Aug 4, 2003
Overseen
[what's the visual equivalent of eavesdropping anyway?]
When they get on the bus, near the bridge, I assume that they are together, because they are so close.
His pace matches hers exactly, and when she sits down on a seat near the back of the bus, I’m surprised that he does not join her. He takes a seat directly behind, and as the bus lurches off, propelling us forward in our seats, he closes his eyes, just for a millisecond longer than strictly required.
Perhaps he is tired. Perhaps he is dizzy from the heat. Or perhaps he is briefly inhaling her scent, which has settled softly over the back of the bus. We can all smell her sophisticated perfume, at odds with her faux-peasant cheesecloth skirt and strappy vest.
Her hair is blonde, tied into a high ponytail. Her skin is lightly tanned, with light golden hairs at the nape of her neck. I see him studying them from his position a couple of feet behind, exploring her nape with his eyes. She wears large, fashionable mirrored shades, and a South Pacific kitsch handbag encrusted with shell beads and the embroidered legend “Made in Paradise”.
He is dressed in standard labour gear – tracky bottoms, dusty t-shirt, boots. His hair is short, face red, eyes quick and fingernails chewed to the quick.
A stop goes by, and he switches seats to be parallel to her, directly in front of me. From this new position, he sneaks covert glances across the aisle at her soft profile.
Watching him watching her. Watching her watching him watching her: She knows.
He knows she knows. He shifts his gaze away, as if embarrassed. He holds his body straighter, shoulders squarer, with a certain cocky swagger about the way he sits, if that’s possible.
When he gets off the bus, two stops before us, and the terminus, I predict that he won’t be able to resist a final glance up at her, framed in the bus window.
The bus pulls away from the stop, glides by the pelican crossing where he waits, and I am proved right.
