Lucas noticed her because of the shoes.
They were white once, he thought.
Now they were the gray brown color of sidewalks after rain, split along the sides and darkened around the toes. One lace was missing. The other had been tied around the ankle twice, as though that might keep the shoe together a little longer.
Lucas saw them while waiting for the light to change.
He had been looking down.
He often looked down in crowded places.
At thirty years old, he had mostly stopped thinking about why.
The woman was sitting against the wall of an old bank building on the opposite corner, perhaps twenty feet from him. People passed between them continuously. Office workers carrying paper cups. A young couple walking too slowly for everyone behind them. A delivery cyclist pushing his bicycle onto the curb. Two women laughing at something on a phone.
Nobody looked at the woman.
Lucas did.
Only because of the shoes.
The light changed.
He crossed with everyone else.
It was a Saturday in early October, one of those unexpectedly warm autumn days when the city seemed reluctant to admit that summer had ended. Lucas had driven in that morning without much of a reason. He did that sometimes. Staying home for too many consecutive days made the walls feel closer, although he rarely knew what to do once he left them.
So he drove.
He had eaten lunch alone at a small Japanese restaurant, bought a coffee he didn't particularly want, and spent nearly an hour walking without a destination.
It was a habit he had developed during the past few years.
Walk somewhere.
Sit somewhere.
Watch people who appeared to have somewhere else to be.
Then go home.
He was halfway across the intersection when he looked at the woman again.
Her knees were drawn toward her chest. An oversized coat covered most of her body despite the warmth. Beside her sat a plastic shopping bag and a faded backpack. A paper cup rested near her right foot, though Lucas couldn't tell whether it was for coffee or money.
Her hair hung across her face.
He walked past.
Three steps.
Four.
Five.
Then stopped.
Someone nearly walked into him.
"Come on, man."
"Sorry."
Lucas moved toward the building and out of the flow of pedestrians.
He looked back.
The woman had not moved.
Something had happened in those few seconds, something too small for him to identify. Perhaps she had lifted her head. Perhaps it was the shape of her cheek. Perhaps nothing had happened at all.
Lucas stared.
No.
He continued walking.
He made it nearly half a block.
Then he stopped again.
This is stupid, he thought.
He turned around.
The woman was still there.
From this distance, there was nothing remarkable about her. She might have been thirty. She might have been forty five. Her face was thin, her skin weathered beyond what he would have expected for someone his age. Strands of tangled hair covered one eye.
Lucas felt something uncomfortable move through his chest.
He walked closer.
Not directly toward her.
He stopped near the entrance of a pharmacy and pretended to look through the window.
The woman shifted.
She raised one hand and pushed the hair away from her face.
Lucas forgot the pharmacy.
There are faces a person remembers deliberately.
A mother's face. A father's. A first girlfriend. A best friend.
And then there are faces remembered without permission.
Faces stored somewhere by repetition and emotion until they become part of the architecture of a particular time in one's life.
Jennifer Hale had been one of those faces.
Lucas had not seen her in twelve years.
He had not spoken to her in longer than that, if what they had exchanged in high school could reasonably be called speaking.
But he knew.
Or thought he knew.
"No," he whispered.
The woman looked toward the traffic.
Lucas studied her profile.
His certainty disappeared.
Jennifer had been beautiful.
Not merely pretty in the generous way adults described teenagers. She had possessed the kind of beauty that reorganized the social environment around her. Boys noticed when she entered a room. Girls noticed boys noticing. Teachers remembered her. Strangers smiled at her.
Lucas had noticed everything.
Her hair had been lighter then, especially during the summers. She wore it long. She laughed with her entire face. When she smiled, the left corner of her mouth rose slightly before the right.
He remembered that.
Why did he remember that?
He remembered the blue sweater she wore in tenth grade.
He remembered her standing at a locker with three other girls.
He remembered a school assembly when she sat two rows ahead of him and whispered something to her friend until both of them started laughing.
He remembered pretending not to watch her.
He remembered watching her constantly.
The woman against the wall looked nothing like that girl.
Except she did.
Lucas remained beside the pharmacy window for nearly a minute.
Go ask her, he thought.
Then another thought came immediately.
And say what?
Hi, are you Jennifer Hale, the girl I barely knew fifteen years ago?
And if she wasn't Jennifer?
He would embarrass a stranger who was already sitting on a sidewalk while hundreds of people pretended she didn't exist.
And if she was?
Lucas found that possibility much worse.
He started walking again.
This time he made it to the next intersection.
He waited for the light.
When it changed, he did not cross.
A family passed around him.
The signal counted down.
Eight.
Seven.
Six.
Lucas turned back.
He hated himself a little for it.
Not for returning.
For having walked away.
He approached slowly.
The woman noticed him when he was perhaps ten feet away.
Her eyes moved toward him and then immediately elsewhere.
Lucas stopped.
Up close, uncertainty returned.
Her cheeks were hollow. There were small marks on her skin. Her lips were dry and cracked. Dirt had gathered beneath her fingernails. Her hair looked as though it had not been properly washed in weeks.
Maybe months.
Lucas tried to reconcile this face with the seventeen year old girl in his memory.
He couldn't.
He almost left again.
Then the woman tucked her hair behind her left ear.
Something inside him dropped.
Jennifer used to do that.
He had watched her do it while reading.
While taking tests.
While sitting in the library.
While talking to friends.
Always the left ear.
The absurdity of recognizing someone from a gesture made him doubt himself even more.
He stood there long enough that she finally looked up.
Her eyes met his.
Lucas knew.
The years disappeared with frightening speed.
He was sixteen again.
Too skinny.
Too short.
Standing beside his locker pretending to search his backpack because Jennifer was walking toward him.
He could feel the old nervousness in his stomach.
It was ridiculous.
He was thirty years old.
He had negotiated transactions worth more money than his parents had earned in years. He could watch six figures disappear from an account before breakfast without raising his heart rate.
Yet looking into Jennifer Hale's eyes made him forget what to do with his hands.
She looked away.
Lucas swallowed.
"Jennifer?"
Nothing.
Perhaps she had not heard him.
"Jennifer Hale?"
Her shoulders tightened.
Lucas saw it.
Not much.
But enough.
He stepped closer.
"Jennifer?"
She stared at the pavement.
Lucas's heart began beating faster.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I thought you were someone I knew."
No response.
He waited.
The city continued around them.
A bus groaned away from the curb. Somewhere behind him, a horn sounded. The smell of roasted nuts drifted from a cart farther down the block.
Lucas suddenly felt cruel.
Whoever she was, she clearly did not want to talk to him.
"Sorry," he said again.
He turned.
"Lucas."
He stopped.
For several seconds, he did not move.
He had imagined hearing Jennifer Hale say his name many times when he was young.
In those fantasies, she said it across a classroom, or at a party, or years later at some reunion where Lucas had somehow become taller, funnier and more interesting.
She had never said it like this.
Barely above a whisper.
He turned around.
Jennifer was looking at him now.
There was no smile.
"Yeah," Lucas said.
His voice sounded strange to him.
"It's me."
Jennifer lowered her eyes.
Lucas waited for something else.
Nothing came.
"You remember me?"
It was a stupid question.
She had just said his name.
Jennifer rubbed her thumb repeatedly across the side of her index finger.
"You were in my class."
"Yeah."
"Middle school too."
Lucas stared at her.
"Yeah."
"You sat behind Kevin in biology."
He almost laughed from surprise.
"Tenth grade."
Jennifer nodded.
Lucas had spent years believing he had been nearly invisible to her.
Apparently he had occupied at least one chair in her memory.
He wanted to ask a hundred questions.
What happened?
How long have you been here?
Where do you live?
Where are your parents?
Are you okay?
The last question was so obviously absurd that he nearly hated himself for thinking it.
Instead he said, "It's been a long time."
Jennifer looked toward the street.
"Twelve years."
Lucas glanced at her.
"You know how long?"
"No."
"But you just said twelve."
"I guessed."
"Oh."
Silence returned.
Lucas put his hands into his pockets.
Jennifer glanced at them.
Something about the movement made him remove them again.
"I almost didn't recognize you," he said.
The moment the words left his mouth, he regretted them.
Jennifer's face hardened.
"Yeah."
"I didn't mean..."
"I know what you meant."
"No, I mean I haven't seen you since..."
"You don't have to explain."
Lucas stopped.
He had always been bad at conversations.
Apparently money had not fixed that.
Jennifer pulled her coat closer around herself.
Lucas looked at the paper cup near her shoe.
There were three coins inside.
He looked away quickly.
She noticed.
"You don't have to give me anything."
"I wasn't..."
"You were looking at the cup."
Lucas felt his face warming.
"I was."
"I don't need anything."
"Okay."
Jennifer looked at him suspiciously, as though she had expected an argument.
Lucas nodded toward the sidewalk beside her.
"Can I sit?"
She frowned.
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"There's a bench over there."
Lucas looked.
There was indeed a bench perhaps thirty feet away.
"Okay."
He walked to it.
Jennifer watched him with visible confusion.
Lucas sat.
For several seconds neither of them spoke.
Then Jennifer said, "I meant you could sit on the bench instead."
"I know."
"You're weird."
Lucas smiled.
"You remember that too?"
She almost smiled.
Almost.
Lucas noticed it anyway.
For several minutes, he simply sat there.
He wasn't sure why.
Jennifer occasionally looked toward him, then away. People passed between them. Lucas checked his phone once, not because he had received anything but because silence made him feel he should be doing something.
The market had closed yesterday afternoon.
Nothing required him.
Nothing ever really required him on Saturdays.
He put the phone away.
"Do you live around here?" he asked.
Jennifer's expression changed.
It happened quickly, but Lucas saw it.
"I stay around here."
The distinction landed heavily.
"Okay."
"You?"
"About an hour away."
"What are you doing here?"
"Nothing."
Jennifer looked at him.
"Nothing?"
"I drove in."
"For what?"
"Didn't really have a reason."
"People don't drive an hour for no reason."
"I do."
She considered this.
"Still weird."
"Probably."
Another silence.
Lucas studied the traffic rather than her.
He had learned enough in the past ten minutes to understand that direct questions made something close inside her.
So he waited.
Eventually Jennifer spoke.
"You look different."
Lucas turned.
"Hopefully."
"You were really skinny."
"I still am."
"No."
He smiled.
"I appreciate that."
"And you had that haircut."
"What haircut?"
She made a vague motion above her forehead.
Lucas laughed.
"Oh God."
Jennifer smiled.
This time there was no question.
It transformed her face.
Not completely.
Not magically.
But for one second Lucas saw her.
The Jennifer from the hallway.
The girl laughing beside her locker.
The girl he had spent four years trying not to stare at.
Then the smile disappeared.
Lucas felt an ache he couldn't explain.
"You remember my haircut?"
"It was bad."
"Apparently traumatic enough to survive twelve years."
Jennifer looked down.
"Some things stay."
There was something in the way she said it that Lucas did not understand.
He let the sentence remain between them.
Lucas remembered the first time he had noticed Jennifer.
Seventh grade.
She had stood at the front of English class giving a presentation about a book he had not read. She spoke without notes.
Lucas couldn't understand how anyone could do that.
When it was his turn the following week, his hands shook badly enough that the paper rattled.
Jennifer had not laughed.
That was the embarrassing thing about his crush. There had been no great moment that caused it.
She had never rescued him from bullies.
Never secretly befriended him.
Never kissed him behind the gym.
She had simply existed near him during the years when everything felt enormous.
He had liked her first because she was beautiful.
Later because she seemed to possess everything he lacked.
Ease.
Confidence.
Belonging.
Jennifer moved through school as if the building had been designed with her in mind.
Lucas moved through it trying not to obstruct anyone.
By high school, his feelings had become an embarrassing private fact.
His friends knew, of course.
Teenage boys were incapable of keeping such things private.
Once, in eleventh grade, his friend Daniel had threatened to tell her.
Lucas had grabbed Daniel's backpack and nearly pulled him down a staircase.
The memory made him smile.
"What?"
Lucas looked up.
Jennifer was watching him.
"What?"
"You smiled."
"Just remembered something."
"What?"
"Nothing."
"About me?"
Lucas hesitated.
Jennifer's expression changed into something unexpectedly familiar.
Amusement.
"You had a crush on me."
Lucas stared.
Jennifer smiled wider.
For the first time since he had recognized her, she looked almost mischievous.
"How do you know that?"
"Everybody knew."
"No they didn't."
"Lucas."
He felt sixteen again.
"You never said anything."
"You never said anything."
"I could barely speak to you."
"I know."
"You knew?"
Jennifer shrugged.
"People talk."
Lucas covered his face briefly with one hand.
"Fantastic."
Jennifer laughed.
The sound stopped him.
It was quieter than he remembered.
Rougher.
But it was her laugh.
Lucas looked at her.
Jennifer noticed.
Her laughter stopped.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You keep looking at me."
"Sorry."
"I don't look like that anymore."
Lucas knew immediately what she meant.
He wanted to tell her she was still beautiful.
The sentence rose almost automatically.
He stopped it.
Not because it was untrue.
Because he suddenly understood how it might sound.
He looked toward the street.
"No," he said.
Jennifer's expression tightened.
Lucas continued.
"None of us do."
For a moment she said nothing.
Then she looked away.
"Some people change more than others."
Lucas had no answer.
A little after four, the sunlight began disappearing behind the buildings.
The temperature dropped quickly.
Lucas noticed Jennifer pulling her hands into the sleeves of her coat.
He also noticed something else.
She had been watching people carrying food.
Not obviously.
A man walked past with a sandwich wrapped in paper.
Jennifer's eyes followed it.
A woman came out of a bakery carrying a small box.
Again, Jennifer looked.
Lucas pretended not to notice.
He checked the time.
"I'm hungry."
Jennifer said nothing.
"Do you know anywhere good around here?"
"There's food everywhere."
"That's the problem."
"What?"
"Too many choices."
Jennifer gave him the faintest look of disbelief.
Lucas stood.
"I'm going to get something."
"Okay."
"Come with me."
Her entire body seemed to become still.
Lucas immediately realized he had moved too quickly.
"I mean, if you want."
"No."
"Okay."
He nodded.
No argument.
No persuasion.
He began walking.
"Lucas."
He turned.
Jennifer was staring at him.
"What?"
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why are you doing this?"
"Getting food?"
"Don't."
Lucas waited.
She looked angry now.
Not furious.
Defensive.
"You saw me sitting here. You recognized me. Now you feel bad."
Lucas opened his mouth.
Jennifer continued.
"You don't have to."
"I'm not."
"Yes, you are."
"Jennifer..."
"I don't need you feeling sorry for me."
Several pedestrians looked toward them.
Jennifer noticed and lowered her voice.
"I don't need charity."
Lucas stood quietly.
He thought about denying it.
Of course he felt sorry for her.
How could he not?
But saying otherwise would be insulting.
So he chose something closer to the truth.
"When I was sixteen, I probably would've given a kidney for you to have lunch with me."
Jennifer stared at him.
Lucas shrugged.
"Seems stupid to waste the opportunity now."
For several seconds she said nothing.
Then, despite herself, she laughed.
Lucas smiled.
"That's not funny," she said.
"A little."
"You were not that pathetic."
"I absolutely was."
Jennifer shook her head.
The tension had broken, but only partly.
Lucas pointed down the street.
"No charity. No questions. I'm hungry. You can eat with me if you want."
"What kind of food?"
"I don't know."
"You invited me."
"I wasn't prepared."
"You drove an hour into the city without knowing why, walked past me twice, came back, sat on a bench for half an hour, and now you're inviting me somewhere you haven't picked."
Lucas blinked.
"You saw me walk past?"
Jennifer looked almost offended.
"Twice."
"I thought you weren't looking at me."
"I wasn't."
Lucas smiled.
"Right."
She narrowed her eyes.
For another moment, she looked astonishingly like the girl he remembered.
Then she looked down at herself.
The change in her face was immediate.
Her hands disappeared farther into her sleeves.
"I can't go anywhere like this."
Lucas understood.
It was perhaps the first thing she had said that afternoon that he understood completely.
"We don't have to go somewhere fancy."
"That's not what I mean."
"I know."
Jennifer stared at the sidewalk.
People passed them carrying shopping bags, wearing clean coats, talking into expensive phones.
Lucas waited.
He resisted every instinct to solve the problem for her.
Finally Jennifer said, "There's a place two blocks down."
"What kind?"
"Chinese."
"Good?"
"It's cheap."
"I asked if it's good."
She shrugged.
"I like it."
"Then it's good."
Lucas waited.
Jennifer did not move.
He realized something.
Her backpack.
Her plastic bag.
Everything she possessed,