ISBN: 9781483523637

To Mandi Dixon-Swanson for patiently reading through countless revisions and offering “why didn’t I think of that?” suggestions and helping to keep me sane throughout the process. The only thing better than her ideas are her baked goods.

Extra special thanks go to the little group of people who read it at various stages of development and offered suggestions and support: Jenni Grace McLennan, Kyle Kvalheim, and Lindsay Elgin.

A few months ago, the best and worst thing happened to me. I don’t say the following to brag or to confess, but because someone has to know. I’m neither proud nor overly ashamed. I’m just changed now and I have to write this down so maybe, maybe I can get it out of my head a little bit and start to pretend to be normal again.

Let me start by introducing myself. If you live in my part of the state, you’ve seen me. For many people, it’s a happy, life changing moment when they meet me. You see, I’m the guy who takes your picture for your driver’s license. When you pass your road test, the examiner sends you in to come talk to me. I’m the happy part of the DMV. I take your little form that says you passed, look at the examiner’s initials in the pink copy that stays with us, and stamp the date on it and the white copy that you can take home.

On that form are basic things, like your name, mailing address, date of birth, all the things that identify you as you and will go on your driver’s license. After your picture is taken, and I check to make sure that you like it, (I can do that you know, I like to make sure I get people at their happiest) and that all the boxes are filled out correctly, I send you over to take a number and wait in line for one of our data entry people to process you. Depending on the amount of people that day, and whether or not our computers are agreeable (believe it or not, we run Windows NT, which is slow but usually stable) you can be in and out in about an hour with a freshly made government Photo ID that you can use to do just about anything in our country.

This isn’t the job I thought I would be doing in my mid-twenties, but it pays well and state benefits are nice. I enjoy it. I graduated college almost five years ago. A big state university, over thirty thousand students, a decent athletic department, and a campus that charmed me ever since I was a kid. My first tour guide pointed out all the buildings with their gothic architecture and proud academic traditions and concluded with a free game at the stadium where champions are made.

What nobody told me however, is that my degree would not be worth the paper on which it was printed. I didn’t major in anything impractical, no Philosophy of Star Trek or underwater basket weaving, I just had the misfortune to graduate into a terrible job market.

Out of desperation, I went to an employment agency. My first assignment with them was a call center handling customer orders and complaints for an “As Seen On TV” product. I stayed there about a month wanting to slit my wrists the entire time. My next job was with the DMV. I was skeptical at first, but soon loved it. After six months, the state hired me directly and I’ve been there ever since.

Another nice thing about it are the hours. I’m home before rush hour starts. This leaves me a lot of time to do what I want. I like to keep in shape and I go to the gym about twice a week. I like playing pick-up basketball games with my friends there. Sometimes, I’ll go to the kickboxing classes that are offered there for members.

Whenever I’m dating someone, I can have my nights off to spend with them. That’s usually not an issue. Girls just don’t stick around too long. I get the “you’re sweet and I’m sure there’s a great girl out there for you, but it’s not me” speech a lot. It used to bother me, but it doesn’t so much anymore. I never really knew my dad, my mom died the year I graduated college and my step-dad and I were never close.

Beyond them, I have a smattering of assorted aunts and uncles, cousins and what not. My brother joined the Air Force right out of high school and is stationed in Korea, so it’s not like I have much of a family to bring a girl home to anyway. Sure, sex is fun, but I’m not one of the guys who troll the bars or craigslist looking for a cheap, easy date. I always figured if I found a girl, then I found a girl, if not, so what. Besides a few burning teen years, I never had much of a sex drive.

So it’s just me. I’ve been pretty content with my life. I have more money in the bank than all of my friends, because I have nothing really to spend it on. A typical night for me is watching documentaries on Netflix or TV shows along the lines of World’s Blankiest Blank. I surf the net, but rarely comment on anything. I have Facebook, but it’s just twenty invites for games and old friends from high school showing off their baby pictures. So it’s just me. And I was happy with that. Still would be if not for the last few months.

A few months ago, a friend from the gym invited me to grab a beer and watch the football game at a local bar. I had nothing better to do, so we went. Everyone was watching the main game on the big screen, but from my seat and angle, it was easier to watch the overhead TV screens that were showing something else. Besides, I didn’t really want to watch the football game, the team I wanted to win was down by ten points before halftime. So there I was, sipping a seven dollar beer, and watching some sports network. Then, the talking heads went away and a collegiate women’s volleyball game on.

And I saw her.

As the teams came out, I saw her hair and it was so light blonde that it shimmered like ten thousand diamonds in the sand. It was long, just past her shoulders, and expertly braided. Her face was flawless with sharp features.

Clearly there was a strong Nordic heritage at work here. I can’t describe what it felt like to see her, but it must have been what the first humans to see a sunset felt, the first explorers to see Victoria Falls, a symphony of beauty where she was the entire orchestra. I was transfixed watching her play.

Not a single lustful thought, no fantasy, just marveling at her raw athletic beauty and cursing the camera man every time he moved away to someone else. I kept up conversation with my friends as best I could, so as not to be rude, but my mind was clearly on her. She scored what was called a “kill” and the muted TV showed her name.

After four years of working with names, I learned how to remember them after seeing them once so as not to have to embarrassingly ask again. Her name was burned in my memory as sure as my own. It seemed like even the letters on the screen glowed. Then with no reason, it cut away from the volleyball game and on to some sports roundtable show. I was able to focus more of my attention on the football game, now in its closing minutes. The team that the vast majority of the bar was cheering for was able to pull out the victory and I was able to get into it.

Later that night, lying in bed, all I could think of was that girl. I was so confused by what had happened in the bar, it was like I had been held there, forced to see her. If I had just said no to my friend, I would never have known she existed.

The next morning, I was a little embarrassed by being so entranced by this random stranger on TV. But as the day went on, I could only think of her. I looked her up on her university’s athletic portal, and now I had a picture. It almost stopped my heart. Still, nothing sexual. No weird or disturbing fantasies. Just a sheer admiration for her undefinable beauty and again, I became completely and totally entranced.

Fortunately, for the next few weeks, work was busy and during the day I didn’t have time to think of her. I even tried to block her out, telling myself it wasn’t healthy to be this focused on a complete stranger. Some days were easier than others. But she never completely left my mind. If I had to, I could have recounted every detail to a police sketch artist.

One night, I looked her up on Facebook. There were something like thirty-four people found with her name but only one with her university and of course, only one with her face on it. Even though I knew I would never date this woman, and adamantly refused permission for my mind to create any fantasy where that was a possibility, my heart still sank when I saw another man in the thumbnail profile picture. She clearly was affectionate.

The profile was set to private and almost no information beyond what I already knew was shared, but still my heart was beating fast. This was her. Something she’s seen and used. A part of her. And it was a new picture. I didn’t save any of the pictures. Instead when I could resist no longer, I went to the student athlete biography page, or her Facebook page. This kept up for a little while.

I wanted to be her friend, and find out more, and discover more, but I knew she wouldn’t accept my friend request. I was, after all a complete stranger. But I had to know more about this girl who dominated my thoughts. I created a page on Facebook centered around University spirit, and “Like this if you support our team!” Within a week, I had a few hundred members, enough to be credible, and sent her a friend request. She accepted. I was in. Chills ran down my spine. Aladdin’s lamp was mine.

All the sudden I saw thousands of pictures organized in dozens of albums, everything she liked, her own thoughts recorded as statuses. I felt like a scientist who had made contact with a vastly superior alien race and shown the mysteries of the universe. It was all there. I pored over it. With every picture, I felt the same inexplicable draw, the same feeling that just knowing she existed made everything in my life make sense.

Again, and I must stress this, nothing sexual. I never “took matters into my own hands” if you get my drift to her pictures. It was less like finding a sexy picture and more like finding a perfectly formed tulip bloom. You want to stare in awe and protect its innocence. As I lingered, I discovered her parents and her boyfriend, even a teenage brother, all with less privacy settings than her. Good people, and I was forced to admit, even the boyfriend seemed like a good guy.

Then one day, during a very slow stretch at work, I went against all my training and privacy procedures and put her name in to the DMV database. I don’t really know why I did, mainly out of boredom I guess, because the university she played for was in a neighboring state, so it wouldn’t show up for me.

But it did.

We keep records for a long time and at one time she had a driver’s license in my state. At first, I just thought it was someone else with the same name. But the database returned three other people at her address. It hit me. Her parents lived in this state. I went to Google maps and looked at the address. About a two and a half, maybe three hour drive. I used Street View and realized I was looking at where she began. Her parent’s house.

Why would she choose to go a college out of state? It must have been a volleyball scholarship. The thrill of seeing her for the first time over a month ago on TV in that bar had never faded and here it was. The whisper that was constantly in my head to know more, to discover more, to keep her in my life was now a deafening roar.

I took the next day off work and drove there.

My number one priority was that she not see me. Something so beautiful and wondrous could not know how someone like me, a mere mortal in the face of her angelic being, knew about her. It was a nice neighborhood with nice houses. Her family obviously did well for themselves. The lawn was immaculately kept, the siding and shutters perfect, the driveway smooth.

I parked my car a little ways away at a church parking lot and walked to her house. It didn’t seem like anyone was home. I looked at her neighbors. The houses weren’t close together, but I didn’t want to have to explain who I was to a nosy neighbor. Nobody seemed home there either. It was the middle of the workday and these people had mortgages, toys, and out of state tuition to pay for. I walked up to the covered front porch, every step an adventure, every step overloading my senses.

A bright shimmer in the dark dirt of a healthy green plant hanging next to the door caught my eye. I looked closer and saw it was metal. When I dug it out, I had the spare key, poorly reburied from the last emergency use. I put the key in my pocket and walked back to my car, still unobserved to the best of my knowledge. There was a hardware store only a few blocks away and I walked in and asked if I could get a copy of the key.

The elderly man behind the counter, took the key, and asked if the property it unlocked belonged to me. I acted a little confused and said “Uhmm yeah. It’s my house key. My parents are coming to visit soon and I don’t want them locked out while I’m at work.” Lying always came naturally to me. I can create believable stories on a moment’s notice. It got me out of a lot of trouble when I was a kid.

“Eh. Good for you. You understand why I have to ask. State law, can’t be helping burglars you know.”