A Familiar Face

“Have we met before?” 

I was caught off guard by my own voice. I don’t usually speak up, especially to strangers. I try my best not to step out of my lane. This is why I work at a bookshop. Everything about my job doesn’t require talking to people for too much. I just keep the shelves stocked, but mostly I’m at the counter where all I have to say is, “You found everything?” “That’ll be this amount of dollars,” “Thank you, have a nice day!” and that’s it. 

Whenever I saw a customer buying a book that I really liked, I'd tell them it was good or that I really liked it, but I didn’t go into any further detail. 

I hate how small my voice sounds, I hate how freakishly long my body is. It’s like someone put my body parts in Photoshop and stretched them out as far as they would go. I hate how my arms dangle next to my side. I hate how my forehead is too big, no matter what I do I can’t find a hairstyle that makes me look halfway decent. My legs are like two thin toothpicks, so I try to not look down whenever I can. 

So, that’s why I don’t talk to strangers, but I had a feeling about this guy. I had the feeling that there was something about him that looked familiar. 

He walked in and browsed around for a little while, which was nothing too strange. I’ve seen so many customers just walk in to browse without buying a single thing. As he walked, his brown satchel bag swung in the air from left to right.  

He finally went to the coffee bar inside the store, sat down, and pulled out a laptop from his bag. I simply could not take my eyes off of him, not in a romantic way, but in a more curious way. He wore a gray, turtleneck sweater. His hair was jet black and a bit messy, while his pants and shoes were just as black as his hair. 

I watched him for so long that I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed an answer. I needed to know why he looked so familiar, but I wanted to do it as discreetly as I could. I didn’t want to come off as too pushy or anything. So, I turned to my co-worker Margie. She was a sweet older woman, with curly brown hair and wore crescent-shaped glasses. 

“Hey, Margie, is that guy a regular?” I asked her. 

“Which guy?” she asked. 

I pointed my finger and said, “That guy!” 

She took a few seconds to look at him. At one point she took a moment to adjust her glasses, and another second to push her finger on her lips.  

Finally, she said, “I’m sorry, I’ve never seen him before.” 

I bit my lip in frustration. I wished it could have been that easy. The desire to just walk up to him, and ask for his name became more tempting for me, but I still resisted. I didn’t want to get his attention. He appeared to be super focused on his work, whatever it was, and I had no intention of interrupting him. 

At first I wanted to see if there was a name tag on his satchel. That’s when I realized I could just walk up to Randy, the barista, ask her to show me what he ordered, and then I would see his name on the receipt. I was so proud of myself that I thought it was foolproof. 

I asked Margie to cover for me and I made a B-line for the coffee shop. 

I never talked to Randy as much since she was serving people coffee and scones, while I was standing ten feet away at the checkout counter. She had short black hair and pale pink skin. She always gave a big, happy smile to everyone no matter if she was working or not. As far as I could tell, she was nice but that was it. We never really hung out after work, but then again I didn’t hang out with anyone after work. 

“Hey, Abby! What’s up?” she asked as soon as I came into her line of sight. 

I cringed, hating how she called my name out like that for everyone to hear. I gave the strange man a quick glance and was relieved to see that he didn’t react to her shouting. Still, she wouldn’t stop saying my name. At first, I had to put my finger over my lips, but she still didn’t catch on. There was nothing I could do except walk to her as fast as possible. 

“So what do you want?” Randy asked. “I can whip you a mean espresso. Or do you want some scones? They’re fresh. Took them out of the oven myself.” 

I was amazed at how comfortable Randy was around people. Sometimes I wished I was more confident just like her. 

“No, I want something different,” I said, keeping my voice in a low whisper. 

Randy placed both arms on the counter and leaned forward a bit. 

“Oh, okay, well, what do you want?” she asked with a smile. 

“You see that guy?” I asked, nodding my head towards the man. “Well, do you know what his name is?” 

Randy's lips caved inward and then popped out again. 

“Can’t say that I do, why?” she sighed. 

I gave out a little grunt, which caused Randy to jump back a little. I caught myself off guard with that one. I usually don’t make any sounds when I’m angry. I usually do such a good job keeping it inside. But I had no time to apologize for my lack of control. 

“Didn’t he order something?” I asked her, hoping she would have the receipt with his name on it. 

“Nope,” Randy said, shaking her head. “He just walked in and sat right there. Hasn’t come up to me for anything.” 

“Drat,” I whispered before biting my lip even harder. I know it’s a bad habit, and my lips were looking like the surface of the moon, but it was the only way I could calm my nerves. 

“Why? What’s the matter?” Randy asked, perking up. “Did he do something to you?” 

“Oh, no, of course not,” I said, getting it out so fast it sounded like one word rather than a statement. “I just want to know his name, that's all.” 

Suddenly, Randy’s smile grew wider, covered it with both hands, and gave out a muffled, “Oh, my gosh!” 

I looked at her all confused. 

“What? What is it?” I asked. 

“You’re not in love with him are you?” she squeed. 

I nearly jumped back in shock. I guess you could say I was flabbergasted by such a remark. The thought never entered my mind before, but the mentioning of love got me all embarrassed. 

“I’m not in love with him,” I explained. I started to feel hot and I guess the expression on my face wasn’t helping either.

“You’re in love!” Randy sang. In response, I told her to be quiet. I didn’t want anyone to hear this, especially the stranger who was sitting not that far away. 

“Why don’t you just talk to him?” she asked. 

My eyes went so wide they nearly exploded into a million pieces. 

“Ta-ta-ta-talked to him?” I stuttered. “I-I-I couldn’t do that.” 

I no longer felt comfortable talking to Randy anymore, but I couldn’t leave, I was trapped. 

“Sure, just talk to him,” she said as if it were that easy. “Here, I’ll help.” 

I wanted to tell her that I appreciated the help, that I didn’t want to talk to him and I wanted to go back to my station, but she had already walked in front of the counter before I could say anything.

She grabbed my hand and said, “Alright let’s go!”

She dragged me across the floor, making me regret ever talking to her. I just wanted his name on the receipt. If I had known she would force me to talk to him directly I never would have asked.

Before I had a chance to prepare, we were already standing next to his table. Randy cleared her throat so loud it made me jump. 

The man’s face shot up and he was looking right at me. I was too afraid to look into his eyes, so I hid my face with my hair, acting like it was a protective shield against his gaze. 

“Can I help you?” he asked. 

I never felt so embarrassed before in my life.  

“Yes, my friend would like to ask you a question,” Randy said. I could feel all eyes were on me and I hated it. This was like a bad dream. The only difference was that I couldn’t wake up. 

“Abby,” I heard Randy mumble, “Go tell him.” 

With great hesitation, I moved my hair away from my face and looked right at the man. 

In an instant I was terrified by his eyes, not that they were abnormal, they were completely normal. I was frightened because they were looking at me, judging me. I figured he was taking notes of everything that was wrong with my body. 

I just couldn’t take it. I figured if I could just get it out quickly the sooner it would be over. That’s when I asked the question. I couldn’t get it out at first. I was a stuttering mess looking into those eyes. I had to close my eyes again to get the words out. 

“Have we met before?” 

A brief wave of relief came over me. It was like a heavy burden just rolled off my chest. I felt happy enough to laugh. But as I said before, the moment was short-lived. 

It was deathly quiet. Neither the man, nor Randy, spoke up. It was so quiet I started to fear that something was wrong. 

I opened my eyes again dreading what I might see. 

The man was still staring at me with his sharp blue eyes in shock. I turned to face Randy and whatever confidence I had came crashing down. I saw her smile wavering. It was like she was trying to tell me I’d messed up, but in her happy, positive way. 

I felt so embarrassed. I just wanted to sulk back to my cash register and hide until this whole day was over. 

“Wha-what do you mean?” asked the man. 

I quickly looked back at him. I tried my best not to look him in the eyes, but it proved to be quite difficult. I forced myself to focus on the edge of his left cheek. I found out that it was the best way to make it appear like I was looking at him without actually looking at him. 

After taking a deep breath, I explained to him that he looked familiar and I wanted to know if we had met before. 

He gave out a chuckle. I saw the color in his cheek turn a bright red. I didn’t know if I had embarrassed him or if he actually found it funny. 

I thought I could end the meeting by saying, “Well, thank you, bye!”

I was wrong.

I turned around to walk away but the man asked me to stop. 

“We haven’t met, but I know why you think I look familiar,” he said. I was about to ask him what he meant, but then he dug into his bag. I had no idea what it could possibly be, but I was curious. 

It was a book. I couldn’t make out anything at first because his hand was over the cover. He then placed it right on the table. 

The front of the book was facing him so that I could see his picture on the back. 

“Oh, my gosh!” I gasped. “You’re an author?” 

No wonder why his face looked familiar. I probably saw it hundreds of times when I stocked the shelves. 

The man lowered his head and gave a little nod. 

“Don’t say anything,” he whispered, “Trying to keep a low porfile.”  

I felt so guilty. Leave it to me to accidentally blow a celebrity’s cover.

I apologized profusely. Thankfully, instead of getting mad he just gave a smile and shook his head. 

“It’s alright,” he said. “Honestly, I could have done better to disguise myself.” 

New concoctions of emotions came over me. There was so much I wanted to say, but I didn’t want to bombard him with so much. Even though he was an author, he was still a person after all. 

“What’s your name exactly?” Randy asked. Either she had read my thoughts or she wanted to know just as badly as I did. 

“Pat Bryans,” he said. 

“Never heard of you before,” Randy mumbled, before adding, “No offense.” 

Pat just waved his hand and said it wasn’t a big deal. 

It didn’t matter to me how famous or how obscure Pat was, he was a writer and I always dreamed of meeting one. Questions like, “How do you do it?” “What’s your inspiration,” and “When did you know you wanted to become a writer?” flowed out of my mouth like water.

I think Randy was just as shocked as I was by how much I was just going on and on. It was like seeing him there flipped a switch in my mind. I apologized for asking so many questions, and I also apologized for distracting him from his work. He just waved it off and said it was no big deal. 

“I wasn’t doing much anyways,” he said. “I needed a distraction.” 

He answered my questions one by one. The more he spoke, the more I realized how enchanting his voice was. I could listen to him talk all day about the most mundane stuff imaginable and I wouldn’t find it grating or boring. Randy had a few questions of her own, and he was more than happy to answer. We could have gone on forever, but we needed to go back to work. 

He took the book off the table, signed it, and handed it over to me free of charge. I was so awestruck that my heart didn’t just skip a beat, it flatlined entirely. For a few seconds, I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience. 

Once I regained control of my senses I wanted to give Pat a hug, but I restrained myself. I had embarrassed myself too much already, plus I didn’t want to waste any more of his time.  

I gave him my thanks, we both said our goodbyes and I walked away. Randy did not leave me alone. She told me I had to keep talking to him, that he was clearly interested in me.  

I felt so ashamed at the thought. No one could be interested in me, plus I just met him. I still don’t see how anyone could be interested in me, so I’m not interested in anyone. I’m fine just sitting behind my cash register, watching Pat from afar.  

He’s been coming in a lot now. I guess he uses this place to help himself with his writing. He gives me a wave saying, “Hi, Abby,” and I wave back. Sometimes he has a cup of coffee, sometimes he has a scone on the side. 

I find myself daydreaming, just thinking about him, thinking about what he might be writing about. I sometimes wonder if he’s writing about me, but I know that’s ridiculous. 

Abby says we’d make a cute couple, but I just tell her that I doubt it.