I started to think about all the ball lightning reports making the news lately when I noticed the brunette standing at the end of the bar, watching Joe mix her a drink.
The brunette looked at me, a big smile on her face. It hit me what a perfectly exceptional beauty she was. Hit me so hard I almost dropped my drink. Now that we had eye contact it registered that she was even more beautiful than I had thought when she first came in. Supposedly Piaf, or Dietrich, or Madonna—or one of those foxes of old—once said that the first thing a man notices about a woman is whether she notices him. Boy did that old torch singer know life!
I tried to give the brunette my best macho security guard “Howdy, Ma’am” smile. Thank God I still had my uniform on to complete the picture.
She kept looking at me. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, then a face paints a thousand pictures, and I felt like I might drown in all the things that face was saying to me: “I notice you… I’m interested… I’m experienced… I’m naive… I’m new around here… I want to meet someone… I’m lonely… I’m terribly beautiful.” (That last one was probably more me speaking.) Intense. Definitely intense.
Then she got her drink and walked right past me. I had never seen a “come-hither smile” before that moment. Then she was back at her table—the ball in my court.
I looked at my anti-self in the mirror. I was close to hyperventilating. I was not taking this well at all. Oh sure, if I had been a sober, unimpressionable, analytical type (like Turner), I might have been able to describe her as being somehow too perfectly gorgeous, her skin newborn smooth, her features too symmetrical, her body athletic and totally feminine.
But it was only me there, practically slobbering into my beer, not noticing much more than my hormones going “YIPPEE!” and trying real hard to ignore another thing her face had said to me: “Not in your league.” Enough beers and I’d probably be able to convince myself that that was just my imagination too.
So I had the ball and the clock was running.
“Joe, what did she order?”
“Screwdriver.”
I stopped Agnes with a fin. “Agnes, bring the brunette behind me another screwdriver in a minute.” I gave her the five bucks. “Here. And keep the change.”
After a couple of hour-long minutes Agnes poked me. “Get over there and introduce yourself, dummy.”
So I walked over, feeling stiff and jerky, like I was twelve again and I knew that the prettiest girl in school was watching me.
“Hi,” I said, hoping that my uniform would distract her from my not-so-dashing smile.
“Hi yourself. Thanks for the drink.” If dark golden honey could talk, it would have that voice. “My name is Stella. Stella McFarland.”
“I’m Kirk Luchtenlooper. But just call me Kirk—obviously.” This got a smile (or someone just turned up the lights). I offered her my hand, and then, the damnedest thing. She reached out with her left hand. For a second we just stood there, stupidly looking at our hands. That Helen-of-Troy serenity deserted her face for an instant. Then she smiled, embarrassed. Her eyes flashed (about 1,000 candlepower’s worth), she switched hands and we shook. We laughed. I sat. We talked.
A few beers and a couple of hours later she was at my place. Things were moving along at a pretty good clip. I think I was in control. But I gotta tell ya, what with the beer and Stella’s… and what with Stella, I don’t think my “control” was worth a hill of beans.
All I remember, before conking out, was thinking that I had actually made love to a virgin, and that things could be worse. Stella had a lot of potential, and the sex was bound to improve.
Of course she was gone when I woke up in the morning.
“Now what?”
“Kirk, have you ever read our paper?”
“I try not to. Oh, wait a minute… No way, man. You’re not getting any more details about that night from me. This is not your usual sleaze. Stella’s a classy lady. I’m doing this interview to help inform the public.”
“And to line your own pockets. OK, so, if you don’t want us to print the juicy details, what does this part have to do with anything?”
“I’m getting to that!”
“Well, make it quick.”
Hmph!
I felt like a lukewarm corpse that morning. Her being gone was a bummer, sure. But I had to see about surviving my hangover before worrying about Stella.
I staggered to the bathroom, and promptly threw up in the toilet, which was some relief. I brushed my teeth and exchanged a pathetic look with myself in the medicine cabinet mirror.
What had last night been all about? Why had she asked me so many questions about the observatory? Had she slipped me a Mickey? Had I compromised security? Hell no. I took my job seriously. Did it have anything to do with the Anti-Christ, or was it all just coincidence?
Feeling a little dizzy, I leaned on the mirror with my right hand. It looked as if I was trying to shake hands with myself, only my anti-self was using the wrong hand, just the way Stella had tried to in the bar.
That’s when it all clicked. No, Stella! Don’t do it! You’ll blow us all to kingdom come!
Later that day, when I caught up with Turner to discuss Stella, he was not impressed. And none too happy about being bothered. Just as snotty and snooty as ever. Like the good old, bad old days.
“Kirk, please. I don’t have time for your fantasies.”
“But don’t you see? Why should a knockout like her even give me the time of day?”
“Maybe she’s left-handed.”
“C’mon, Doc, even left-handed people shake with their right hand. It was like she thought it was her right hand. It’s like she’s a mirror image.”
“She’s mirror matter.” He actually sputtered when he realized what he had just said. “No! She can’t be. Surely you realize what would have happened if you had touched mirror matter?”
“I know. I know she’s not mirror matter. She got me hot, but not that hot. But maybe anti-aliens have figured out how to convert themselves to our kind of matter—just getting reversed in the process. Like Alice in the looking glass.”
We were all a little Alice crazy back then. To hear the tabs and rags tell it, you’d have thought Lewis Carroll wrote those stories just to help us understand parity, mirror matter and the Anti-Christ.
“ ‘Convert,’ ” Turner repeated distastefully, looking at his watch. “Kirk, I really have to go. If she concerns you so much why not just ask her about it?”
“I can’t. She left. No good-bye, no note, no nothing.” It hurt to admit that. I was crazy about her, I realized. I guess I was looking for some sympathy, but all I could see in Turner’s face was that he was impatient for me to be finished bothering him.
“Maybe she was just using you,” he suggested.
“For what?” Then I remembered. “She did ask a lot of questions about the observatory.”