I traced Sandra’s ear with my finger. It was a perfect ear, rounded in the right places with little bones sticking up at the corners. Tiny hairs almost too small to see outlined her ear. Her earlobe felt delicate and tender, like an uncooked marshmallow, and I plucked it softly as if a guitar string. I could lay here for hours doing nothing but running my finger along her ear. She slept next to me on the couch, filling my nooks and crannies.

“What are you doing?” she asked in a sleepy voice, her almond eyes opening to reveal perfect brown globes.

“Tracing your ears,” I said as I moved my finger over the spiral of her ear.

“Why?” she asked. I mumbled an incoherent answer and her eyes closed. I wasn’t ready to tell her the reason. Not yet. And perhaps in her own way she was not ready to hear it. At least that was what I told myself. I leaned over and kissed her forehead.

The radio played a big band jazz tune, and the room darkened as the sky realized the sun had set an hour before. I could make out the dull gray horizon with a loud blinking light on top of Teepee’s peak. I met Sandra a month ago on a hike of that hill. A path led through the surrounding woods and ascended to the peak. A city bus carried hikers, runners, and bicyclists at the foot of the peak back to the parking area at the trailhead. The trails around Teepee’s peak are the roads around my home, and I know them well.

Sandra had looked exhausted when I found her sitting on a large rock a few miles before the fifteen-mile marker. She waved off my attempts at help. Sandra did not look the hiking type. She wore a black cotton skirt with black biking shorts underneath, a black silk blouse, and black flip-flops. Her hair was cut dangerously short but still looked feminine. She carried a large thermos with a white plastic handle, and took short and determined steps. She kept a slow pace both uphill and down, and never stopped for more than five minutes. I think her look of determination was what intrigued me.

I slowed my hike and doubled back three of four times to check her progress. I didn’t let her see me, and by the time she had made it to the bus, I was waiting at the stop. The next bus was an hour away, and I used the time to strike up a conversation with her.

“You have a good hike?” I asked but she didn’t answer.

“You made better time than I expected,” I said a few minutes later.

“You a stalker or something?” she asked.

“You seem almost eager for me to say that I am.”

“Ah, a clever stalker, a rather common breed.” She looked away disinterested.

We passed the remainder of the hour in silence. I studied her from a distance, but didn’t try to broach a conversation again. As we left the bus she handed me her business card.

“Call me sometime,” she said. She later told me my silence intrigued her. She claimed that most guys would have written her off as a lesbian. She thought I took the classy approach, and she became intrigued when she caught me watching her from the corner. At that point she thought that I might really be a stalker. It was either stalker or someone interesting enough to hang out with. She decided to take a chance. That’s something she does a lot: take chances on her whims.

We met at a popular happy hour restaurant a few weeks later. I had been out of town on a business trip, and she didn’t seem surprised when I called her two weeks later. She remembered who I was before I even started in on my story, and she agreed to meet. When I arrived at the Mexican restaurant, I found her sitting across the table from an older gentleman. She introduced him as Tony, and ordered a table for the three of us. It was the strangest first date I’d ever gone on.

Tony, it turns out, was Sandra’s drama teacher at the local community college. It was obvious that he liked her, but I wasn’t sure what she thought of him. He wore a tweed jacket and immediately took a disliking to me. He rarely acknowledged my presence, and when he did, it was with a condescending glance or noise in response to a question or comment I made. Throughout the evening, I thought up many excuses I would use to get out of the dinner, but something always kept me back. For all the strangeness of the evening, it was the most excitement I had had in months. When you’re around Sandra, there’s an unexplainable energy that she shares with you. I wasn’t ready to give up that energy during that dinner.