Free Following My Toes by Laurel Osterkamp

short sleeves exposed the tan skin of his arms, and I noticed that he had a small tattoo of a yin-yang on his left bicep. The light he was sitting under highlighted his prominent cheekbones and slightly large nose, but his casual attitude was the most noticeable thing in the room. He was reading a magazine, and the thick black rimmed, Elvis Costello type glasses he wore only added to his hipster look.
    “Hey,” I said. “What are you reading?”
    He looked up, and it took a second for the recognition to spread across his face. Then he gave me a crooked smile. “Hello Faith.” His voice sounded like warm maple syrup over Sunday morning pancakes.
    I faltered. What the hell was I doing? I couldn’t even decide if I was after him or not. He was the first guy who had piqued my interest since Peter, but even if he was actually interested, the last thing I should do was get involved with another flirtatious guy who confused me. I was setting myself up for hurt. Besides, it was too soon to be in another relationship, and I’m not the casual sex type. So I decided to actively resist sending signals of any type.
    “I’m here to pick up my Mazda 323,” I said in my strict teacher voice (and thus my least sexy voice).
    “Yeah, I remember.” He put down his magazine, and walked towards the wall where he kept the keys. In an after-thought he turned to me, and said, “Uh, I was reading Harpers.”
    I blurted out the first thing that came into my mind. Bad idea. “Wow, you read fashion magazines?”
    He responded. “No, you’re thinking of Harper’s Bazaar. This is Harpers, part of the liberal press.”
    “Right, yeah, I knew that. I always confuse it, I assume because the titles are so much the same, you know? Maybe they ought to change the name of one of the magazines, to distinguish them. Like, rather than being Harpers, it could be Sreprah, which is Harpers in reverse. That would be a lot less confusing.” Pause. Ethan looked at me like I was as odd as I felt. “So, um, are you like this liberal political guy then? Or is it your cousin’s magazine?”
    He gave me another crooked smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “No, it’s mine. I like to read up on both sides of the issue.”
    “Oh, so do you watch Fox news for the conservative side?”
    “I don’t watch a lot of television.”
    The phone rang. “Excuse me,” he said, picking it up. “Honest Abe’s!” he answered. “Hey.” His voice immediately lost its previous enthusiasm. He turned his back to me, the tension growing in his voice as the conversation progressed. “Yeah, I can’t talk right now. (pause) No, I have a customer. (pause) Yeah, I really do. (pause) What, do you want me to put her on? (pause) Look, I’ll call you back. (long pause) That’s completely unfair. (pause) No. (pause) No! ( another long pause) Look, I’m calling you back. Goodbye.”
    He slammed down the phone and turned back towards me. He was now wearing all of the tension that had been in his voice; his shoulders were hunched and his smile was gone. He didn’t make eye-contact as he spoke, his voice now projecting cyanide rather than syrup.
    “Sorry. That will come to one hundred and fifty bucks. On the nose.”
    I handed him my credit card. The silence between us as he ran my card through was uncomfortable, but I had no idea what I should say. So again, I stupidly said the first thing that popped into my brain. “Do you ever wonder where that expression comes from, ‘on the nose’? I mean, did people used to put exact amounts of things on their noses? The English language is so odd, it never ceases to amaze me.”
    “It’s an idiom,” he said, as he handed me the slip of paper to sign, along with my credit card.
    “What?” I had already lost my train of thought.
    “On the nose, it’s an idiom.” He spoke in the same impatient way he had first spoken to me the day before. I looked up from the desk and realized he wasn’t even looking at me. Instead, he