Off the cuff

 

I remember the time I met someone during Lady's Night at the nearby dance hall and the first thing this country boy with the most unruly red hair said to me at the bar while I was getting my fifty-cent Margarita in a plastic cup was, "God, I've never seen anything like you." He coughed a laugh. His lean body was propped against the bar. He was wearing pointy-toed boots and didn't look like the other college boys I knew. There was a certain aura floating around those daring green eyes of his, or just some curls.  I winced back wondering what was that supposed to mean.

"Are you a fairy or something?" He grinned at me I still didn't know where this was going and didn't want to find out. But he didn't smell that drunk as he leaned in to give me the lookover. He kept chuckling and I kept thinking I should kick him in the shins and get back to the tipsy girls I'd come with from the dorm. But there we were in the dark. I shook my head. Honestly, I wanted to know what he saw in me. Was I that peculiar? I felt pretty ordinary in my high-waisted ombre jeans with a tucked-in graphic tee of a band I'd never see in concert. I was a few inches taller in my burgundy high-heeled Candies. 

"Damn, you are cute. Downright adorable." He took a sip of his beer. I went ahead and started on my icy drink. That's when he told me I was just too adorable for him. "Now, just get out of here girl. I don't think you are of this world. I want you to stay cute, you know."

Yeah, it was a fair warning, but I was there to dance the night away. So I found a stranger in a black stetson and I learned the Mexican two-step that night.