Diet Coke Break

After Number One wrought his havoc, there was The Lech. And then there was the Construction Worker.

My acquaintance with the Construction Worker began in a Diet Coke-esque way, approximately two months after I started grad school. The Powers That Be decided it would be a good idea to rehab the university's library from the bottom up, plunging it into construction for two years. These same Powers decided it would be a good idea for Construction Worker (henceforth CW) to be some sort of dock manager, in charge of the morning deliveries. A fortuitous choice, that bit, because it allowed me to see him nearly every morning on my way to class.

And see him I did. Oh. My. God. Beautiful eyes, handsome face, all muscle. The obligatory tight t-shirt. It is his fault I will forever carry a fetish for construction-worker-orange. Oh, how it set off his curly sand colored hair.

It wasn't long before I noticed he would stop his work to watch me pass. Why, I will never know. Certainly no man ever noticed me before, and none has since. But he did. Feeling his eyes on me was like sunshine warming your back on a spring day.

It was perfect luck that in the spring semester I landed a plum research position that involved spending many hours in the bowels of the library. You should have seen the look on CW's face the first time I bumped into him on the service elevator. Just priceless, that moment.

I am entirely convinced, even to this day, that my attraction to him would have been nothing more than a passing fancy if he hadn't gone out of his way to get my attention. There was the conspicuously stopping what he was doing in the mornings on the loading dock, the stopping me in the hallways to chat. As we got to be friends (or at least acquaintances), there was his complete recall of any detail I had mentioned about myself.

Eventually I even worked up the courage to ask him out to dinner. He said he would "love to" (direct quote!) but he didn't want to set a date right that moment. Nothing ever came of it, of course. And so the Head Games began.

For a while I felt bad, "Maybe," I thought to myself, "I'm guilty of some kind of sexual harassment. Maybe he's just being nice because he can't get away." But with almost clock-like precision, every time that thought crossed my mind he would do something that completely disproved the notion. I avoided him a bit after the rejected invitation, but CW took it upon himself to ferret out my workstation in the library. After that he would come and say hello almost every day. You don't do that if you're uncomfortable with someone, right? Right!?!?

As the semester came to an end, I couldn't bear the thought of not seeing him over the summer. I agreed to a few hours a week for research, and augmented my time in the library by studying one of the my program's required foreign languages. And still he would come and seek me out. Sometimes over lunch I would sit in the summer sun and read a book; on more than one occasion I caught him staring out the window in my direction.

With the beginning of school again, I decided (for a variety of reasons) that studying in the library instead of at home was best for me. I picked a spot near the construction break-room and set my routine. Except for class hours and work, that was where I could be found from 8 AM to 5 PM. And found I was. CW continued to go out of his way to talk to me nearly every day. (And what agony it was on the days he did not.) Always eager to see me, often flirtatious to a degree that would have been wildly unacceptable had I not been amenable. Once he even got yelled at by his boss for spending too much time with me.

After several weeks of this, I again screwed up my courage and asked him out. Again, he would "love to". But he was busy, and didn't know what his plans were, and he would get back to me. He avoided me for the rest of the week. On Monday, he was all repentance for not getting ahold of me, and we should "definitely" get together "sometime". Riiiiiight.

But I was addicted to his mega-watt smile, to his strong, calloused hands, to the tool-belted jingle of his walk. I could not bring myself to tell him where he could stuff his excuses.

And so things continued. Still with the flirty, now bordering on the touchy-feely. I might be sitting there with my books piled around, puzzling out the aorist tense within a subjunctive clause of some philosophical or legal treatise, and CW would sneak up behind me and give me a bear hug. Or tug my braid. Or swat my thigh. Once he even gave me a kiss on the cheek. These are not things you do to someone you don't like, right? Right?!?!?

It was about this time that on one rare day when I had left the library early to run errands, we passed each other driving on the road. This one afternoon my phone was off because of a low battery. This one day of all days CW chooses to call. He didn't leave a message. He never called again.

I will always wonder what that conversation might have been. Would he have asked me out? Would he have just chatted? Would he have hung up if I'd answered?

There was no mention of the call the next time we saw each other. I didn't have the guts to bring it up, and after seeing him a few times it would have been too awkward. We were still as friendly as always, though. I never did ask him out again. I finally got it into my thick skull that whatever his reasons were (the frontrunners among my friends were that he was gay, or married, or that I really was completely misreading him), my continuing to ask wasn't going to change anything.

Soon classes finished. I passed my certification exams. I stopped having a reason to come to the library. I missed CW terribly, but with the bittersweetness of knowing there would never be anything. Once, over the summer, I came stalking him but got distracted browsing the stacks. I sat right there in the aisle reading a book, and I was about halfway through it when he interrupted me. I got a rib-cracking bear hug, and a kiss on the cheek. He made me promise not to disappear on him again. He was probably sincere in that moment, but I know if he had wanted me in his life he would have called.

I think we saw each other briefly once or twice after that, joking and flirting as always. Eventually I got a Real Job, and stalking the library was out of the question. Not long after that, the library project was completed. I haven't seen or heard from CW since. Sometimes I wonder what he thought of me, or whether he still thinks of me from time to time. Somewhere, I have a photograph I took of him from one of the buildings overlooking his worksite. It was a pathetic, stalkerish thing to do, but I am glad that I did it. With his face sharp in my mind I can't forget I don't deserve head games. And, of course, I like to look on that curly sand colored hair and mega-watt smile.

I first laid eyes on CW six years ago this month. It has been a long journey, these six years. Although I am long since over him, I have not had a crush on anyone in all this time. I wonder sometimes if I ever will again.