Two people, former lovers, put together in a situation somewhat by choice and somewhat by lack of municipal parking.

I was on a Starbucks run for my comrades in the IT department. Needing cigarettes, I stopped at the CVS down the road for a quick purchase. There were other stores on the way - and the market across the street - but parking is typically brutal and by some strange cosmic force I'm always guaranteed a spot directly in front at the CVS. A quick scan of the parking lot suggested that she wasn't working that day. I breathed a small sigh of relief which was followed by guilt. No matter who she was, I shouldn't think about things that way. Especially since I had no real and lasting reason to hold any kind of negative feelings, anyway. The anger I'd felt was properly redirected at someone else long ago.

You never would could have guessed that we'd dated if you just viewed our interaction at the CVS as people did today. Looking up from the register, she saw me and smiled a cautious smile, nodded, and mouthed "hi." I could hear it over the din of the store noise - the chit-chat that Wilton women usually make when in line somewhere. Whether at CVS picking up some pens or at the Wilton Market picking up lunch, they always have someone or something to secretly discuss in public. Add up enough hushed voices and you tend to think that everyone in that location is talking about someone standing twenty feet from them and hoping the other party is engaged in enough gossip so that their conversation could be drowned out under the noise of the cashiers. "Twenty two dollars and forty three cents is your change. Have a nice day." "Did you find everything you needed?" "I can help the next person over here." "Here's your receipt." "Hello, I can help the next person over here."

The woman behind me interrupted her conversation long enough to nudge me. I walked to the rightmost lane, my eyes still on her on the other side of the row of registers. Just a couple years ago, I probably would have been waiting for her lunch break so we could go across the street and get a sandwich and some potato salad at the market. That's what I get when I go there at least. A BLT and half-pound of homemade potato salad. Totals just under $5 most times, variances being how close is close enough to a half-pound on any given day. We'd get our sandwiches and potato salad, and we'd go sit on a bench somewhere, watching the traffic or turning our backs to it, as the situation may call for either/or. After half an hour ended, I'd walk her back inside. She'd take her post at the register, ringing up an old woman's purchase of hair curlers, and I would patiently wait with a soda or candy bar in my hand in order to get those precious extra few seconds of interaction as she swiped her own Extra Care Card - for the employee discount, of course - and gave me my change.

"A pack of Marlboro Light 100's, please," I said to the cashier. He walked over, got them, and I pulled a five dollar bill out of my pocket. He asked to see ID, and as I brought my wallet out of my right rear pocket, she looked at me and I said, "Oh, just ask her, she knows I'm of age." In a feeble attempt to return humor, he quipped "Well then I really need to see your license." He saw it, checked my birth year twice, and handed it back to me. 53 cents later and I was making my way to the door sans soda, candy bar or much interaction. "You never called me," I said over the voices of the waiting gossipers. Things quieted down, and I suspected that I had given them something to talk about on the rest of their errands. Imagine the entire over-30-female population of Wilton talking about how the cute young cashier never returned a call to the smoker boy with the scraggly beard and unkempt hair.

She'd been home from college for quite some time, and the thought crossed my mind when I ran into her at the same place the day I left for DC. That day, I was at CVS to pick up some large sheets of paper or poster board, and some markers. She gave me that same quirky smile when I responded to her inquiry, "What do you need all that for?" After accepting my change, I had told her to give me a call sometime; we should hang out, you know, all that fun stuff that ex's who can still stand to see each other do after they've already dated each others best friends. Well, she hadn't called me. She responded with, "You're never on AIM without an away message." I knew it wasn't that. She knew she could leave a message, that I was probably near my computer but reading, etc. I said, "Well, I'll call you this weekend." Quicker than I could get the words out, she revealed "I'm going back to school this weekend."

Not that it matters, anyway. After the AIM comment, I probably wouldn't have called. I have a phone - two, in fact - that still work, and whether AIM or phone, I do respond to messages. I took the hint, the oh-so-subtle hint that all but one of the gossiping ladies had missed; she would most likely start sharing her observation about it later that day. Wilton would know in an instant what it's taken me over a year to figure out.

Two worlds colliding.

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