The Green Eyed Smiler

Kristy recalls meeting a man with quite a different view on life through rather gorgeous and perturbing green eyes.

Kristy also recalled, with a wry smile, the many other times she’d found herself in a tight spot, between a rattlesnake and a cactus as she termed it. Her first impulse had always been " and probably would always be " to lash out, fight back, analyse, argue, hatch plans and campaigns and keep wading in till her opponent was either overwhelmed with her furious logic or gave up because they cared a little less. Like the time they’d tried to close down the maternity annexe at her local hospital, making expectant women travel another fifty miles, to a strange city, to have their checkups, babies and follow-ups. Also, Kristy would have had to move house to work in the new hospital. The fight seemed to go on forever with Kristy leading the charge with pickets, radio and television interviews, petitions, interminable submissions to the hospital board and to assorted politicians and, all the while, she had to keep up her frantic work schedule.

Slumped over a coffee in an all night diner, after a late shift, a smiling man … actually, rather a sweet, smiling man, she realised when she eventually looked up from the red and white gingham table cloth … asked her if she was okay.

Of course I’m okay she thinks and then said, “I always sit crying into my cold coffee at Godforsaken times of the night! Doesn’t everyone?”

“Do you mind if I sit here?” he probably said, with a coffee in one hand and brief case in the other.

“Mmm, not really, I guess,” she’d said, not being able to think of a good reason to send him away. And not really wanting to find a reason to have his cute butt on the red vinyl opposite her.

He’d sat and smiled those deep, green, caring eyes at her and she let him have it " the whole drama of the twerps at the hospital and the poor women and the staffing problems and her having to move house and politicians who didn’t care and ordinary people who did and who else was there to save the hospital and the town and, and, and … all the rage and frustration she’d kept locked up inside just exploded out all over his deep green eyes and his coffee. She eventually stopped, realised she was shooting at the wrong person and started apologising at a hundred miles an hour as the most acute embarrassment kicked in.

He held up his hand and smiled like God would have " fatherly, gently, understandingly. He held the pose for another minute while her apologies tailed off and eventually died a sorry death.

“And that’s working for you?” he asked evenly, without sympathy.

“Of course it’s not working for me,” Kristy blurted. “It’s disrupting peoples’ lives …” and away she went again, repeating her diatribe and up went his hand again, waiting.

“So if that approach isn’t working, why not try another?” he asked.

Logical b*****d, she thought.

“But I’ve tried absolutely everything I can think of,” she whined. “Everything that all of us can think of. We’ve brainstormed and researched and …”

“And you’ve forgotten the most effective thing of all, then,” he said, interrupting and smiling that Goddamn God-like smile. She couldn’t help smiling back, despite him really beginning to annoy her.

“Okay, smart arse, what have we missed?” she asked coolly.

“Probably the obvious. It’s usually that which we miss,” he said.

My God, she thought, he thinks he’s Moses or Gandhi or some wise twerp. She forced her mouth to stay shut lest the next utterance scare him. He really was rather gorgeous, despite his annoying Godliness.

“Think about it like this,” he said as if explaining to a five-year-old. “You are determined to get your way. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of others want this. Maybe thousands will suffer if the change is to go through. There is huge passion from a huge number of people and there is simple logic on your side. Right?”

“Aah, yeah,” she said, uncertainly.

“And those for the plan are a tiny minority, by number. An influential minority, of course, but a tiny minority nonetheless?” he asked, his beguiling eyes holding hers.

“Yeah, right,” she said as a weird feeling washed over her " that her battle had been won.

“So, against such huge passion and logic, that minority can never win,” he said. “In the long term they can never win. They never have and they never will.” He said it with such finality, such calm detachment, she believed him in that moment.

“You think so?” she asked dumbly.

“I know so,” he said and then returned to his coffee as if their conversation and her whole campaign was over.

“So what do I do now? What do we do now?” she asked, feeling like a child asking her daddy.

“That’s always your question, isn’t it,” he said. “What do I do now?”

“And what’s wrong with that?” she asked sitting up straight, feeling irked.

“Simply that asking what to do avoids the greatest solution of all,” he said, smiling.

“Which is what?” she asked as she thought, ‘smug b*****d.’

“Do nothing,” he said as he sat back and took a long dreamy sip of his coffee.

“Do nothing?” she asked, sitting forward, staring at him. “Doing nothing? This is what this whole stupid conversation is about. Doing damned all?”

“That really annoys you, doesn’t it?” he said showing his teeth for the first time. She was afraid he’d start laughing at her soon. “After all the mental and physical effort you’ve invested in this project and now a stranger, a smart arse like me, tells you to do nothing. That really smarts. That really hurts doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess it does,” she said quietly as she imagined him climbing right into her brain and seeing everything she was thinking.

“And I’m going to make a wild guess, right now, you passionate woman, you,” he said putting his empty cup on the saucer. “You’ve never done nothing. You’ve always taken on the weight of the world and done, done, done because no one else will. Am I close?”

“Yeah, you might be,” she mumbled into her now-empty cup, ever more certain he was one of those weird, spooky psychic types.

“Look, I’m not psychic and I don’t see your thoughts,” he said quietly, seriously. “You told me your story and your story tells all. Another coffee?”

“What? Aah, yes thanks,” she said because no other useful words would come to mind.

“Same again? Latte?” he asked as he stood and took their cups.

“Thanks,” she said, realising her limited vocabulary was shrinking further.

As he left she realised she really, really, really wanted to cry and didn’t know why. A hundred reasons came to mind " rage, relief, anger, man climbing round in her brain, stupid politicians, man stating the blindingly obvious, thoughtless hospital board members, gorgeous smiling man " but the reason that stayed there, fixed in her mind while the others filed on through, was coming home, whatever that meant. Whatever the reason, she was not, not, not going to cry … just not damned well going to cry as she pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped her eyes. Just tiredness, she reasoned.

He returned with a coffee and a chocolate brownie, her favourite.

“Now, I need to issue a public health warning,” he said as he sat down, smiling that damned (charming) smile again. “You’re going to have to put up with me for the duration of a whole coffee and I don’t promise it will be any less upsetting than the previous cup. You up for that?”

“Can I take a rain check?” she asked, determined to smile at least twice tonight. “I can always leave a half-finished coffee, you know.”

“You could but you won’t,” he said with certainty. “You never leave anything unfinished.”

“Okay, Mr Smart Arse, since you know everything about me, what’s my name?” Kristy asked.

“I haven’t a clue but mine’s Bill,” he said. “But you don’t have to tell me yours if you don’t want to.”

“Well, I damned well will anyway. Mine’s Kristy,” she said. “So what do you do?”

“Oh, I go around upsetting young ladies, late at night,” he said, sitting back with a huge grin. “The pay’s lousy but the benefits are unequalled.”

“You know all about me but you won’t tell me about you,” she said, challenging him with another smile.

“Yeah, sorry, you’re right,” he said. “It’s nothing mysterious. I’m a reporter who really wants to be a writer, a writer of books that move and astound people.”

“And you’re here at this time of night because?” she asked, getting as many details as possible.

“I’ve just interviewed two victims of a domestic fire downtown,” he said. “I thought I’d write up my report, over a coffee, but I was distracted.”

“And you’re going to write your books by doing nothing, I presume?” she asked, returning to her more plucky self as her inner baby grew up.

“In a way,” he said, rubbing his chin. “It’s not really about doing nothing, as such. It’s not sitting on a mountain top meditating the world into existence. It’s more about getting the hell out of our own way, listening to that still, quiet voice inside.”

“Still, quiet voice,” she said, savouring the phrase.