Fluke by David Elliott, Bart Hopkins Page A

glass windows, and saw Sara, locking the door on her Golf.   She had on a lavender-colored, flowery-print skirt and a white sleeveless T-shirt, and she looked beautiful.   I looked at Sean, who was staring out the window at her.
    “Hey, there she is,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.   The truth was, however, that I was as struck by her beauty now as I had been the night I handed her a medium cheese pizza.   A brief thought passed through my head, but was short-lived: it’s a fluke for you, Fluke.   Just a fluke.
    “Wow.   She’s hot, man.   If that’s really her and not some chick you paid to hang out with you, I’m impressed,” he laughed.
    She came in the door, smiled at the workers who shouted out the greeting, and looked at me.   I stood and met her beside the booth, wrapping my arms around her waist and giving her a small kiss.   She returned the kiss and turned towards Sean.
    “You must be the infamous Sean,” she said, holding her hand out.   “I’m Sara.”
    Sean smiled and shook her hand and said, “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Sara.”
    We all sat down and she told me about her night, rearranging furniture in her apartment, doing laundry, cleaning.
    “I washed some of your clothes, too.   Hope you don’t mind,” she said.
    “Not at all,” I said, and Sean just smiled at me.   “Thank you.”
    “You wash Fluke’s clothes? Oh, man, it must be love,” Sean said.   This brought a slightly uncomfortable chuckle from both Sara and I.   That was a word I had flirted with in my mind recently, but hadn’t wanted to consider seriously due to my prior track record, and how quickly this had all come about.   I had resolved myself to just go with the flow until more time had passed, and this had indeed proved itself to not be just a fluke.
    Sean gulped down the last of his tea and started crunching the ice in his mouth.   He stared at me intently, as though trying to place me, and I responded with a confused look at him.   Sara watched Sean and I, and said, “What are you guys doing? Staring contest?”
    “Nah.   It’s just that Fluke over there reminds me of an actor.   That guy…shit, what’s his name?” Sean sat back and appeared to give up.   “I can’t think of his name.”
    I glanced over at Sara, and saw her staring at Sean.   “He’s kind of a nut, in case you hadn’t noticed,” I told her.
    She didn’t respond.   She didn’t look at me.   I followed her gaze and realized that she wasn’t staring at Sean.   She wasn’t staring at anything; she was just staring.   Statue-like.   In one hand she held a napkin, and with the other hand she tore small pieces of the napkin off and let them drop onto her plate.
    Shit, it’s happening again, I thought.   I felt the first bristles of panic in my stomach, pushing aside the previous feelings of heartburn from the hash browns.   I moved my hand to Sara’s back and said, “Sara? You okay?”
    I got the response I had feared, but expected: nothing.   She continued staring off, back in the foreign zone, far away from me, far away from Sean, far away from the Waffle House.   Suddenly, horribly, it was that first night all over again.
    Sean waved his hand up and down in front of his face, his palm about six inches from his nose.   “Sara?” She continued to stare, and he looked at me.   “Is she okay?”
    Ignoring Sean, I said, “Sara, honey, let’s pay and go home.” I rubbed the palm of my hand up and down the slight bumps of her spine.   She didn’t move, though, and I looked at Sean, who looked back at me, helpless.   I didn’t know what to do, so I started telling Sean about the first time it had happened.   I looked at her one more time to make sure she was still gone, and spoke.
    “She did this our first night together, man.   I don’t know what it was, but she wouldn’t look at me or talk to me for a half hour.   All she did was sit and smoke,” I whispered to him, mindful of