my mind.
Chapter 3
Testing
Move-over watched as I got the pickup keys and billfold from my dresser. He gave a yowl as he turned his back. His tail held high, he turned strutting to the front of the house. I knew, when I pulled out of the yard, he would be in the front window watching.
The reason why I was going to town was to see a pretty girl. A couple years back I was proofreading an article by a feminist psychologist about men and girl watching. She ranted and raved about how bad men were and used a mumbo jumbo of big terms to support her ideas. The article was printed. After all, it was just a filler editorial. I knew then what was wrong with her ideas. As I was just a proofreader at that time, no one would listen to me. A basic biological drive of all species is to procreate. It is the only way a species will survive. Its importance, at least in men, is that for an instant of time only one thing is in your mind, the beauty of a woman—i.e. How capable is her potential to reproduce? Whenever a man sees a woman for the first time, he biologically has to classify her with the unconscious programming in his brain on her fertility. Old women trigger one set of responses, young girls another. The biological response flushes the clutter of thoughts about work, relationships, or watching eyes from the mind for the few seconds you first see the pretty girl. When the clutter comes back, the short break makes it manageable again. Like all things that create brief interludes of happiness, some become addicted. I might
