A Very Pretty Girl (or Ballroom Love)

She sat alone on the steps. The day was cold but the sun warmed her in the way a gas heater might or perhaps a fire. The intense heat only warming select body parts and leaving her cold elsewhere. The pleasure of the heat all the more enjoyable because of the opposing temperature on the other side of her body. Heaven and hell felt in one moment. Like salt and jam on your tongue at the same time.
She stuck out her limbs intermittently to receive the warm rays whilst eating her lunch. Her break was only half an hour and working in the city gave her the freedom to walk the central business district and she often chose to sit on the steps of the central square. She appreciated watching people as they came and went from the city. In that brief half an hour she was separate from the mill of bodies. She was an escaped grain and although she had to return soon, she was like the outsider who had been travelling, the villager with experience, separate from the others.
She sat happy for only a few moments a small smile on her lips with no intention of holding anyones attention. This smile was for her alone. No sideway glances and flirty smiles.
She therefore didn’t notice the man across the square from her making his way towards her.

He treated the space between them as a ballroom floor, a space of courtship, of past centuries etiquette. He edged across the way, sashaying almost, in and out of the people going about their business.
His intention was so subtle he never let on that she was the main goal of pursuit until he was close enough to catch her glance. She failed to notice all of this because of her minds preoccupation with her timed freedom and her attention snapped to when she observed the coquettish glances he flitted her way.
She was surprised at the interest this man showed her and she wondered if he knew her, maybe a family friend, so she tentatively smiled – a tight and constrained smile reserved for strangers. She realised her mistake when he edged closer and beamed ecstatically at the small favour she bestowed on him.
He seated himself next to her on the step, never touching but making her feel uncomfortable none the less. He lent in, all mouth and teeth and pointed gaze, and said “Youre a very pretty girl”.
It hung there that sentence.
He let it hang there like mistletoe, precariously dangling, waiting to twinkle with delight at the young lovers kissing beneath it. The mistake here however was the love was not mutual and the age not young. He was nearing 50 and although she looked 16 maybe 17 she was more like 21. The respective ages creating the biggest hurdles for their love. Love that had started with “You’re a very pretty girl” and ended with the subtle yet noticeable shift of body language moving to guard ones bag against predators, specifically predator, complimentor, this complimentor.
She smiled at him, a constrained polite smile, by way of acknowledging the compliment. She said nothing and the mistletoe faded and became an icy dagger that dug into his heart.

He repeated his sentiment but with more enthusiasm “You’re a very pretty girl.” His tongue curling on the rrr of girl and lasting on the l. It landed on deaf ears. She wanted the suns warmth, she wanted to curl into her world so rudely interrupted by this clumsy elephant. She said nothing but she was angry.
Her anger must have been felt because he finally inched away from her personal space and off the step. He gazed longingly at her for a while longer before making his way back across the ballroom floor to seat across from her.
This time he stared at her intently without fear of being caught. He followed her movements and in turn began to copy her. She crossed her legs and so did he, she looked to the right and so did he, she shuffled her bag at her feet and so did he. She clasped her hands and so did he, his eyes never moving from her.
Finally her half hour was up and her freedom had been stolen, it had run out and been less than usually enjoyed. Her sun had been overshadowed and her bones were chilled.
He did not follow her out of the ballroom, despite her fears that he might, but his eyes did.
His eyes mournfully gazed after her, drifting from the empty place on the steps to the point of her departure from his stare, grieving the brief interlude into his life that she was.
Stuck in this ballroom, this city square, she had been a bright light that no sun could compare to, a very pretty girl.