wo weeks ago, we sat across from each other at the DMV. I didn’t know his name or anything about him. All I knew was that he was wearing a polo shirt with the collar popped, those jeans with the holes in them, and a pair of flip-flops. And he kept looking over at me. After catching him the third time, I made the assumption that he was just letting his eyes wander because we were packed into this small room with a hundred other people. After the seventh time, I thought that there might have been something on my face so I walked to the bathroom to check myself in the mirror. Nothing. I washed my hands and admired the simple geometric pattern on the old tiled walls. As I walked out of the washroom, I saw him walking towards me. He gave me a smile, and not trying to be rude, I nodded my head. I went back and sat down.

He walked out a couple minutes later and returned his seat. I wondered if something was wrong. He just kept looking at me, but shy as I am, I managed to dodge his glances as often as possible. There was a sort of creepy flattery in the way he stared at me. It gave me the feeling that he was interested in something about me, but it felt like his eyes were burning a hole in my chest. I thought that maybe he was just playing a game, the kind of game where he chose someone out of a crowd and just stared at them until they became so utterly uncomfortable that they did something about it. I wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction. I had heard some of my friends talk about that kind of thing before. And if that’s what he was doing, he sure was doing a damn good job.

I was always the kind of person that liked to be noticed in a crowd, but that didn’t mean that I wanted a stranger staring at me for the better part of half an hour. I wished they would just call my number so I could get this over with. All I wanted to do was change my plates over from my old car to my new one. It shouldn’t have been this whole big commotion over such a small event. But there I was, sitting in that awfully uncomfortable brown plastic chair, waiting for them to call number 72.

But then I thought to myself: had I been there when he arrived, or did he see me walk in and single me out as the poor soul on the short end of his mysterious little game? I could not remember. It was of no significance though, because once they called my number, I would just walk up and hand over my paperwork, wait for a signature, and then walk out into the cold winter air. That cold would have felt pretty good right about then. I could feel my body temperature begin to rise as he continued to stare at me. Not wanting to cause a scene in the middle of this sardine-can building, I decided to pick up a pamphlet on organ donation and found a way to distract myself.

I became so enthralled in the little informational booklet that I almost didn’t here my number called over the loudspeaker.

“Last call for number 72,” the electronic voice said monotonously above the bustle of coats and soft voices of people. Startled, I stood up and walked to the cute blonde woman sitting behind the counter. She wore a collared blouse and a small nametag that had “Susan” typed neatly across it. She took my sheet, checked it over, marked a couple places, and signed her name at the bottom. She typed a couple things into the computer, moved the mouse around a bit, and clicked five separate times. She did all this in the matter of less than 50 seconds; I was impressed. When she seemed pleased by the feedback that the computer had given her, she handed me a receipt.

“Have a nice day,” she said, as she gave me an emotionless smile. I walked away from her, with just a nod and a smile. I was quite relieved by the fact that she hadn’t asked me any pointless questions about how I was doing and that she hadn’t made any pathetic comments about the weather we’d been having. I never enjoyed any of that sort of small talk. There was no need to get to know a person who would be out of my life in three minutes, or in that case, even less.

As I turned around to walk away, and as the electronic voice came over the public address system again to announce that the next person could walk up to the counter, I looked to see that my admirer was no longer in his chair. He must have gotten up to go to the next available cashier, or maybe he had been called before I had, but I was too interested in reading about the possible posthumous contribution that I could make if I signed up to be an organ donor that I hadn’t noticed. I felt a small tinge of disappointment as I realized that I was no longer the focus of someone’s vision, but I also felt relieved that his eyes were no longer piercing my skin.

I walked out to my car, a red Jeep Wrangler, the car I had wanted since I was ten, and found a small, folded piece of paper sitting under the driver’s side windshield wiper. My first thought was that it was a ticket, but what could it have been for? I wasn’t in a handicapped spot, and I sure hadn’t done anything wrong. As I pulled it out from behind the silicone wiper blade, I noticed that it had some very neat writing on it. It read, “Hey. I wish we would have had a chance to talk, but I have another appointment to get to. If you ever want to grab a coffee sometime, give me a call: 937-1824.” There was no name, no indication at all of who it was from, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out who had written it.

I tossed the idea around in my mind for the next couple of hours, wondering what the whole thing meant. What appointment did he have to go to? Had he just been sitting in the DMV waiting for someone to walk in that he found interesting enough? Did he even have to renew his license or replace his plates? It seemed difficult for me to come up with the correct answer for this question. The only thing I knew for sure was that he saw me walk into the building, otherwise he couldn’t have known which car was mine. And if that was the case, wouldn’t he also have left after me because my number would have been before his? It still gave me no answers though, because I knew that different classes of vehicles received different sets of numbers, and they also got called in different orders. So, now I was back to square one.

Was it possible to be too forward? He had already made the first move, inviting me to get coffee with him. It just seemed so strange to me though. People never met like that in real life, did they? Only the movies had outrageous ideas like that. I could have been wrong though. Maybe it was just my turn to have something work out for once. Maybe I was finally going to be able to meet someone who shared interests with me and found me interesting. He wouldn’t have stared at me for so long if he wasn’t at least a bit interested, even if it had only been simply to grab a warm beverage. It was all so new to me though; I had been used to being excluded by others for who I was, but this guy seemed willing to include me, even though we hadn’t even met yet. I decided to give him a call. After three rings, he answered the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi, my name’s Dave. You left your number for me at the DMV; I was wondering if you still wanted to grab some coffee.”