Episode #3 – Ryan

“I’m Ryan, by the way.”

Red blinked.

Ryan cleared his throat and pointed, “Uh, my apartment’s this way.”

He quickly headed off in the direction he had indicated.

“Ah, yes, your name is Ryan,” the girl’s voice floated up from behind.

Ryan, who was easily two heads taller then the girl, looked down to his left. “Right, and what’s your name?”

“Red.”

“Red?”

“Is there something wrong with that name?” The girl’s eyebrows rose slightly.

“No,” Ryan shrugged. “I mean, either that’s not your real name or your parents were hippies. We are in San Francisco, but since we’ve already established that you aren’t from around here, I’ll just assume you want to ditch your real name.”

Red nodded. “My given name brings some…complication with it.”

“You’re not running from the cops or anything are you?”

Red considered the question.

“Look I’m not trying to pry but you should know that one of my roommates is SFPD, so…”

“I have never run afoul the police, I assure you. I do not use my given names because I do not wish for my family to locate me.”

“Fair enough.”

The two had come to the intersection of Church and Market. Being that it was now the mid-afternoon there was a fair current of various traffic, automobile, pedestrian, streetcar, bubbling through the area. They were standing just in front of a large parking lot that stood out along Market Street for it’s lack of building facades butting up against the sidewalk. The Starbucks that Ryan worked at, and a large grocery store, sat at the far end of the lot in an attempt to approximate suburban living in this decidedly urban expanse of victorian dwellings nestled atop the myriad small store fronts, organic eateries, and bars that lined both Church and Market streets in all four directions.

“My apartment’s just a couple of blocks down Church,” Ryan pointed.

The two stood in silence for a few seconds until the light changed and Ryan stepped off the curb. Looking to his left he realized that, in fact, he was alone in the crosswalk and quickly turned around. Red was still standing on the sidewalk watching an old streetcar jerk and clack down Market Street.

“You coming?” Ryan had gotten several steps into the crosswalk before noticing that Red was following him.

“My apologies.” Red took a few brisk steps before Ryan turned back around and they both continued on.

“You do that a lot, don’t you, watch people.”

“I find humans to be endlessly fascinating.”

Ryan glanced at the figure treading along on his left. Man what a weird chick. Maybe it was just that she was foreign. Even though she spoke English well, better then Ryan in fact, it was clearly not her native language. He’d seen her a lot over the last few weeks, just sitting out in front of his work, watching people pass by. It was obvious from the state of her clothes, that she constantly clutched the backpack she carried around, and that she never bought even a small cup of coffee, that she was living on the streets. Ryan was a senior at SF State so, after four years in the city, he was generally immune to feelings of pity for the homeless. After a while, you just became desensitized to it. But something about this girl, Red, tugged at him. It wasn’t just that he found her attractive. OK, that was a part, a big part yes. He wasn’t just attracted to her in the “do you want to get a cup of coffee” way, though. The first time he had seen her, just sitting in what would become her usual spot as he walked into work one morning, he nearly had an anxiety attack. She hadn’t even looked his way, in fact, so he only got a view of her profile on the edge of his vision, but even still he had to force himself to keep breathing as he passed by.

That had been odd. Ryan had, in high school, had a number of girlfriends. He wouldn’t have described himself as a “player.” He’d only ever known, in a biblical sense, two girls. And each of those he had ended up dating for at least six months. But he’d been on, literally, more dates then he cared to count. He was fairly tall, athletic (he surfed at least twice a week and had played varsity baseball and basketball in high school), and really had no problems talking to people so he often asked girls out and they very nearly always said yes. After 20 minutes of conversation, though, Ryan usually found that most girls his age were either stupid, self-absorbed, spiteful, cared only about celebrity gossip, or were some horrible combination of all those traits and worse.

Ryan fancied himself a bit of a scholar. Well, a self-made scholar. Because he was practical, Ryan had majored in business and he’d be the first to admit that the geniuses on campus weren’t flocking to study business. But he would have graduated a year early if he hadn’t decided to take three minors; physics, American Literature, and philosophy. So while Ryan felt he could hold a decent length intelligent conversation with a great many people, he often found that first dates fizzled quickly in the conversation department. He had started to believe that he was jinxed in some way. His last serious relationship had ended nearly two years ago and since then he could count on one hand the number of girls he’d seen more then once. He kept asking girls out, though, because…well, what else could you do? It had become a routine, in a way. See a cute girl at work, or on campus, or at the beach, chat her up for a few minutes, ask her (casually) to grab something to eat, go on date, get annoyed, don’t go out with her again.

And then he’d seen Red. He, honestly, couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt nervous around a girl. Was that a good sign, or a bad sign? A case could be made, he thought, for either, or both at the same time. And now he was walking down the street with her and she would be spending the night with him. Well, in the same apartment, at any rate. He doubted she would stay in the same bed as him since, A. he shared a room with one of his roommates and B. she didn’t know him and C. he didn’t know her and D. what the hell was he thinking? Of course she wouldn’t be sleeping in his bed. He had only offered her the couch because he didn’t want her to sleep on a bench in Dolores Park, not, not because he was trying to hit on her.

He wasn’t exactly sure what it was about her that made his heart miss every third or fourth beat. He chanced another glance down to his left. Objectively, she wasn’t anything more then cute. Her long blond hair was pulled back into a pony tail, and though Ryan had not noticed before, walking in the sunlight in seemed that her hair was radiating both a reddish undertone and nearly white shimmer as she moved. Her face was rounded and soft, almost petite. Well, all of her was petite. Ryan doubted that she was taller then 5’4, although now that he thought about it, he had never seen her in anything other then baggy jeans and the large flannel sweater she was wearing now. She might have weighed 180 under all the big clothing and he wouldn’t know. He realized, however, that she was walking effortlessly, but with a hint of tension. Like she was a spring that had been half coiled. She had to be athletic, Ryan decided. No one who was terribly out of shape would move with that kind of grace and precision at the same time. His gaze lingered over her eyes, they were a dark gray blue, like when the fog rolled in over the Golden Gate and washed the shore away in obscurity. He realized that she wasn’t wearing makeup, which made sense if she had been living on the street, but was slightly surprised to see that her cheeks still carried a slight pink tint.

“Oh crap!”

“Is something amiss?” Red turned to face Ryan.

“Sorry, we passed it, my apartment it’s right there.” He pointed to a large white and purple three story victorian that was three doors behind them. He quickly motioned for Red to go on in front of him and, once she had passed, hit himself in the side of the head twice. He rummaged in his pocket before producing a small ring of several keys.

“We’re on the third floor.”

He jogged up the front steps, quickly unlocked the heavy glass front door, and held it open as Red walked in peering around at the hallway.

“Just up that way.” Ryan pointed to the stairs at the back the end of the cramped and dingy entryway. He followed Red up the stairs and once they had come to the third floor he led her down the hall to the second door on the right before stopping and turning to face her.

“I need to warn you about my roommates.”

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