Oh, those poor duckies

Erica was a wary adult. She made her way carefully around her life and world. She had been tricked or lied to so many times that - although she still believed everything anyone she didn't know said - still. She was well aware that the look on her face said, "Soft, kind, empathetic, just plain nice person who believes anything anyone says to her." Or maybe there was a large N for Naïve flashing in neon pink on her forehead that everyone but her could see. This nice expression or pink flashing N attracted all kinds of people to Erica.

Grandmas who weren't really grandmas because their children had never reproduced, but who yearned to be grandmas and were the right age, would flock to her to see if she might want to be their surrogate granddaughter.

Truck drivers filling their maws with questionable meat and gravy at the truck stop EAT place where Erica worked would grin at her, chomped food mixed with saliva dribbling down their chins, and ask if she wanted to join them in their "lux'ry truck condo and go down the road a spell."

Oversexed, height-challenged but extremely confident young men would saunter up to Erica as she walked from home to work, a slippery grin threatening to melt down off their face, and whisper things like, "You n me. Whaddaya say, sistah?" She would look up, startled as she flew out of the place of serenity she had been in her mind, and back up quickly, though trying to make it look like she was just being blown back by the breeze because she didn't want anyone to be insulted by her attempts to reclaim her personal space.

"Oh, um. No!" Erica would reply to the grin. "No, um, I can't." And she would take a step with her long right leg around the small man, swiping at the bit of his hair gel stuck to her left sleeve. "Uck!" she would think to herself. "Just ick!" There had been a time, not so long ago, when her response to these types of accosts had been more like "Oh, um.... No?" But she had learned - though it took more than fifty accosts - that asking the guy "No?" told him that she really meant "Yes, I would love to join you for whatever you have in mind." Bleah! So she had read a book about how to say "no" and now knew that "no" wasn't a swear word and mostly stopped these men from asking her again or following her. "No" was now a stout part of her vocabulary.

One day, as she walked, with long, fast steps and the N on her forehead flashing its neon brightness to all and sundry, she turned a corner and THUD! She slammed so hard into something that felt softish on the surface but massively resistant on the inside that she almost fell over backwards. She avoided falling with the assistance of two muscular arms that grabbed her shoulders and then threw themselves around her back, essentially hugging her.

Who was essentially hugging her? And why were these arms still around her, even though she was now standing tall and steady as ever? She opened her eyes - only in that moment realizing that she had closed them - and started to look down. This was based on the only experience she had ever had of anyone hugging her - her parents, who were both around six inches shorter than her. She expected to be looking at the top of the hugger's head. Instead, she found herself in a staring competition with a dark blue button in front of her eyes. This was attached to a gray shirt, inside of which was a tanned, muscular chest. She could see the tanned skin and a few bright blond, curly chest hairs peeking out of the V-neck of the shirt.

Without hemming, hawing, or even thinking, she put her hand up and touched one of the bright chest hairs.

"Oh, hey, sorry!" said the owner of the chest hairs. "I, uh, I hope you're okay. I'm sorry - uh, are you okay?" He tilted his head and looked down at her.

Erica immediately forced her mind to stop wondering why this man's chest was at a much higher level than the chests of most of the overly confident men who accosted her. What in the world was she doing? She let go of the golden hair she had almost pulled from the man's chest and stepped back. Or tried to.

Only then did the man realize he still had his arms around her and what had been a slightly flustered look on his face turned into chagrin. He quickly pulled his arms back and stuck his right hand in his pocket, nervously running his left hand through the blond curls on top of his head.

"No. Yes. Um. I'm fine," Erica replied as she ran her own left hand nervously through her black, straight veil of hair that was, as usual, threatening to cover her face. She pushed her hair back behind her ears and looked...up. Up? Yes, up into the man's face. Tall. He was tall. Taller than her by at least six inches. That meant he had to be at least six feet five inches. Tall.

A tall man was an anomaly in her life. Not that there were no tall men walking around, eating at the EAT place, working out at the gym, and well, there were plenty of tall men around. The problem was that the handsome ones only seemed to be with tiny women. "Squeaks" as Erica referred to these women...in her mind only, of course. These short women tended to have squeaky voices. Why didn't the short men find the squeaks beautiful and accost them? Why did they only want to accost tall women? Or Erica, anyway? And why did the handsome tall men never see her? Ah, no matter. She had given up on finding a handsome man to be tall with - and potentially to have tall children with - a long time ago. She had also stopped asking herself these questions.

"Are you sure?" asked the tall, handsome blond man who was still standing in front of her. And who, although he had removed his arms from around her, was still a bit too far inside her personal space. But she didn't want to pretend that a breeze was blowing her backwards. She didn't want to get out of this man's personal space. Erica looked up - such a wonder to look up into someone's face - and smiled. Suddenly she felt as if the pink neon light of the N had turned off. Her face didn't feel like it was positioned in its usual Nice expression. It felt - not mean, of course - just kind of neutral or maybe even happy. Her smile felt warm and bright. Then she realized that the warmth came from the heat that was now flashing across her entire body. Blush heat. She took a deep breath and decided to answer honestly for once.

"Yes, I'm fine. Just startled. Um. Well, I have to get to work." She started to take a step around the man but found her right leg unable to move far enough to propel her beyond him. Instead, she almost fell again, this time sideways, and felt the man's left arm catch her. And the right-sided hug he was giving her felt so good that she leaned into it a bit. But caught herself before she could succumb to any more embarrassing tendencies. She slid herself out of the hug and slipped between the man and the wall of the building to her right. She had just started to ramp up her stride to her usual pace - she didn't want to be late for work at EAT, even though she hated it - but didn't get far before she felt a big hand grab lightly at her shoulder. She stopped and turned to face the tall man.

"Um?" she asked.

"Oh, hey, I was just wondering if you, well, um, if you would like to go have a coffee sometime?" he asked, running his hand through his hair nervously.

"Would I - well, I - um. Yes, that would be great," she replied. This time she didn't have to push her hair back. The breeze was opening her veil for her, so she just smiled at him.

"Okay, well, here's my card. I work in the building on the corner. Call me or text me to let me know when you have a couple of free hours." He handed Erica a business card and then reached out his hand to shake hers. She grasped his hand and didn't want to let go. But she did.

"Yeah, great. I will text you," she said, turning and this time succeeding in getting into her stride. She felt his eyes on her back but didn't look back. Magic had just happened and she didn't want to break the spell.

***

One night three months later, Jess picked her up from EAT at the end of her shift. She carefully hurried across the frozen puddles of the parking lot and pulled open the door of his car, flumping into the passenger seat.

"Cold!" she said as he pulled her close to him and kissed her cheek.

"Cold cheek!" he said, smiling as he put the car into gear, letting it slowly crunch over the frozen mud. "So cold, in fact, that it reminds me of when my dad used to take me and my brother duck hunting in the winter," he continued.

"Duck hunting in the winter?" she asked. "I thought - well, never mind. I don't know anything about duck hunting. Tell me."

"Yeah, we would go out around four in the morning, when it's still night cold outside. Not that it wasn't cold in the daytime, but South Dakota night cold makes your nose hairs turn into little icicles. It's hard to breathe. And the ponds get frozen over, like three feet thick. Sometimes the ponds are nothing but ice down to the bottom."

"Wow - cold!" she said, trying to imagine a cold so black and deep that you couldn't breathe.

"Yeah," Jess continued. "It was nasty cold, but it made duck hunting go quick and easy."

"How could duck hunting be quick and easy?" she asked. "Don't the ducks all fly up together if they hear a noise?"

"Well, yeah, if they can. The thing is, they're all stuck in the ice of the ponds. So they can't leave. We would just shoot a few, pull their bodies off their legs, and get back home before it even got light out."

"What?! You what?!" she exclaimed, horror in her eyes.

"Yeah, that's where the saying 'sitting ducks' comes from," he replied, smiling and starting to laugh at the horror on her face.

"What?! That is so cruel. Poor duckies!" She turned away from his laughter and stared out the window. She felt his eyes on her back but didn't turn around. Poor duckies.

He grabbed her shoulder lightly and turned her to face him. "I'm just kidding, Erica," he said. He pulled the car over to the shoulder of the road, stopped, and pulled her close, caressing her cheek and kissing her hair. "You are such a wonk," he whispered. "So naïve. But I love you, Erica."

She grinned behind her veil of hair, felt the pink neon N light on her forehead flash on, and blinked away tears of sadness for the poor duckies. Did she believe him? Was that really what "sitting ducks" meant?

"I love you, too," she whispered as she turned to kiss him. Still. Poor duckies if what he said was true.