Playing Detective

Today, I was playing detective. Oh, not so anybody could know.. I mean, I still care, usually, that people don't think I'm truly crazy (just a friendly eccentric). So you know, I dug up my trench coat from the back of the closet, tucked a magnifying glass in my bag, and dressed in a tweed skirt and British shoes. They frown upon shoes that aren't eminently stylish at work, but luckily, I'm too good at my job for it to matter (like being indispensable is a guardian umbrella).

Normally, Thursday nights, you know, I go to the library. Oh, I know, I know, that sounds too forlorn even for a Thursday night, even when it's raining this hard, but I have friends at the library (not all on paper, either). But tonight, tonight I was gathering evidence, not researching. I stealthily followed this tall, innocuous-looking college student who was probably pursuing a useless PhD, composing a terrible, unsuspected history over him as I walked. I've a terribly active imagination and a marvelous facade for to put it under; by the time I followed him into the diner, he had convinced himself that my interest in him was romantic. In another guise, I might have played the part of the brainless young flirt and wooed the information out of him, but I couldn't very well flirt in those shoes. So I smiled a dignified smile when he offered to buy me a coffee, and shook my head so knowingly that he went off and hid in the back booth by the window.

Detectives do not laugh. I smothered my face very seriously in my shoulder and ordered a club sandwich.

"This is just the sort of place," I said to myself, casting surreptitious glances around the sparsely-populated diner, "for to find some nasty criminals, conducting business over the greasy remains of a cheeseburger." I smothered my face again. I'm such good company on days like this, it was really a shame I hadn't nice shoes to get me together with the PhD. boy. Having composed myself, I examined the inhabitants of the (overwarm) diner (I shrugged off the trench coat). Besides the PhD. boy, there was a dull-faced mother reining in two curly-headed children with French fries and chocolate milk, and a very long, very thin, very sparse-haired, sweet man in his forties. I ruled them out as possible criminals, and examined the staff. The cook was merely a white-garbed back who talked too loudly (not intelligent enough to be anything more than a henchman, although he did make a delicious club). The troop of waitresses (there were three; no one could call the place understaffed) was composed of two black haired girls both bearing the name 'Emily' on their nametags, headed by 'Wendy', one of those matronly, sharp-tongued mid-forties women who treat you with a blue-collar kindness that embarrasses, horrifies, and warms you all over (in turns, usually).

"Great Scott," I murmured to myself, scribbling on my napkin. "None of these seem likely suspects." The older-looking Emily, a rosy-cheeked creature of perhaps twenty-five, half-heard me and asked me if I needed anything. I provided her with a half-choked smile of delight, and shook my head. What I needed was excitement, and Emily, sweet though she must needs be, was not the candidate I was looking for.

Since it was a storybook day, however, excitement came in right on cue. The bell jingled, and I shot a smooth glance over at the door. A young damp man in a leather jacket swung a motorcycle helmet in one hand. He was menacing, beautiful, and obviously criminal. I grinned at my adjectives, and did not permit myself a second glance until he was safely seated at a table by the window. His back was to me- how convenient!- and I deduced from the back of him that he had a ponytail of dark hair and studs in the leather across his shoulders, although I wasn't sure how much credit I could claim for deducing that. I shifted down one seat to the left. Younger Emily shot me a curious glance as she went to take his order (a glance I would never have noticed, but for my detectiveness). I shifted another seat down when she had passed; close enough to hear anything that he might say.

His first words were unremarkable. He looked up at young Emily; I got a side glimpse of his face (Level, immovable features. I wished I could get a look in his eyes). "Hi," he said. I decided he was obviously a very important criminal; there was a desperation in his voice that could not be ignored. I also considered the possibility that he was very hungry, but abandoned it as far too likely to be interesting.

Young Emily (who didn't want her part-time job anymore, you could tell) smiled at him and I decided (even though I knew I was letting myself get distracted) that her smile was nicer than older Emily's, even. But she didn't want to be smiling it at that diner; I suspected she was only saving up for something, only passing through the diner's annals. I congratulated myself on that deduction. Young Emily didn't like her job. She seemed like just the type to object to criminal activity.

The motorcycle boy ordered coffee. Not like he wanted it, though. Just like he needed a bit of time and ordering coffee would buy it. I made a mental note of the urgency of his tone. I watched him for fiddling gestures. He ran a hand over his dark head. I made a mental note of that.

Young Emily emerged from behind the counter with the coffee, and my suspect watched her approaching so fixedly that I began to suspect I wasn't fabricating. She set the coffee on the table. He watched her. I slipped over to the bar so as to get a side view of him, but he didn't even notice my motion.

I decided that, if he was a criminal, I might be willing to let him escape. He was watching young Emily as steadily as TV, ignoring her movements and holding her face in his eyes, but his look was not hungry or unnatural or insolent. He was determined and a little impatient, only. Young Emily said her lines: "Is there anything else I can get you with that?"

"Well.." he glanced down at her nametag, "Well, Emily, will you marry me?" I went blank. So did Emily. She manufactured an amused smile. Even I, with my mental faculties all so neatly shut down, could tell that that was all wrong. Amusement? A silence rolled down on the ground for a moment.

"Is that a yes?" he said. Emily's smile faltered and faded. That was all wrong, too. Now she was misinterpreting him. A nerveless laugh dropped over her teeth, and she left the table. Now he looked over at me. I looked back at him for a moment, (just long enough for my eyes to let him know I was waiting on the outcome of this one, too). Then I watched young Emily's tightly contained movements into the kitchen. I could see her from where I sat, her wide, irritated eyes as she gestured to Emily, senior. Could see her half-frown. She hadn't quite registered anything just yet. Emily, senior, patted her shoulder and went out to the motorcycle boy. I turned my attention back to that table (young Emily had not disported herself well; not at all. I had no further interest in her).

"So she won't?" my suspect said, very calm (and yet, somehow, dissatisfied) to Emily, senior.
"Well..." said Emily, politely, brightly (she was a good girl, that she was), "she doesn't know you."
"I have the ring," said the motorcycle boy, pulling it out of his pocket for good measure. I went a little less blank this time; I didn't feel I had any right to be surprised at anything he did. He did have the ring. A pretty little white gold and diamond affair. It seemed like it wanted to leave his fingers; they were too blunt and strong for it. Emily, senior, stared in amazement.
"She doesn't know you," she repeated. Her face was pretty and amusing, caught up like that. "She's never seen you before."
"Well, then, will you marry me?" he said. Emily, senior, made no attempt at a graceful exit. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it, and basely fled. The coffee on the table was finished steaming.

Again, his eyes found mine. Again, dissatisfied. But calm. I held them for a second, and then, abandoning my unobtrusive position, jumped up and slid into the chair across from him. He put the ring wryly back on the table.

"They wouldn't have made you very happy," I said reassuringly. "They're nice girls, but they wouldn't have." I glanced back. Young Emily was overhearing. She shot me a look that said she thought me a traitor.

"No," he said. "Probably not. Now I think about it." He picked up the ring and spun it between his fingers. "Probably not. But I thought it was worthy a try."

"No harm in trying," I said. He nodded in agreement. Flickered his steady dark eyes (I decided they were not as level as his face, but more encouraging) around the room. Found mine again.

"Well, then," he began.

"Wait a moment," I said. I reached down, pulled off my shoes, and tossed them haphazardly into the trashcan by the door. "Sorry," I said (Deeply. Never a more heartfelt sorry). "Do go on."

He smiled approvingly.

"Well, then. Will you marry me?"

I nodded. Not enthusiastically, not amusedly, but knowingly. He didn't run for another table. He held out his hand. I gave him mine. He slid the ring onto my finger. I noted with pleasure the Emilys standing in a rabbitlike clump at the end of the counter, staring. My PhD boy abandoned ship. I'm not sure he even paid his bill.

"Come on," said my fiancée. "I brought an extra helmet to get us to the courthouse, and see!- it's stopped raining." His smile was less steady now, kind of crazy and happy and good. I stood up, and he (very considerately, I thought) lifted me up in his arms and carried me out to his motorcycle so I didn't even have to get my feet wet.

“I came for you, really,” he said as he tossed me the extra helmet. A length of white veil tumbled out of it onto my lap. “-Hold onto that- I followed you here. I was playing detective, and I thought perhaps it was you I was looking for.”