It was the beginning of Spring. She had had to move from Arkansas to New York City, with her eight-year-old daughter, for her new job. She was in her early thirties, petite, with long, extraordinarily white, hair which was as thick as her wrist in a ponytail and which hung down to the back of her knees. With her large sky blue eyes and pale skin, some people from her home town had taken to calling her Fae after the fairies they believed inhabited certain places. She had a dark wine stain birthmark right in the middle of her eyebrows which looked, for all the world, like a diamond. This day at the beginning of spring, she was standing on the sidewalk in front of her new flat in Brooklyn Heights overseeing, as best she could, the removal of hers and her daughter's belongings from the moving van into their new building.
She was frustrated and so had climbed into the moving van herself and was attempting to arrange things at the edge of the van for the movers to grab. They charged by the hour, you know, and this was getting a bit expensive. It seemed that the movers today had not had their breakfast or coffee, she thought, because they were moving slower than molasses in winter. Temporarily satisfied with her work, she jumped down from the moving van to see a tall, rather handsome, man walk out of her new building. Their eyes connected and he walked toward her.
"Are you moving in?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'm in, ah, 3C," she stammered with her drawling southern twang.
"Oh, then you're my new neighbor," he replied, "My wife and I live just across the hall from you in 3B."
He was so handsome and brawny that she felt she was having to really concentrate on what to say. She was nervous, as she usually was, talking to those whom she found attractive. There was an extended silence in which she realized eventually that she must say something, but thankfully, the handsome neighbor broke the awkwardness for her.
"You need some help with that stuff?" he asked, while peering into the interior of the moving van.
"Well, yeah, kinda." she said nervously, "The movers are going at a snail's pace today, but I don't want to put you out or anything."
To her complete surprise, the handsome neighbor took off his jacket and began to pull several things down from the van and walk towards the entrance of the building. She sized him up covertly and thought to herself,"Good God he's built like a brick shit house." Of course, she'd never say that out loud. Her churchified southern upbringing would never have allowed it and her mother would have blushed ten shades of red if she ever heard anything like that coming out of her daughter's mouth.
The handsome neighbor paused a second on the last stair and turned to look at her. She was still standing agog watching him when she realized that he wanted her to open the door for him since his arms were quite full. Embarrassed, she danced up the steps quickly and showed him to her apartment.
Passing through the doorway to her apartment, the handsome neighbor, who introduced himself as Adam on the way up the three flights of stairs to their floor, sat her belongings near the pile in the living room area where the movers had been depositing most of her things. He looked around at the nearly empty apartment unabashedly curious.
"Your apartment is set up differently than ours," he mentioned as he walked towards the back wall where a row of floor-to-ceiling windows offered a stunning view of the back of the next building over.
She walked into the kitchen and turned to ask him if he wanted some iced tea, the house wine of the south you know, when she noticed Adam was perusing through her collection of books which were still laying around the dining table in random places. He seemed lost in concentration. She took this moment to really study Adam's features and the way he moved. He had shoulder-length jet black hair which took on a subtle blue sheen when the light hit it just the right way. It was parted in the middle of his forehead and hung in loose, thick waves. His eyes were fairly large, but not overly so, and were the most amazing shade of green. Well, shades of green actually, Fae thought to herself. For when he turned his face toward the sunlight coming in from the windows she thought his eyes were the shade of the amber you find sometimes with little fossils stuck inside. He was tall, about six-foot-two or three, she guessed. His frame was proportional. She figured he weighed about one-eighty or two hundred pounds give or take. His skin was the most marvelous color of light coffee. His lips were full, which was a bit unusual for most men Fae thought, but nice nonetheless. The rest of his face was all angles and planes. He had a very aquiline nose and cheekbones so sharp that it almost made his face look severe. He had a broody sense about him, but Fae did notice that he smiled easily and that when he did, it lit up his whole person. It was as if there were a heavy cloak he deliberately pulled around himself either to keep other people away or to protect himself somehow.
Fae thought to herself, "He must have been through some bad times if he feels he has to cloak his light like that," but she kept all of her curious questions to herself. He was married after all and she had no intention of being a home-wrecker even if he was outrageously handsome.
