Yesterday, I as was stepping out of Penn Station on my way to work, I noticed that the woman walking a few steps ahead of me appeared, from the rear at least, rather pretty. And as we started to walk up 8th Avenue, it seemed that our routes to work overlapped, so I got to follow her, without actual following her.
This reminded me of something which happened a few years ago, when I worked a bit further up Eighth Avenue, and bicycled rather than walked the distance. That day, right out of Penn Station, I came upon another cyclist, a woman with red hair. She was a bit stronger cyclist than I was (I had just bought my first bicycle in 30 years, while she had clearly been doing it for a while), so at every green light, she would pull ahead of me, and at every red light, I’d catch up. This continued the 25 blocks up 8th Ave to my office. After catching up to her a couple times, she started to give me dirty looks, and I was convinced that she was starting to think I was a stalker, so as I approached 56th St, I felt relived that I’d be turning off 8th soon, and she could continue on her way up without someone unintentionally following her. Except she turn down 56th street also. And, then, even more surprisingly, pulled into the loading dock of my office building, just feet ahead of me. We then, in silence, locked our bicycles up on the same bike rack, just feet apart, and then went about our business on separate floors of the building. A few months later, we did the parallel ride again, and I saw her once or twice in the building cafeteria. Never did speak to her.
Which bring as back to today, and the possibly pretty woman walking a few steps ahead of me up 8th Ave, and who was still there as I ended my daydream about past cycling adventures, as I approached my office building, this time a mere 5 blocks from Penn Station at 38th street. And as I silently bid her back a farewell as I prepared to turn into the door of the building–she did something surprising. She turned into the building as well.
The elevator ride up demonstrated that she works five floors below me - and that she really was pretty when viewed from the front. Didn’t speak to her either.