Donna DaVinci walked on low earth-colored pumps, carefully distributing her weight so that each muscle conjoined into an overall action of purpose. Shrouded in earth-colored gauzy clothes, which exaggerated, paid homage to the wide-hipped, Earth mother figure below them. A beefy figure complimented perfectly by delicate chiffon wraps over silky beige blouses that, more often then not, had Asian patterns of gooses, reeds, or wind chimes. Donna DaVinci. A woman of curves and rounds that, when grasped, yielded softly between the small fingers of Joy's inquisitive, trembling hands... ah!

Joy Fetter watched her lover walking and thought of these small, delightful details. Thought of gooses, yielding softness and the steady clump-clump-clump of a purposeful stride. From her dusty old VW beetle, parked in the shade of an acorn tree, she watched Donna walking down the block and wondered about this DaVinci woman. Donna was still a mystery to Joy. A mystery that grew in magnitude with each passing hour, same as Donna's presence in Joy's dreams grew in magnitude. Sometimes Joy woke up, dead center in the black of night, with her heart pounding, her small, pale hands grasping the mattress in search of Donna's soft, yielding curves, curves that she knew were there, somewhere, pressed up between her fingers -- if only she could find her way back to them!

At 44 years of age, Joy realized, with some dissatisfaction, drumming her diminutive fingertips against the steering wheel- 44 long years of hard work and hard drinking, years that made themselves explicit in the lines around Joy's features -- after all those years, Donna DaVinci was, indeed, her first great love. She was like a bite of something soft and sweet Joy might have tasted in a foreign land, although Joy never traveled beyond the States. One time she'd confessed to the regular, coffee-drinking customers at the diner, "Well, I'd love ta get ovuh there. See Paris and Rome and Madrid and what have you. But then, what American gal doesn't get romantic over notions like that, heh?" The coffee-drinkers laughed, nodded, winked at Joy affectionately, and raised their cups for refills. The hubbub resumed. Paris, Rome, and Madrid, all those romantic notions, simply faded into the peripheries of the diner; faded away into the greasy fryers, the slick black of the grill where there were pancakes brown for the turning, a couple of over-easy's ready to slide onto an oily plate with toast. "What American gal doesn't?" Joy asked the coffee pot.

When first she approached the severe-looking woman seated outside the feminist café -- captivating her space, hunched over a steaming mug of mocha latté, reading glasses perched on her nose in pedagogic fashion, an important looking chunk of Xeroxed papers clamped in her firsts -- Joy had only one simple goal: Say hello, Joy, just say hello. She didn't expect to stand there for a full minute while the copious stranger apparently finished off her page. It was the longest minute of Joy's life. Standing there before the stranger, shifting her weight from foot to foot, contemplating her appearance, self-conscious about the slick, pinstriped Armani suit, the much labored over short-brown gel-wet hair, the expensive perfume (which made her nose itchy and red). Staring at the large, white-knuckled hands gripping the Xeroxed papers, the slightly upturned face of its reader. And just at the moment that Joy felt her guts were gonna burst from the inside out with terror, finally the winsome stranger turned over to the new page with a definitive nod. Glanced up with a look of utter apathy and casual disregard. Remarked a limp and blunted --

"Yes?"

"Oh. Ha!" Joy cleared her throat, pulled her silk blouse away from her clavicle a couple of times, laughed in that nasal, oafish way she had of laughing when ill at ease. The laugh she spilled so often at the diner. When an aggravated eater barked a complaint about their under or overcooked steak, or when she dropped something steaming-hot or icy-cold in an eater's lap. The laugh, which filled the gap of time in which Joy, flustered into forgetfulness, tried to recall: What in the hell do I say? Joy was experiencing a temporary memory lapse now. Confronted by those brooding, intelligent eyes. What was it, Joy, I was supposed to say?

Donna's face remained unchanged. She reiterated her stolid, "Yes?" Glanced around Joy's blushing face. Blinked her large, catlike eyes. Flitted them over and around Joy's upper body. Returned them to Joy's face, questioning.

Just say hello, Joy, just say hello, for God's sake. But, although Joy's jaw dropped slack, no words were coming out of the gaping hole.

Donna sighed impatiently. Her mouth moved down at the corners, her eyebrows arched up disdainfully, the eyeglasses came off in a quick, efficient gesture, getting tossed somewhat haphazardly onto the wrought-iron table like a bad poker hand. "May I... help you, dear?"

Another nasal honk-honk-honk of a laugh from Joy, and Donna began to grin in a "let's see where this is going" kind of way. "I've nothing better to do, this might be amusing," the grin said.

Joy stammered on. "I just, uh, well... yah." She bit down hard on her bottom lip, pulled it from between her teeth tightly. "Well, okay, this is what happened. I was comin' in fuh coffee and milk, no sugah, when I saw you sittin' there readin' those important lookin' papers. And well. And well so. I thought I'd come ovuh. Say hello. So." Joy put on her sweetest polite smile, said, "Hello." Outstretched her small pale hand. "I'm Joy."

The outstretched hand was a reflex more than anything else, You say hello, you put out your hand for shaking, that was how it was done, it was Joy's usual recital. Usually a lady would at least shake Joy's hand before giving the distinct impression that she wasn't interested at all in anything Joy had to offer. But this stunning stranger glanced directly from Joy's small hand to her Xeroxed readings. Took up her glasses with a less than amused swallow. Resumed her insipid reading. Grumbled out a terse, sarcastic, "Not that I'm not tickled pink. But, as you can see, I am quite busy at the moment, dear."

Now Joy's small, outstretched hand was a thing she didn't know how to contend with. An embarrassing thing, like a boob slipped out of her bathing suit on the beach. It was hard to put it away without drawing attention to its ridiculous exposure. So Joy Fetter wafted the air a couple times with the unshaken hand, then casually tucked it behind the nape of her neck where there was, evidently, a dark curl out of place that needed tending to.

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