Tired of waiting for me, I suppose, she asked if she could join me and sat down without waiting for an answer. We chatted about the conference for a few minutes. She extended an expensively-manicured hand and introduced herself as “Layna.” OK, OK, you may know what’s coming next but at that time I was tired and a bit fuzzy from the martinis. I introduced myself and mentioned that I had briefly corresponded with a Lena, who was a computer programmer, the previous summer.
Those unusual eyebrows raised a bit and as she looked at me her mouth dropped open and she said, “My God, somehow I should have known. You’re The Narrator, aren’t you?”
“You’re really THE Lena?” I asked, astounded. “The E-mail you sent me last summer was some of the most exciting stuff I’ve ever received. It made me feel like I was really there, watching you go through your transformation.” I looked her over carefully then. Seeing my more attentive posture, she turned her head from side-to-side, modeling to me.
“So you decided to let it grow out,” I observed. The loose curls were about three inches long, just about right for six or eight months of growth.
She smiled at me with a look of amused understanding. “No,” she said, “This is a wig. Underneath, I’m still shaved smooth. Let’s finish our drinks and go find dinner somewhere, I’m starved.”
As we were leaving the bar, she stopped in the ladies’ room. When she came out, about five minutes later, the wig was gone and her smooth, perfectly-shaped head was visible for all to see. She had removed the eyebrows too, and had applied heavier eye makeup to accentuate her eyes without them. She was so attractive that, even with her unusual appearance, she was gorgeous.
She placed her arm in mine, as the friends we were, and we went off to dinner. During the evening, I told Lena that I’d saved the notes she’d sent me concerning her shaving. I said that I’d like to include them in a story sometime, if she didn’t mind – maybe even get someone to write it down. She mentioned that several others had received similar notes from her so she had no objections as long as I didn’t reveal who she really was. Since I still didn’t know, that was obviously no problem.
Much later that evening, we walked back to the Boulderado Hotel, where we were both staying. In the lobby, she gave me a gentle kiss on the cheek, another beautiful smile, and we parted. In the morning, on a whim, I tried to contact her for breakfast, but she’d apparently checked out very early to get to the airport for an early flight home.
Epilog
I never learned Lena’s last name or where she lived. However, based on some of the things she said, her accent (or lack of it, really), and the flights leaving Denver during the time she departed (yes, I did check), I think she may have been from Cincinnati. That would make the place of her shaving Columbus, or, perhaps, Lexington, Kentucky.
I’ve visited Cincinnati, a lovely city that too few people discover, and have wandered around it some. There are a string of beautiful, high rise apartments, like a necklace around the Queen City’s throat, that extend east of downtown, high on a hillside above the broad Ohio River. One of the buildings is particularly lovely. Sometimes, at the end of the day, when the first hint of dusk creeps up to my window, I think of a high balcony of that tower. I picture Lena standing on that balcony, looking far out across the Kentucky hills beyond the river. She is wearing a wisp of a dress. Although there is no hair to blow in the wind, the breeze somehow moves her, and I see her sway in tempo with it. The door behind her slides open, and a tall, handsome man emerges, placing his hands on her narrow waist from behind. The barest of contented smiles appear on both their faces. They look out at the twinkling lights that scatter to the horizon. In my mind I hear Moon River play and I smile and go back to what I was doing, knowing that somewhere, even if not in Cincinnati, Lena is out there.
End
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Check out these new Giulia Napoli books, coming in 2012
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Ashley’s Wedding
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Oh Claire!
About the Author
Thirty-something Giulia Napoli grew up in East Lansing, Michigan where her father was a professor at Michigan State University. She has a Bachelors and a Masters degree in Journalism from a prestigious Great Lakes area university. While an undergraduate, Giulia studied abroad for three years – a year each in London, Florence, and Brussels. Her interest in the many forms of erotica started and grew during her time in Europe. She’s married to a totally non-nerdy industrial scientist and has a baby girl, her first child, on the way. She and her husband live in a major metropolitan area in the Great Lakes part of the USA.
Liked About Lena? Hated it? Just want to say hi? Don’t hesitate to Contact Giulia Napoli at:
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About Lena Page 3
