Rushing up the stairs like a maniac, I jumped over two girls sitting on the floor talking and breezed by the guy intently scribbling in a notebook. Realizing there are no existing stairs to the fifth floor on building three, I jabbed my foot into the elevator to prevent it from closing on me.
“Going up?” I asked the guy in green, out of breath.
“Uh… yeah?” he looked at me uncertainly.
I smiled and pressed the “5” button that lit up in a tiny red spot and made my way to the middle of the rusty old thing. Trying to control my breathing after olympically making it to where I was now was a feat I never thought I could accomplish. I mean, how weird is it when you’re in an elevator and someone sounds like they just engaged in a boxing match with all that panting and heavy intakes of breath?
So I smile again and say goodbye to the young man in the green shirt and walk into the Law Center and Social Studies Department trying to keep my cool. I go up to the lady in the front desk studying some sort of law (or business? or something?) and ask to see Professor Vazquez.
After ten minutes of small talk and slyly glancing at my watch, I nod politely at him and back away slowly into the doorway as I make a final statement of "... no, yeah, I know... everything takes sacrifice, that's why I'm here..." He laughs and waves at me, shaking his head and moving toward his computer. I think that's my cue indicating freedom. I check my watch one more time and make sure I have the next 30 minutes open to go to the library.
Pressing the greasy button that indicates my mode of transportation going downward, I wait impatiently for the ding to enlighten me and the doors to open. As the "down" arrow shines in a dirty orange of arrival, I breathe a sigh of relief and adjust my sunglasses on top of my head. Walking forward to the last elevator that dinged, I watched as an older man in a wheelchair rolled out with a younger man. I smiled at the eldest of the two, and said "Good Morning", looking up to address the other.
"Wow, you're gorgeous."
I looked at the man in the wheelchair and blushed-actually blushed-and replied with a quiet, "Thank You."
I looked after him and smiled as he entered the Social Studies Department.
The doors closed on him and I kept smiling. I didn't know why, but when I got off at the fourth floor, my step became slower and it seemed as if I was lounging down the stairs and accross the street to the library. I smiled at the people walking in the opposite direction as I, said Hello to familiar faces and giggled at the jokes the librarian made when I slid my card in the wrong direction.
What did that older man say?
Did he say I was gorgeous?
I've heard that many times before, but it was an empty, dead word. It was flung around in the filth of flattery and devalued because of the mouth that uttered the syllables. But from this stranger, it meant everything.
This man called me gorgeous, and what made me feel the word was that he wasn't referring to my face. I felt there was a deeper sense of seeing in his words. He seemed to look beyond the big brown eyes and the distorted teeth and the tired, out-of-breath smile. He somehow knew that what was deep inside me was beautiful. He knew my heart was the reflection of a gorgeous he once knew or a gorgeous he wanted to know.
On any other day, it wouldn't have mattered. From any other person, it wouldn't have made a difference.
Sir, you might not have realized it, but you made my day.
