Three And A Half Feet

She was too pretty.

And it wasn't her hair which caught the light perfectly, or her smile which was too shy to be a laugh, but just wide enough to allow a sliver of white teeth to glint in between her cherry-colored lips, and it wasn't her eyes either, or her legs or chest or whatever guys find attractive about a woman's body.

It wasn't even her voice, dammit, which graced our entire building with a semi-pleasant rendition of the latest pop hits.

I didn't think I'd ever tolerate Shawn Mendes every Tuesday night, accompanied by the roar of the shower going, but I did.

Because it was her.

Now, it wasn't like I'd drag her to The Voice or American Idol or some other reality show I pretended to despise and made sarcastic remarks about but secretly binge-watched on my cheap IKEA couch - suffice to say she was my neighbor, not Nicki Minaj.

But it really didn't matter.

It was her.

After about six months of her moving in had I realized it was my weekly Tuesday Ritual to stop what I was doing, because on Tuesdays she came home later, when I was already home, around 6 p.m., and I'd find myself sitting there, waiting for the shower to go on, and then listen to a slightly off-pitch, yet passionate shower-song.

And it didn't matter that she got the bridge from Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" wrong (I loved the nostalgia of early 2010s songs).

It didn't matter.

It was the most curious thing. She wasn't pretty because of her butt or her legs either, or those blue jeans she wore that stopped just above her ankles, which were always clad in some colorful, homemade hippie-bracelet, or, well, anklet, I suppose...and it wasn't just the way she tucked her glossy curls behind her ear early in the morning on her balcony, her meditative stare fixed on the street below, occasionally taking a slow sip from that "American Idol" mug, before glancing at her phone, letting out the most musical-sounding list of swear words I'd ever heard, then dashing back inside, still cursing.

What followed were the usual thumps and crashes, the jangle of keys, then hectic steps towards the elevator.

She spent all her mornings on the balcony to my left, watering the petunias and roses it was covered with, and I sat on my plastic white chair, only a few terrifying feet away, the only thing separating us a wall of flowers and a rickety railing.

She was just so pretty and interesting and perfect, and my mouth was too dry to talk and my palms too sweaty to shake hands.

In the six months she'd sung in the shower and drunk coffee on her balcony and watered her flowers and cussed looking for her keys, we hadn't talked.

I always wanted to drop a perfectly-timed, witty, flirtatious comment, maybe as the sun bled out along the skyline one warm evening and a random musician below us strummed his guitar, something super casual, like "I enjoy Katy Perry, too" or "I love petunias!"

But every time she was on her balcony when I was, with those stupid hippie-anklets and her rose-trimming devices, and I so desperately wanted that shy-but-not-really-shy smile to come my way, I just couldn't.

I didn't have to, though.

Because it was quarantine, and she was always home, and so was I, and every night was a Katy-Perry-concert-night through the flimsy apartment walls, now, and I was watching her tend to her roses, every day, like the total dork I am - but when she said, "Hello, neighbor", I almost toppled over the railing and onto the deserted crosswalk below.

"Hi, there."

Who was I, her dad? I should say something funny.

"Didn't see you there."

Not funny. In the least. Also the BIGGEST lie. I always saw her there.

"We haven't talked, I don't think," she said.

She was being nice. Way too nice. And, oh, my god, her hand reached through the wall of petals and stems and flower-pots, and then her face followed, her hair gently hugging her jaw, and then she smiled, shyly, kindly, and in that moment, with those stupid petunias and roses, I considered launching myself out of my chair and down into the streets, because I couldn't speak, just stare at her, this random girl who had been my ghost-neighbor for months now and hadn't spoken a word to me.

"We haven't?" I wondered out loud, somehow procured a smile that I prayed wasn't creepy, and shook her hand.

"No. And we're neighbors! We live, like, three feet apart!"

Three and a half, actually. Not that I had measured.

"We're not supposed to shake hands," I said.

I was an idiot. She jerked back.

"Oh, you're so right!" She laughed. "I'm so stupid."

"You like flowers?" I asked, gesturing to the maze of flower pots overpowering her balcony.

"Quite."

"Cool," I said, "cool, cool."

I started sweating.

"Hey, you know, I'm gonna go get a coffee and just...sit. Wanna join?"

And she smiled again and brushed her hair back, which seemed to melt in the evening sun, and holy cow, how was it genetically possible for a human being to be this beautiful?

"Do you?" she prompted.

Did I!?

"I'll be right back."

And I was, right back, I mean, with my Avengers mug, and she was there with her "American Idol" mug, and we sat there, the smell of petunias and roses and coffee making the air heavy, and we watched the skyline.

"Quarantine sucks," she said after a while. I inched my chair closer to her balcony.

"But without it, you would have never asked me to drink my last coffee with you, though," I said, "And we wouldn't have noticed each other."

Well, one of us. She chuckled indignantly.

"That is so not true!"

"It is, though!" I protested, "What's my name?"

She opened her mouth, blew out some air, then grinned in defeat. "I can't believe this, we are NEIGHBORS and we haven't even drunk coffee together. And we don't know each others' names!"

"I know, crazy, right?"

"Super crazy."

"Crazy In Love."

"What?"

My heart stopped.

"- uh - the Beyonce song you were singing in the shower yesterday - I don't - I didn't - "

So much for a witty punchline.

"You heard that?" she gasped and threw her head back, "oh, my..." She stared into her coffee, smiling awkwardly.

"Who didn't?" I joked.

"If I could, I'd punch you right now."

"Thank you, Corona, for protecting me from this Petunia Lady!"

"Ooh, borderline-offensive joke, there, buddy!"

She smiled again, and the sun was setting and the petunias were blooming, and I could smell coffee and non-polluted air because there were no cars, and she was smiling at me, and it wasn't polite or shy, it was wide and enlarged her whole face and reached her eyes and made them seem way glowy-er than before.

And she looked at me and smiled, and I wish there was more to say about us, and this might not seem like much of a story, but the thing is, sometimes you meet a person who is a story simply by existing and breathing and drinking coffee and watering pink petunias and talking to you on evenings when you're not allowed to go anywhere.