She was beautiful. You know it, we all know it when we see it, the Anima, the Muse.
It's the recognition of a kindred spirit. Someone who knows - who has thoughts and opinions and knows when and how to gently speak them. They don't have to be your own, merely well enough conceived that they're considerable.
We've all met the beautiful woman who quickly turned ugly within a few carelessly spoken thoughts or opinions. Maybe they were brusque with the waiter or the clerk, or they subscribed to some lunatic conspiracy theory, voted for the wrong party, or - simply, but not so much, read the wrong books.
This is good, they give it away, save you the time. And we've met the plain woman who through genial words and education becomes beautiful. They are much rarer. A cultivated mind, even a curious mind, is - in this day and age - a curiosity.
She's walking, a rainy spring night, restaurants overflowing, the lights from within mirrored and deformed in the street. She keeps under the awnings. Loud conversations, enthusiasms, profanity, divert her, stepping into the street to pass lines, crowds, a dozen different restaurants, in the span of 8 blocks she's passed by France, Italy, Mexico, Germany, 2 Variations on China, Thailand, Japan, still, she's walking.
It all smells delicious.
There are the Antique shops, chandeliers flickering over golden woven tapestries, candelabra, tablecloths, linens, giant moon-phase grandfather clocks, crockery, old paintings by forgotten masters, a shop that specializes in maritime antiquities, brass sextants, box compasses, lamps, bells, portholes, a diving helmet, another that fills it's bay window with crockery, in designs and sets, there are art galleries, the thrift stores which economy frequents and patience rewards, there are the commonplace shops as well, the generic background of cheap consumer goods that are made exclusively to be turned into landfill and prop up the further flung suburbs.
She is beautiful. How do we meet?
Left, down a narrow flight of stairs, a yellow welcoming light, a swinging "P" that somehow resembles a charmed little girl opening a box which spills light upon the sign, - on the rippling paned-glass windows, "The Pandora Press", this bookstore, open here at the end of the world, until late.
Late. The bookstores hours, indefinite, and, depending on when you're looking it can seemingly roll up and disappear, but it's here tonight, and it's open.