He first appeared on a Friday. I remember he seemed to be thinking carefully about his choice, but in the end he chose what everyone else chooses during the lunch rush: sliders. After that he came in once a week, sometimes twice a week if he and his friends stopped by for sliders on Fridays. Sometimes, I would be there to ring him up, but if it wasn’t me at the register he would not even look at me. It did not matter where I was standing; next to the register, leaning against the counter, walking by him after I cleaned a table. He would just look right into the eyes of Michelle or Jorge or whichever employee was helping him, oblivious to anyone and anything else that did not pertain to his order.
That was when I was not the one at the register. When I was the person ringing him up, he would stare into my eyes. I wondered if he knew what he was doing when he stared at me or anyone else like that. He had the kind of hazel-flecked eyes that burn into you, almost as if he either hates you intensely or loves you more than he can bear. At first I thought it was awkward to look into them, but then I realized it was not awkward at all. It was actually kind of painful. I wanted to look away, but at the same time I wanted to stare back. I wanted to peer into the golden streaks that glitter under the lamp above the counter and get darker as you follow the streaks towards the pitch black iris in the center. His furrowed brows, always low and close together casting shadowy patches over his eyes, and his lips pursed like he just said something he did not want to say and had to quiet himself. But, his eyes. I forced myself to look into his eyes because then I could pretend that he was there to see me. That every week, or twice a week, he would stop at our restaurant just to see me, and look into my eyes, and touch my hand when I handed him his change. He could not bear to be away from me or my hand, and every moment spent away was like agony to him, because his desire was too great and his heart could only stay away for so long. He was not just there to eat burgers and joke around on his lunch hour with his friends or buy a pizza for him and some other girl he’s seeing.
I’d pretend he was there for me.
* * *
The first time I saw her she was at the register, leaning against the counter. She had makeup on. Not too plastered on, like some girls wear it. She just had a nice amount of eye shadow and eyeliner all around along her lashes. I think the term is “kohl-rimmed” eyes. Some women wear it and they look kind of cheap, but not this girl. Aside from the dark around her eyes she had real simple, flat black hair down to her shoulders, and she wore that powder that makes a girl look paler than she really is. I liked that she looked so pale, especially with the black hair and dark around her eyes, but judging by the skin on her forearms and hands she probably didn’t need any of that make-up. She was one of those classic fair-skinned beauties, like Snow White or some other make-believe character. I could see her sometimes, when I got lost in a thought, as some princess walking along in a field of roses. Her skin so bright that it would attract the attention of every misfit creature out there in that field and simultaneously scare them out of their wits to see such a gorgeous sight. She would lull them in, their own curious nature and an indescribable attraction to this bright princess out in the field drawing them closer and closer until she sprung on them. A few moments later they’d be dead, and she’d continue walking along unfazed by her own power over them. Pretty as a picture.
But I’d seen lots of good-looking girls before, and I would see many good-looking girls long after she disappeared. No, this girl had something else. I caught it the first time I saw her, after noticing her make-up and fair skin. It was on her arm. The long, thin tendrils extending out across her forearm. A black pattern over the faint blue threads intricately woven under the fabric of her skin, over the taut sinews that stretched as she handed me the change she held in her small hand. A grotesque black shape that only the twisted calculations of nature can create, like the spirals of a conch shell or a long and evenly segmented bug that walks along on a thousand legs. She wore it well. I sometimes thought of asking her about it, that tattoo. Why a spider-web? Did she place it on her forearm as a symbol, as a joke, or did she think it just looked interesting? Whatever her reason, I’d stepped into the parlor, and I was sure as hell stuck.
No, not stuck. Caught… that’s what I was. And I couldn’t shake loose.
* * *
On my more whimsical days I would see him roaming a desert in that blue truck that I always saw him drive into the parking lot. Mountains would rise thousands and thousands of feet up into the air all around, creating a pit of sand and shrubs and living things that barely lived but somehow got by. The sun shining down upon everything, down on the poor little desert animals that dashed across the sands looking for food and shelter, while the huge cacti towered above them and laughed amongst themselves at the silly little creatures’ attempts to survive. Little chirpy things and buzzy things and the hollow wind would be the only musical accompaniment to the survival scene that played out day after day. But as I sat or leaned or lay wherever I was at the time I would close my eyes tight and suddenly, he would be there. That big blue truck of his with the ridiculously huge tires, narrowly missing the little creatures and leaving behind a trail of dust as he cut his path through the sands. Defying the laughing cacti and chirpy, buzzy wind orchestra as he roared through the open land and let the sunshine come upon him through the open windows. He was an explorer, this man. He loved to roam free and did not like to worry about the inane issues that the rest of us deal with every day. He liked to swim the ocean in the morning, climb the mountain in the afternoon, and rest in the valley at night. Hazel-Eyes was the kind of man who made his own path. The kind of man who took what he wanted.
Then, I would get depressed. Why wouldn’t he take me?
* * *
On certain occasions I sat facing her as she worked at the register, with two friends sitting across the table watching the big television at one end of the place and one more guy on my right side facing the same direction I was. I’d bite into my burgers and talk to the guys about work and football and the chick at work who was looking good that day, all the while stealing sly glances at the register. She’d stand there, her body towards me but not facing me directly, sometimes talking to her big co-worker/friend who’d be off to the side with her back to me. Sometimes that big co-worker/friend would stand right in the center of the area behind the register and block my view of her, and I’d just sit there burning a hole into her back at the spot where her too-tight T-shirt revealed a bra strap that was stretched beyond its limit. I was prone to stare, as my folks used to tell me, but no one else ever seemed to notice. So I’d stare and wait for her to move so that I could steal another quick glance of Spider-Web before she’d turn to enter the kitchen or manage some other task that was out of my field of vision. Back there, where no one could see. I bet she’d talk to the Mexican guys who worked the kitchen and smile playfully, turning them into mindless little drones who gave her anything she wanted. Once they were smiling idiots gathered around her she’d walk her way into a big, empty back room with only a rug in the center. Their eyes would remain locked on her as she’d reach down and lift the corner of the rug, careful not to shake up the layer of dust that rested precariously on the surface. Beneath the rug there’d be a huge vault door, wooden and old with cracks running along the thick planks. She’d lead them down there, one by one following closely behind, and when she returned from the vault there’d be no followers. She’d replace the vault door, and the dusty old rug, and smile to herself as she returned to the register to help some customers that would suddenly appear from off on the side somewhere.
She’d probably go back there just to get out of my sight.
* * *
Hazel-Eyes continued to come to my restaurant nearly every week for four months, until the summer. Each time I saw him I became more and more lost, finding myself wandering through fields of hazel-colored flowers or riding in a big blue truck through the mountains that extend up from the shoreline. It grew beyond my work. As I sat on the train, he would be there sitting across from me, the light behind him creating an aura of amazing light that transcended anything I could imagine without him. At school I would see him sitting on a bench between two other guys, looking back at me. Piercing me with his gaze. But, best of all, there were the good days. The days when he would appear in my room as I slept and wake me up. I would hear him, though he did not speak, and see him, though many times my eyes would be closed. And he would sit by the bed and look at me to show me I was there.
One day in early summer he appeared in my living room, sitting on the couch and watching Jeopardy with my parents. The flickering blue glow from the television danced across his blank, expressionless face. I waited for him to turn to me and look into my eyes like he did every time I saw him, but he never turned. I waited, and waited, until at last my mother noticed and asked me why I was staring at her and my father. I turned away in silence and returned to my room to wait for him, but he did not appear that night. The next morning was a Friday, and I decided then that I could not wait for him.
I had to do it, for us.
* * *
My mind was slipping. I knew, because it’d happened before. Minutes seemed like days as I waited to get out to lunch and grab a bite to eat. The time spent away from that restaurant was time wasted not being near her. Her pale, beautiful skin, at the time so beautiful and unlike anything I’d ever seen, and of course the spider-web from which Spider-Web got her name, extending and wrapping around her thin, elegant arm. She’d fly around me, dark angelic wings springing from her back, her luminescent hands extended out to me, calling me. And I would follow, because what else could I do? She had me, her and her dark web taking hold of me, dragging me towards her like a helpless creature caught in some predator’s sights, until at last I could do nothing else but stop resisting and go to her.
My mind was slipping because I thought of these things. It was unhealthy, I knew, because it’d happened before. The web didn’t have me completely paralyzed yet, and despite the immense beauty of Spider-Web and all that she was, I couldn’t do it again. When that Friday came, I suggested we go to the deli up the street. They asked me why I was suddenly changing routine. I told them we should man up and try new things.
I had to get a grip on myself and end it, for our sake.
* * *
“What can I get for you?” Her hand rested on the counter as she looked at him, head cocked at an angle. She waited patiently, glancing out the window as the rain from a gray day fell in silence.
He looked up and rubbed his chin as he pondered his meal. There was the menu. Then he looked down, and she was looking at him. “I think I’ll just go for the All-You-Can-Eat Sliders,” he said.