The Metra train was running behind
schedule for the third time in four days this particular week, and Grant
couldn’t afford to be late again. He had just gotten a new job as a junior
accountant at a mid-sized company in the North Loop area of downtown Chicago
after being out of work for almost three years. There had been electrical
problems on the track all week long, so he tried leaving the house a little
earlier so that he wouldn’t have any problems getting to work on time.
He looked at his phone the read 7:43 a.m., and he had to be at work before nine o’clock. The train was scheduled to be at the 147th Street stop a few minutes ago, so he waited patiently as he could see the lights of the train about a mile away at the Harvey stop. The
train finally arrived four minutes later running approximately ten minutes
behind schedule, and he got on the car that was the second one from the end of
the train and found an available seat in the middle of the car to the rear of
the vestibule. He then logged into his Spotify account and picked his favorite
morning playlist to listen to before putting on his headphones. It was then
that he noticed a woman sitting in the first seat to the left facing the back
of the car instead of the front like all the other seats. He saw that she was
looking at him curiously but looked away when he made eye contact with her. He
realized that she was Marcia Allen from college at that very moment—they
attended Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois in the early nineties together, but he hadn’t seen her since he dropped out of school. They were now in their late 40s, but Marcia didn’t look a day over thirty. Grant kept himself in good
shape, but the gray in his hair and beard didn’t allow him to pass for a
millennial even though he had a youthful looking face.
Grant met Marcia freshman year through a
guy named Frank who he met at the campus gym while playing basketball almost
every night. Frank was an upperclassman who had a copy of the 1984 classic The
Terminator in his possession and decided to throw an impromptu get together
in his dorm room that night. Needless to say, Grant was smitten by her since
their first encounter, but unfortunately, she didn’t feel the same way about
him. It had also turned out that Frank was entranced by her beauty as well but
couldn’t get past first base with her, either.
Grant had even tried to win Marcia over
with the kind gesture of buying her a Polo-like shirt from the mall, and his
friends had clowned him repeatedly for it. She did, however, show interest in
Grant’s roommate and friend, Romero, and he had asked Grant’s permission to
date Marcia because he knew that Grant had a crush on her. Grant, of course,
said that it was okay because he didn’t have any claim on her, but he wasn’t
completely honest because it created an awkward situation in their dorm room
when Romero brought her by one Saturday afternoon.
Romero was a ladies’ man around campus,
and his stint with Marcia was short-lived before he was on to the next girl. He
said that they didn’t sleep together—something about she didn’t want to go
through with it and didn’t give him an explanation why. Marcia had that
girl-next-door quality about her and commanded a great deal of respect, so
Romero backed off and didn’t pursue her any further after their encounter in
her dorm room.
Grant didn’t finish at Bradley and left
after his sophomore year, but he’d have two random encounters with Marcia in
the years to follow. One encounter he had with her was at a movie theater at the
River Oaks Mall in Calumet City, Illinois—Marcia’s date or her boyfriend at the
time had a look on his face like he wanted to punch Grant in the face after he
said hello to her, and she reluctantly said hello back to him. Grant made a
mental note of that exchange and had finally gotten over his crush on her after
that night. He would see her again a couple of years later at the All Jokes Aside comedy
club that was popular during the greater part of the nineties with a group of
her girlfriends while he was on a date with one of his coworkers. The line was
wrapped around the corner, and the only way someone was going to get in that
particular night was to pre-order his or her tickets in advance. Grant had done
just that, but Marcia and her friends had left the club because they failed to
do so. Grant hadn’t spoken to her and neither did she, and that was the last
time he saw her until today.
He had decided to shut his eyes and listen
to the sound of eighties R&B classics to put himself in a calm mood, and he
didn’t open them until the train arrived at the Van Buren stop downtown. Marcia
had gotten up from her seat and glanced back at Grant one last time before she
exited the train. The last stop of the train was Millennium Station, and he was
one of the first people to get up because he only had a few minutes to get some
more coffee at Starbucks before heading to work. He saw that Marcia had
mistakenly left her small purse on the seat, so he grabbed it and placed it in
his backpack before he exited the train. He then went to Starbucks and ordered
himself a coffee to go and opted to wait until he got to the office to look
inside of her purse. He arrived at work at 8:45 a.m. and had plenty of time to
examine the contents inside of it. His plan was to look for an ID with her
address on it and mail the purse to her anonymously because he had no desire to
see her face to face. What he found was a driver’s license, a debit card, lip
gloss, some juicy fruit gum, and $254 in cash to name a few items. Damn, I’m
going to have to return her purse myself, he thought.
Fast forward toward the end of the day at four minutes after six in the evening, and Grant got off at the Sibley/147th Street Metra Station stop and retrieved his car—a silver 2017 Nissan Maxima. Marcia lived in the suburb of South Holland, which was a few minutes away from
the Metra station. He decided to get something to eat at Burger King first so
that she could have some time to wind down from a hard day of work and swing by
afterwards. Hopefully, the entire meeting would take a minute tops, he thought.
There was a Burger King in the strip mall in between Greenwood and Woodlawn
Avenue on Sibley Boulevard, so he ordered a Whopper with fries and a Coke and sat in the parking lot to eat. Once he finished his food, he headed over to Marcia’s residence near 170th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue.
He parked right in front of her house as
her block was a cul-de-sac, and he took a deep breath before he walked up to
her porch and rang her doorbell.
“What if she’s married?” he asked himself.
He didn’t want any potential problems like
the guy at the show, so he was prepared for whatever was behind that door.
Marcia answered the door a few seconds later and seemed to be pleasantly
surprised when she saw that it was Grant behind the screen door.
“Hello, what can I do for you?” Marcia
asked.
“Hi, Marcia, I found your purse on the
train this morning and wanted to return it to you,” Grant answered.
“Oh
my God! Thank you so much! I was just about to cancel all of my credit cards.”
“You’re welcome, and I’m happy that I was
able to save you the trouble of doing that.”
“I just knew that I’d have to go through
the hassle of proving who I am to the DMV, so that I could get another driver’s
license.”
“Yeah, that would’ve definitely been a lot
of trouble to go through for sure. Well, take care of yourself…”
 |
Pretty Woman |
“Wait…”
“What is it?”
“Isn’t your name Grant Ottoman?”
“Yes, it is. I didn’t think you remembered
me.”
“I remember that we went to Bradley
University at the same time. Do you want to come inside?”
“Okay.”
He had a seat on her living room sofa and
said, “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“No, of course not,” she said. “I was
going to get myself something to eat in a few minutes.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Can I offer you something to drink?”
“No, thank you, I’m good.”
“How have you been?”
“I’ve been good. And you?”
“Me too…I just retired from Chicago Public
Schools last week.”
“How long were you there?”
“I taught math to seventh and eighth
graders for twenty-five years.”
“That’s great. So, what are your plans now
that you’re retired?”
“I don’t know…maybe travel and see the
world, I guess.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“What do you do for a living, Grant?”
“I was in construction for twenty years before I got injured on the job and won a settlement. Afterwards, I took
that opportunity to go back to school at DePaul and get my degree in
accounting.”
“Good for you, Grant. What do you do now?”
“I just started working at this firm
downtown last month.”
“What do you do at this firm downtown?”
“I’m an accountant.”
“That’s wonderful, Grant.”
“Thank you.”
Marcia paused briefly and asked, “Are you
married?”
“No,” Grant answered, “well, not anymore. I was married for ten years and have been divorced for five.”
“Any kids?”
“No, my ex couldn’t have kids. And you?”
“No, I don’t have any kids, either.”
“Married?”
“Almost…engaged once, but I couldn’t go
through with it.”
“I understand…marriage isn’t for
everyone.”
“Yeah, I had a gut feeling that it
would’ve been the biggest mistake of my life.”
Grant sighed and said, “You know, I was
very apprehensive about coming over here.”
“Why?”
“Because you didn’t like me back then. If
it weren’t for the fact that you had cash in your purse, I would’ve just mailed
it to you.”
“Why do you think that I don’t like you,
Grant?”
“I hijacked your phone number from Edmund
right before spring break sophomore year. I don’t blame you though…it was a
stupid thing to do, and he was wrong to give it to me.”
“Yeah, you’re right, I don’t remember
giving you my home number now that I think about it.”
“I knew you liked my roommate Rom instead
of me,” Grant continued, “and because of that fact, I didn’t have the
confidence to ask you for your number myself. It finally sunk in my brain that
I wasn’t your type after you flaked on our date a couple of years after I left
Bradley, and I sensed that you thought I was a lame the time you reluctantly
said hi to me when I saw you at the show with your boyfriend.”
“Wow, you have a great memory because I
haven’t thought about any of that stuff in years.”
“I haven’t thought about any of that stuff
in years, either, but seeing you on the train this morning brought back all
those memories.”
The was momentary silence before Grant
said, “Well, I’m going to leave now. Take care of yourself, Marcia.”
“You too, Grant.”
She walked him to the door and said,
“Thanks again, Grant, and for what it’s worth, I always thought you were a nice
guy.”
“Thank you, Marcia. I always thought that
you were a nice girl as well. Bye.”
“Bye, Grant.”
He nodded, and he turned around and walked
back to his car. He looked up before opening the drivers side door and saw that
she was still in the doorway, and he waved at her before she waved back. He
then started his car and slowly drove off as she watched his car eventually
disappear in the distance. Next