NOTE: I will be posting this story on two other sites, under the same title. This was written for a competition in which the author was to avoid naming the characters or giving physical descriptions, so that readers could, hopefully, identify with one of the players. I hope I accomplished this. Any feedback or constructive criticism you care to give will be appreciated.
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I remember the first time I noticed her. She was walking along the side of the road I take to come home from work every day. There was a lot of traffic, too much to allow me to take more than a glance, so all that registered on me was: female, roughly my age, jeans, t-shirt, walking the same direction I was going, and not looking like she was going to jump out in front of my car. I didn't see her face.
The next day, it was the same thing. Different t-shirt, but wearing blue jeans and sneakers, walking in the same direction I was going. Still no sight of her face.
I saw her every day that week on my way home. I started to expect her, and I finally saw a glimpse of her face in my passenger's side mirror one day as I drove past her. She seemed attractive, but I didn't get a good look.
For the next several weeks it was the same. I began to look forward to seeing her. I don't know what it was, really. I'm the kind of person who likes routine in his life, and seeing her became part of my routine. We didn't speak, didn't wave, didn't even make eye contact, but I came to want to see her. She became a kind of milepost on my drive home, since I always passed her at roughly the same place.
As summer moved into autumn, her attire changed. She began to wear sweaters or jackets to accommodate the weather, but she always wore a pair of jeans. She never carried a purse or backpack, which made me start to wonder where she was going, or where she had come from. It seemed to me that she would carry something if she was on her way to or from work or shopping, but she never seemed to have anything that couldn't be carried in her pockets.
Sometimes, when it was raining, she would be wearing a poncho or hoodie. I felt sorry for her then, and a couple of times I considered stopping to offer her a ride, but there was always a lot of traffic, and besides, that seemed a little forward. After all, it wasn't like I knew her, and she never turned to face traffic in an attempt to hitch a ride, so I always drove past.
Late in the fall, a crew began making repairs to the pavement and the gutters along the stretch of road where I always saw her, in preparation for winter. This slowed traffic considerably, and every day, I saw her as I crawled through the construction delays. One day, she walked past my car three different times in the stop-and-go traffic. The last time I saw her that day, she turned and smiled at me.
That started a different phase in our "relationship," if you could call it that. As I drove past her, I began to slow down so I could get a longer look at her. It seemed as though she was expecting me to pass her at that usual spot on the road, and she seemed to be looking over her shoulder as she walked, almost as though she wanted to see me. If she happened to glance my way at the right time, she would smile at me as I passed.
Winter was closing in. She traded in her sneakers for heavier shoes, and began wearing a warmer-looking jacket. Sometimes she wore a knit cap pulled down over her ears to ward off the cold. I always knew it was her, though. I knew every nuance of her walk, the length of her stride, the motion of her hips, the way she carried herself.
I was finding myself attracted to my "walking girl," as I came to call her. I don't know exactly why. She was physically attractive, to be sure, but then, a number of women are. I work with some really good-looking women, and I have a few pretty female friends, but none of them piqued my interest like this woman who walked along the road every day on my way home.
I guess that's why I finally decided to wave to her. I remember that it was on a Friday, the last day of my work week. I knew I wouldn't see her over the weekend, and something made me decide to wave that evening. It was almost dark on my evening drives now, but my headlights still made it easy to see her.
She was walking in her usual spot, glancing over her shoulder from time to time, and she saw me. I slowed down and waved, and she smiled and gave me a little wave back. As I drove past, we made eye contact through my car window, and her smile seemed warm and genuine. She looked happy to see me, and she was still smiling when I saw her in my mirror.
Where I live, the winters are very unpredictable. One day, it can be sunny and cool, but still very pleasant if you're dressed for the weather. The next day, we'll have sleet and freezing rain. Still other days, it will be blustery and bitterly cold. Other times, we'll get snow. Lots of it. The kind of snowstorms that bring everything to a halt, so that schools and businesses are closed.
It was like that one Friday in January. The weather forecast had called for flurries, but it had been snowing steadily all day. At first, the road crews were keeping up with it, plowing and salting, and generally keeping things moving. In the mid-afternoon, however, the storm picked up with a vengeance. A lot of my co-workers left early, although I stayed until my usual quitting time. I knew my car could handle deep snow, and I expected traffic to be light.
Things were worse outside than I had expected. Snow was falling heavily, and with the wind, we were experiencing near white-out conditions. There were a lot of drifts, and the snowplows were nowhere in sight. Had they given up? I knew it was possible. Sometimes, it seems as though they just stop and wait for the storm to pass. My car radio blasted alerts about the road conditions, saying that we were under a blizzard advisory, and that all unnecessary travel was to be curtailed.
I actually made decent time on my way home. Because the roads were terrible and visibility was poor, there were hardly any other vehicles moving. I was able to grind along at a decent pace. I glanced at the dashboard clock when I got to the area where my "walking girl" should be. Surely, she wouldn't be out in this weather. At least, I hoped she wouldn't be.
I almost didn't see her. She was standing along the road, not walking. She had her back to the wind, and was hugging herself against the cold. The snow was deeper than her boots, her jeans looked soaked, there was snow piled on the shoulders of her winter jacket, and the hair hanging from beneath her cap was caked with ice.
There were no other cars on the road. I stopped and rolled down the window. "Get in," I said.
"I can't. I don't know you," she replied.
"I don't know you either, but you can't walk in this. You'll freeze to death," I said.
"I'll be okay."
"Please, just get in the car. I'll take you wherever you're going. I'm not going to harm you or get weird on you, and it's not safe for you to be out in this. You'll get hypothermia or frostbite or something."
"I am pretty cold. I thought I was dressed warmly enough, but I guess I'm not."
"So, get in the car."
When she opened the door, my interior lights showed me how cold she really was. Her face was red from the cold, but her lips were blue and her teeth were chattering.
