Benches

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts."   

~Jaques, As You Like It. Act 2 Scene 7.

        Liz was confused. Even more so than usual, which was saying something. Her level of befuddlement was hovering somewhere around the pre-calc level. It wasn't as severe as deciphering The Odyssey, but it was more bamboozling than chemistry.

  Sitting in her car waiting for her little brother to be finished with soccer practice was when it happened. Something as perplexing as a boring math assignment after she had dreamed class away. A boy walked by her parked car. More importantly, a good looking boy.

        She felt herself staring, the burrito she'd been eating from a sub par fast food chain forgotten half-way to her mouth. Brought back to earth by the weight of the Mexican delicacy falling on her lap, she cursed and grabbed a napkin, still staring at the boy.

        It wasn't that she'd never seen a hot guy before, because she had. On TV. Seeing one in the wild was very different than staring at Zac Efron from her couch through a glass screen. What Liz wasn't prepared for was how she felt. Her stomach seemed to drop and then catch, as if she was on a roller coaster. Vaguely she wondered if that's how everyone always felt in places where attractive people were a dime a dozen, like in LA, or New York.

        She shoved her mystification aside. She forgot about her brother kicking a ball 10 yards to her left. She forgot about the awful, greasy stain left by the satisfyingly disgusting burrito. For a second she even forgot that she was behind the wheel of her mom's minivan listening to trashy Top 40 music.

        Shutting the engine off, Liz opened the door before she had a good idea of what was going on or where her feet were taking her. All she knew was that there was a guy more attractive than anybody she had every seen before and she needed to get proof that he was here, outside the soccer fields in her small town in Indiana.

        Stealthily keeping 20 feet behind him, Liz crept along and was almost immediately decapitated by a rogue car mirror. She followed mystery boy until the edge of the parking lot, and whipped out her phone. Utterly aware of how creepy and horribly stalkerish she was being, she tried to snap a quick picture, but was too hasty. All she had to show for her efforts was a blurry, pink photo half covered by her thumb.

        Liz could not believe she was doing this. If she hadn't made that pact with her best friend Noelle in the seventh grade about getting video evidence of anybody over a 6 on the hotness scale, she wouldn't be in this mess. Blowing hair out of her sweaty face, Liz made a decision.

        She straightened up like she hadn't been crouched behind the rear tire of an old Subaru, and casually started to follow the mysterious hot guy out of the parking lot and onto the walking path that mothers used while waiting for their children to finish practice. Strolling along like she had nowhere to be (because she didn't), Liz meandered around behind him, pausing occasionally to stare at a bird or a leaf in an attempt to seem more natural.

        Kicking a rock along the path, it skittered forward a few feet. Liking the game, Liz kept at it, until she miscalculated. Shooting forward, the pebble bounced along the asphalt path until it hit the back of his shoes. He froze, and cocked his head to the side.

       Liz freaked. Completely lost her head. Her heart bounded like a drum in her chest. She shoved her hands in her pockets, tilted her neck 90 degrees to the left, and pretended to be looking at a very interesting shrub. She could have been on a poster advertising awkwardness and guilt.