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Shiver of Delight.
Maybe even Colleen will see it and eat her heart out.
    I’m too excited to sleep, so I turn on the TV and check out Sundance and TCM. Too many earnest ecologists on the first one. But Turner Classics is showing — wouldn’t you know it —
Sleepless in Seattle,
where Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan fall in love almost without ever meeting.
    How does stuff like that happen, anyway? Not the Meg and Tom stuff, but the Ben and A.J. stuff. I’m thinking of meeting a girl and then there’s a movie about meeting a girl.
    I know — just a coincidence. Law of averages, with so many movies on TV and so many people watching. But it’s still eerie. Like me meeting Colleen at the Rialto. What were the chances of that?
    It makes me wonder if something (or Somebody) isn’t in charge. But in the great scheme of things, if I was supposed to hook up with Colleen, we’re talking about Somebody with a real sense of humor. A god from Comedy Central.

 
    MEETING A.J. MAKES ME NERVOUS. I spend way too much time worrying about what to wear. Is there a pair of pants that will make this leg look straight? A shirt that’ll put a nice triceps on that left arm?
That
arm.
That
leg. Not
my
or
mine.
    I decide on jeans and a long-sleeved polo shirt. I never wear anything but long sleeves. If there’s a Hell and if I go there, I’ll be the only person not in a tank top.
    Treasure of the Sierra Madre
is on. I turn the volume up so I can hear it while I’m in the bathroom, and I watch it in the mirror while I brush my teeth and especially when I’m right out of the shower, buck naked. I don’t want to look down at that body if I don’t have to.
    So I concentrate on Bogart and Walter Huston and Robert Blake as the little boy who sells Bogart the winning lottery ticket.
    What would I do without movies?
    When I make it to the kitchen, Grandma’s on the phone to another gazillionaire. But Grandma’s an honest-to-God philanthropist and not just — as Colleen so delicately puts it — “another rich bitch.” I eat an apple, then do some homework until it’s almost time to meet A.J.
    I walk as only I can up to Buster’s. Past Vidéothèque, past the yoga studio, and past the big new bakery with a few tables outside. A couple of little kids are sitting with their mom. They’re trying to get honey on chunks of fresh bread, and you can almost hear her thinking,
I wish I had a picture of this.
    They stop what they’re doing, though, when they see me. I don’t mind it when kids stare. They don’t know C.P. They don’t really get it. They think I’m interesting, and I hate it when their folks make them stop and the kids are, like, “Why?” and the mom has this sick, apologetic smile.
    Colleen was like those kids. She thought my body was interesting. She was curious about it. Once when Marcie drove up to Santa Barbara to see a boyfriend, Colleen and I were at her house so I could use her camera and computer to work on
High School Confidential.
We ended up in the bedroom. And, among other things, Colleen picked up my almost useless, semiwithered arm and kissed it. That just killed me. Man, if she liked me enough to do that, why doesn’t she call me back?
    I get to Buster’s and I’m faced with a dilemma — do I wait for A.J. on the platform or sit here until she gets off the Gold Line, at which point I’ll wave jauntily?
    She knows I’m a spaz, or at least I think she does. And if she’s forgotten, then it’s probably a good idea to just get that part over with fast.
    So I wait at the light with three tweens, all of them checking their phones, texting and tweeting and saying
like
about twelve times per sentence. Weird way to hang out, though: talking to three other people.
    I’m invisible to them. But then maybe everybody is except the cutest boy in school, the one who lights matches and lets them burn all the way down to his fingertips.
    Then the train pulls up, half a dozen people get off, and one of them is A.J. She’s