Forever Right Now

Here, under the yellow of the streetlights, her eyes were deeper blue and full of light. Over her lithe frame, she wore a bulky sweater, but it didn’t conceal what she was. She looked like a dancer—slender but with lean muscle, and she walked with an easy grace, despite the heavy black combat boots on her feet.

“So what’s with the boots?” I asked. It was the most harmless part of what she was wearing.

“Protection.”

“From what?”

“Not from. For. For my feet,” she said. “I’m a dancer—or will be again soon, and my feet are a precious commodity.”

“What kind of dance do you do? Ballet?”

“When I was little,” she said. “But I’m into modern dances and capoeira. Have you heard of capoeira?”

“An Afro-Brazilian martial art that combines elements of dance, acrobatics, and music, developed in?Brazil at the beginning of the 16th century.”

Darlene stopped. “Well, look at you, Encyclopedia Brown. Are you a fan?”

“I read something about it once.”

“Once? Do you always remember something you read once so precisely?”

“Yes.”

I felt her gaze on me and glanced over to see an expectant look on her face—the kind women wear when the guy has said or done something that obviously requires further explanation.

“I have an eidetic memory,” I said.

“A what?”

“Eidetic—photographic memory.”

“Get out!” Darlene swatted my arm. “For real?”

I nodded.

“So you can remember long strings of numbers, or… what you were wearing on January 24th, 2005.”

I shrugged. “It’s pretty strong.”

“Well…how strong is it?” Darlene demanded. “On a scale of one to you-should-be-on-The Ellen DeGeneres Show?”

“Not sure what Ellen’s requirements are. Eight?”

Darlene was staring at me with wide eyes. “Wow. You’ve got a mega-mind. That must help with law school, yeah?”

“Yeah, it does,” I said. “I probably wouldn’t be graduating on time otherwise.”

“Very cool,” Darlene said.

I could feel her gearing up to quiz me like Andrew from my study group and cut her off at the pass.

“Anyway, you’re getting back into dancing?” I asked. “Just in time to be my upstairs neighbor? Lucky me.”

She grinned but it wilted quickly. “Not sure yet.” Her fingers toyed with a tiny scrap of paper from her sweater pocket. “I’ve nearly thrown this away a hundred times since this afternoon.”

“Is that your fortune?”

“It does look like that, doesn’t it?” she said. “Who knows? Maybe it is. It’s a phone number for a dance troupe, but I’m not sure if I’m going to call it.”