I

When he strolled past her counter during his lunch hour today, she was just looking up from tidying the display case. Their eyes met, and she smiled at him.

She smiled at him!

Joseph leans back against his custom-made Italian leather chair and swivels in elation. She had smiled at him! That makes three times this week!

Joseph has taken to window-shopping at the mammoth ground level of the departmental store located within the same building as his office during his lunch hour. The ground level of the departmental store is a maze of designer cosmetic and perfume counters.

And she works at one of those counters.

He knows her work schedule by heart: on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, she works the first shift and knocks off at seven-fifteen (but she usually dallies around until around seven-forty); on Wednesdays, Fridays and the weekends, she works the second shift, starting at one and ending at whatever time the departmental store closes (ten on weekdays and eleven on weekends). The day he does not see her around, he knows it is her day off. She gets one day off every week, but typical of the retail profession, her off-days are erratic.

Joseph had noticed her on her very first day of work, when she did not yet have her present uniform of a red and black skirt suit and had worn an all-black ensemble instead. Most of the temporary or trainee staff usually wore tight black pants and a low-cut top, but she – she was effortlessly more elegant and sophisticated in her black turtlenecks and calf-length skirts. While the other girls wore ridiculously tall and awkward-looking platforms that were all the rage in the local fashion scene, she wore innocently sexy Mary Janes with sensible heels.

Two weeks after Joseph first saw her at her counter, she started wearing a uniform of a paint-the-town-red red jacket and a black pleated knee-length skirt. Joseph thought she looked even more stunning in red; while black had lent her an ethereal and somber elegance, the red brings her magnificence to life.

It was not her comeliness that Joseph first noticed but her height. Although she was almost a head taller than most of the salesgirls in her low heels - and, sometimes, even the vertically challenged local men - her posture has never once hunched in unconscious apology or slouched in self-consciousness. She carries herself a stiff primness befitting an aristocratic, which Joseph thinks comes from habit rather than confidence.

Joseph had once watched her, furtively from another counter a pathway away, and observed that her eyes were often wandering or darting, as if in search of something … or someone. He sometimes wonders if she harbors too many secrets than she can handle, or is merely shy.

Joseph knows firsthand what being shy is like. A gawky and klutzy ugly duckling of a kid, he was often self-conscious and lonely. When he matured into his current alpha-swan status, he made sure to make up for his lonely childhood and adolescence by being an all-round popular personality, friend and party guest. He has membership to all the trendiest clubs and knows all the who’s-whos from the media, fashion and entertainment industries. Joseph likes to think of himself as popular and a well-connected man.

Jodie, his secretary, knocks discreetly on the door, temporarily interrupting Joseph’s euphoric mood. He stops in mid-swivel and put on his poker office-face just as Jodie eases open the door.

“Mr. Lim, the US buyers have okayed the Ocean Sky samples and here are proposals from some new vendors from Dhaka and Chittagong.” She advances to his desk, holding out the proposals.

It is obvious – to the entire 25th level office at least – that Jodie has something of an infatuation on him; which, of course, is quite inevitable, taking into account Joseph’s chiseled good looks and sculpted physique, and his disarming dimpled grin.

Joseph was born with the proverbial silver - or platinum, in his case - spoon in his mouth to a wealthy shipping merchant family, but his family background merely provided him his first step to where and what he is today. He had worked very hard to metamorphose from a clumsy boy to the energetic athlete he is; and he had slogged and crammed his way to graduate magna cum laude from an Ivy League university. It was his way of saying kiss my ass to the guys who once taunted him in his missionary boys’ school, and to the girls who had ignored or rejected him in junior college.

Kiss my ass indeed.

Joseph flashes Jodie his charming smile as he accepts the papers she is holding out, and gallantly ignores the blush that colors her cheeks when their fingers brush. “Thanks Jo,” he tells her sincerely.

“You’re very welcome.” Jodie gives him a tremulous smile and makes a graceful exit.

Joseph briefly watches her back profile as she exits - she sure looks good walking away. He knows his magnetism and he knows he can have her or any other girls, if he wants. There is no arrogance in this acknowledgement; he is a gentleman, one of the good guys, even though he tends a little towards chauvinism. Oh he respects females and their rights, but is often genuinely puzzled by their insistence of continuing their “so-called careers” after marriage.

When Joseph finally switches off his workstation at seven-ten, he knows it is time to make his move. She has smiled at him three times in a row, she notices him – and, dare he hope, even recognizes him. It is not for want of confidence that keeps Joseph from chatting her up; on the contrary, he is confident that he will be able to charm her as easily as he has always charmed the female gender. No, it is his childish ego and masculine pride that made him waited. Used to having females throw themselves at him in university, in clubs and in the office, Joseph just has to make her smile at him first, notice him first – never mind that it was he who had first laid eyes on her.

At seven-fifteen precisely, Joseph is three counters away from the one she works and is striding purposefully towards her. Today is the day he will finally chat her up; he has it all planned out: first, small talk while she helps him pick out the perfect shade of lipstick for his sister (women always appreciate a sensitive and thoughtful man); next, as she is on the first shift today, he will ‘accidentally’ bump into her at whichever bus stop or train station she is boarding, followed by more small talk. Then he’ll finally ask her out for a drink – or even dinner – when she has warmed to him.

When Joseph approaches the counter, he worries, for a moment, he will be served by the other salesgirl at the counter. “Let me do it,” the shorter sales assistant offers her partner. “You’re off duty now anyway.”

Fortunately for Joseph, his tall and elegant goddess smiles and waves her companion away. “It’s okay; I’ll leave after serving him.” She turns to Joseph and gives him a familiar warm smile. “Are you looking for anything in particular, sir?”

Joseph feels a fuzzy fizz of exhilaration bubble in his gut. He knows by the quick look that passes between them that she recognizes him.

For the next fifteen or so minutes, she seems to devote her entire attention to helping Joseph pick out the right shade of lipstick. Ten minutes later he walks away with not only a lipstick, but complementing lip-liner, blusher, eye-shadow and nail polish as well.

He has been surprised by the huskiness of her voice initially, when they first conversed, but quickly decides it is rather sexy. She speaks with an accent – not dissimilar to his own, which he had acquired from his years in the States – and up close, he has taken a quick glance at her nametag to discover her name is called Yvette Chong and that she is actually a trainee brand manager.

Yvette. Joseph already loves that name: his first girlfriend, a French exchange student who’d seduced him as a freshman, was called Yvette too. He still has good memories of their short time together – which was spent mostly holed up in his bedroom, in his bed.

Joseph pretends to browse at other counters until he sees her sling her bag on her shoulders and wave goodbye to her partner at the counter; then he follows her out to a nearby crowded bus stop. He manages to weave and elbow his way to stand behind her but finds that he will have to wait to make his move as she is carrying on an agitated conversation on her cellphone.

“No!” he hears her hiss fiercely into the tiny phone. “I’ll do it if I want to. You have no right to stop me.”

A pause as incoherent babbles protest just as furiously.

“Well, I don’t care what they will think. Why can’t you think for once about how I feel? I’m sick of not being who I -” She stops short and snaps her cell shut, distraught.

There is a sudden surge in the crowd when an over-crowded bus rumbles to a halt in front of the bus stop and Joseph is shoved forward, into Yvette. Before he has a chance to react, her head whips sharply around.

For a moment, Joseph worries that she may snap at him, but she smiles, albeit warily. Joseph quickly rallies, feigning surprise then flashes her his trademark grin.

“Hi – Yvette, right?” he has to shout over the groans and pants of bus engines. She nods, seemingly waiting for him to go on while she crocks her head quizzically at him.

“Which bus are you waiting for?” Joseph casually asks.

“174,” she replies in her husky timbre. A beat, as she scrutinizes him, then: “Why?”

Seizing the opening she has unwittingly given him, Joseph immediately launches into a little act he has put up often before. He must be charming, of course, and a little shy. Most women, in all his experience with them, find a little shyness in men irresistible.

Joseph gives her a somewhat sheepish smile and shrugs faintly. “Well, I thought if your bus came late, I could ask you out for dinner or a drink…?” He lets his stammered question taper off, hanging in an air of expectation. He must appear a little uncomfortable, yet very earnest, Joseph reminds himself.

Yvette gazes wordlessly at him for almost a full minute before bursting into laughter. “Oh Joseph,” she finally sighs, mockingly.

Joseph is surprised that she knows his name and for a fleeting second wonders how she has come to know it, but at the same time is thoroughly flattered. Seeing his astonished reaction, Yvette laughs even louder. “You really don’t recognize me, do you, Josh?”

Joseph’s jaws all but drop. ‘Josh’ had been his nickname in varsity.

“Who are you? Do - do we know each other?” he asks, digging furiously at his mental photographic archives of the girls he has known in varsity.

“Do we know each other?” Yvette mimics his flabbergasted tone, then her entire composure takes a drastic change and her tone hardens. “The question, Josh, is whether or not you remember me.”

Joseph’s brows furrow as he tries to recall. “I’m sure I’d have remembered such a lovely lady like yourself …”

“Save your charm, Josh, and what’s with that bashful act? Weren’t you just the big-man-on-campus? Whatever happened to the I’m-the-king-of-the-hill smugness of yours?”

Joseph remembers to close his gaping mouth and tries to salvage some of his poise. “W-what…?”

Yvette fishes a cigarette out from her cigarette case then fumbles about her sling bag for her lighter. Joseph immediately reaches into his pocket for his and tries to light her cigarette. Yvette dismisses his lighter with an elegant flick of her hand and lights her own cigarette. She takes a slightly shaky drag of her cigarette before she speaks.

“Save the bashful gentleman act for your bimbos, Josh, we both know what you are not. Always hanging out with those bigoted jock-friends of yours, betting you could bed more exchange students than they could bed the Asian girls on campus.” She flashes him a quick, derisive smile and takes another drag on her cigarette. “I thought you were different from them, Josh, I really did. I thought you had a heart and your own mind. Hell, I couldn’t have been more wrong there, could I?”

Joseph tries to speak but she shakes her head at him.

“Don’t bother with the excuses or explanations, it’s a little too late for them, don’t you think? I loved you, Josh, and the dumbest mistake I made was telling you how I felt about you. And what had you done when I told you? Do you remember? If you don’t, I’ll give you a hint: you told your jock buddies about me and my – what was the phrase you’d use then? – ‘depraved and sick affliction’.” Yvette pauses and sighs, sounding a little regretful, a little wistful, and gazes into Joseph’s eyes so he can see that she is neither.

“Do you know what your friends did to me, short of crucifying me at the door of your frat house?” Yvette gives a short, bitter laugh. “Well, I will spare you the harrowing details - for old times’ sake. But what had you done then, Josh? Had you untied me and apologized, I would have forgiven you Josh, I really would have. I was so in love with you.

“Even if you couldn’t accept me, you needn’t have done what you did; you needn’t have planned my humiliation and have me bruised and battered. You needn’t have laughed and spat with your buddies as you watched me writhe. You needn’t have left me there to hang, half-dead and stripped, Josh, but you did.” Yvette exhales a long and shaky breath, the corner of her mouth twists in an ironic and bitter parody of a smile as she sees the very moment that Joseph is hit by a sudden revelation – a revelation that brings with it horror and shock.

“Well, what do you know?” Yvette murmurs, “Revenge is a dish that’s best served cold.” She narrows her eyes at Joseph. “It was all just a joke to you, I understand that now. But you know what, Josh? I guess the joke’s on you now.”

“You’re …” Joseph finally utters, his eyes stunned into blankness.

The corner of Yvette’s lips twists a little more. “Was. I was your biggest admirer, Christopher Chong, my dear.”

A cab screeches sharply and crashes mightily into the back of a bus not three feet away from him, but Joseph is not even peripherally aware of it.