Suddenly, I heard my mind speaking in different tongues. Words and voices, all at once. I couldn’t understand a thing they said.

Seconds passed. Hours, maybe.

“Hi,” finally escaped me. The man in the navy-colored suit smiled a little or rather: The corners of his mouth appeared to have moved up by just the tiniest little bit while I was doing my best to find my balance.

Balance.

Balancing.

Balancing as good as I could.

Observing.

“It’s only me,” my voice added.

Huh!? Had I just said that? Had those been my words? Impossible! And if it should have been me, what had I just said? ‘Hi, it’s only me???’ O, come on! God! ‘It’s only me’, what was that? Who says such thing, and what was that supposed to mean anyway? Please! Please… make me disappear – or at least have this man – boy, he’s handsome! – facing me, not understand English. It was as if I’d magically turned into Baby from Dirty Dancing and had just said, ‘I carried a watermelon.’ Argh! Had he noticed? And why was he smiling, and why was he not really smiling? And more importantly: Why was I this confused? I had to get a grip on myself otherwise he’d think I’d freshly escaped the loony bin. I tried to straighten my posture.

“Only you, ha?” he said after what felt like forever.

Apparently, he did speak English, damn it. But mmm, not only did he look handsome, his voice was handsome, too. Yes, absolutely a handsome voice; you’d say the same if you heard him speak. Low, dark, resonant, and warm. While my senses instantly had taken off on a vacation and were lounging in a hammock while enjoying view and sound, my mind tried its best to save me:

“Just a table for one, please,” I finally stumbled.

Just to recall where we were: We were just one step inside the restaurant’s vestibule. The Maître d’ wasn’t even in sight. Neither were tables. We were out of sight of anybody. But hey, ‘a table for one’ didn’t sound too lunatic, did it? Apparently, it was the best my mind could come up with. The moment I thought I had gotten myself back on track, this thought entered:

‘Argh, yeeeks!!! What am I doing? What makes you think he’s working here? What if he’s just another guest rushing off to another meeting? Gosh… he might be meeting with business partners any second or is about to buy roses for a loved girlfriend or even wife. Argh! And why am I standing in his way? But hey, he is also standing in my way! Man, you are so hot! Clearly, it would be roses. He was so chic he wouldn’t go with anything less than roses. Roses… Except for a bundle of wildflowers. Or, very exotic ones. No. Yah. Roses. Roses for sure.’ My mind started drifting as my senses already had.

He was taller than me. Seriously taller. Definitely that much taller that I could wear my highest heels, and he’d still be taller. I felt that I needed to lift my chin to see his face. O, and his face. What a perfectly straight nose. Such thin lips, which somehow were too present to look thin at all. Darkish eyes – yes, I know you know they are green, but given that I had just walked in from a sunny street and entered this dimly lit vestibule, I only saw them as darkish without any more specific color. His hair was short. I mean, really short. Like a quarter of an inch short, maybe even less, certainly, it was dark and much darker than his eyes. He had a fine pair of ears and funny eyebrows. They were quite full, but without being all over the place, rather groomed in a very manly way. The outsides of his eyebrows grew upwards, which made him look a little bit like the Count from Sesame Street. You know, the one in his castle who is helping the kids learn how to count, and whenever he speaks out the number of the day, there is thunder, confetti, and ‘Ah! Ah! Ah!’ his laugh?

I’d always liked Count von Count, and well, maybe for that or for whatever odd reason, I liked this man here, standing in front of me, right away. His beauty had a twist of fun, and so did his sense of style. I was impressed. I had been quite used to seeing men in suits, having worked in the corporate world for more than a decade, but this one here – well, he was the suit. Above all, his attitude radiated ‘I am me. Whether I’m in a suit or nothing, I’m no shit.’ He looked super confident and very much at peace. He definitely was a league of his own. He looked like a man, and I felt like a child.