Third Place

Posted by Kate Traci on May 30, 2013 in My Three W's: Writing, Working out and What The??, On Writing | 3 Comments

I have a goal, to enter one writing contest a month.

So far I have entered two this year, but hey that’s a start.

I entered a short essay for the California Writers Club contest last month and won third place. Won 25 bucks too…I think I’ll buy me a frozen yogurt. Truthfully I won this: writing fire rekindled! Love that feeling.

Topic: Most Influential Person ~ Genre: Nonfiction ~ Title: Green Eyed Guy

Here it is…

Green-Eyed Guy

by: Kate Traci

To the cute green-eyed guy in Paradise Bakery, Desert Ridge Mall: I should have given you my number.

A fellow Southern Californian, you struck up a conversation with me while I waited for my smoothie. As usual I was surprised. He is talking to me? Believing there to be another, cuter, brown haired girl standing in line in front of him.

“San Diego?” You asked.

“You over heard me talking?” I answered with a charmed smile over my shoulder.

“Yeah,” You nodded with a grin, “Where are you from?”

“Encinitas,” Let’s see if you really know what you’re talking about, “do you know the area well?”

“I’m from Mission Valley.”

I tilted my face up to look at you, “I swear being from San Diego is like a club here. I was out with family having dinner and a waiter, from the other side of the restaurant, saw my SD hat the other night and came over to the table firing 20 questions. He said he was making sure I passed the San Diego test!”

You laughed, “I know! I always get that when I wear my sweatshirt.”

“College?”

“SDSU.”

“Fat-burning Ginseng smoothie?” Called the clerk. I turned away and reached for my lunch.

“Have a great day San Diego,” I tossed to him and walked to meet my client.

He’s standing right next to you give him your card. I can’t she’s talking to me. Give him your card. 

What do I say, “Excuse me, here’s my card if you need any marketing help?” 

How bout, “Hey are you single?”  He isn’t wearing a ring. That doesn’t mean anything. He’s too cute to be single. Maybe he thinks the same about me. 

You waited next to me, I turned your way, but too soon your lunch was ready. Lookatme, lookatme, lookatme. I watched you walk out the door, dark maroon button-up shirt fading into the crazy lunchtime crowd. Lookatme.

My client was talking and I remembered to smile.

Where did the girl I was go? The confident one who lived in a world of pearls, where is she now? She hides. She hides behind armor: long hair, big smile, make-up, and charm. She hides, but she is there.

She whispers to me, give him your card. 

What else have you missed? She asks softly.

 

“You know what I believe in?” My best friend asked me as we sat in the cool night-time summer air on the tail-gate of my truck many years ago.

“Probably.”

“No, I mean about love and the universe,” He said. He was very serious.

I turned to look at him, “Tell me.”

“I believe in the chance encounter, your hand that brushes someone’s in a restaurant, or standing in line you touch someone’s shoulder, and it’s like electric you know.” No I didn’t really know, and didn’t know where this was coming from in him.

He continued, “And you both just kinda know.”

“You think that really happens? You think that’s what I’m waiting for?” I pleaded for it to be true. If he is certain than I shall be too.

He looked at me direct, both of us stare to stare, “Yes, I really do.”

“It’s like magic,” I smiled, it was my eternal search.

“Yes,” he smiled back.

 

Green-eyed guy you are a symbol, a symbol of opportunity. That moment with you influences me every day. That moment when boldness is required to follow the whisper of serendipity and happenstance and truth from deep within; to give the tiny ember of potential a chance to let magic strike.

Green-eyed guy isn’t a future life, he’s just a symbol of who I want to be, but that is enough.