Part 11 - Phil's Love for Ida

Phil looked in the mirror. He worried that his receding hair line made him look older than he was. The girl at the coffee shop looked about 25. He knew would see her there if he went between 10 am and 6 pm. He knew her name was Ida. She had a plastic name tag with green glitter on it that she wore on her apron. He thought that Ida was a solid sounding name. Like potatoes. Idaho potatoes. It was the kind of name that your mother’s best friend would have. Or the lady who serves the soup at the church supper.

It was her hands that he had first noticed. They were so pale and so smooth. Her fingers were long and delicate, without trying to be. She didn't even polish her nails. She kept them short, but still they looked like princess fingers.

Normally, he didn’t have this kind of feeling about coffee shop girls. Most of them kind of bugged him, actually. They seemed freckly and forceful, like they were naturally bossy and they were getting their degrees at the university in something that would prepare them to be even bossier. But Ida was different. She was just so warm, so plain, so sweet, so imperfect in all the best ways. Like her sweater. She had a horrible sweater that had clearly been through a wash cycle that no sweater should ever see.

Ida’s sweater was blue and the arms were too short. The middle was too big around, and it looked kind of stiff, like if you had tried to make a sweater out of upholstery. She wasn’t wearing it to be cool, either, Phil could see. She just didn’t have the trappings of a wearing a ratty blue sweater to be cool sort of person. For example, she didn’t wear earrings. Girls who wear ratty sweaters to be cool always wear earrings. And often they have tattoos. She didn’t have earrings, tattoos, nail polish, or any of that kind of stuff. She just had hands so beautiful that if he made the mistake of watching them while she pulled the handle on the espresso machine, or handed someone a coffee, he felt a little lurch in his stomach.

He wasn’t planning to talk to her. He didn’t want her to think he was some kind of stalker. He tried not to think too much about her. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t try to look halfway presentable when he knew that he’d be going by the coffee shop while she was there. He flossed extra well on those days. If he had ever had to face flossing judgment, he knew that he would end up in flosser hell. He didn’t even floss every day. And some days, he would only floss three or four teeth. Whatever he felt like.

But when he was going to see Ida at the coffee shop, he flossed every tooth, brushed, mouthwashed, and lightly brushed again. He wore his brown and yellow plaid shirt, although she probably would never see it, because he had his heavy wool coat on. He knew that his earflap hat wasn’t exactly sexy, but he figured that a true princess would appreciate practicality in a man, so he wore it. Besides, it smashed his hair down, and left a red crease on his forehead, so he couldn’t really take it off right when he got there.

Today, he was going to put up posters for the Pants Demons, then stop by the animal shelter on his way to the botanical gardens. He had decided that he would get a dog, even if it meant moving out of his apartment. It wouldn’t really be hard to move, since he hadn’t unpacked any of the boxes since he had left the academy. He had just unpacked his computer and two or three dishes, a couple of shirts and his sleeping bag. The washing machine and dryer pretty much served as his clothing storage.

The only thing that would be hard to move was his harp, and since he hadn’t even taken it out of its crate, at least there would be no packing. It would cost a few hundred dollars to have the movers come, but they could take all the other stuff at the same time.

He buttoned his coat and grabbed the messenger bag.