A Woman in Red

It had been a fairly normal lunch break at the local taqueria and I was getting ready to head back to work when I saw 'her' walk into the restaurant. She immediately caught my attention, but my two friends soon watched her with as much interest as I did. Stepping into the restaurant, she took a deep breath and then walked clumsily over to get in line to place her order.

Wearing a bright red dress that came down to just above her knees, she nearly stumbled several times on her red high heels and as she stood in line, she seemed like she was about to fall off her heels. Her calves were very muscular and presumably so were her thighs. Besides the effort she expended trying not to stumble, she seemed to walk as if muscle bound or something, her shoulders stooped as she moved, increasing the awkward look of her.

She was thin, with oddly narrow hips and very small breasts, but the thing that drew our attention, hell, everyone's attention to her was the way her blonde hair curled neatly along her square jawbone, nicely highlighting her dark five o'clock shadow. Looking at her, I couldn't help but run my hand along my face, wishing I could sport such a shadow.

Moving through the line, she grabbed her tray and with intense concentration, she walked over to an empty table and sat down. Her back was now turned to my friends and I, but I did need to take our trash to a trash can, so avoiding one not far away, I walked to a distant can, dumped the tray I carried, placing the bright plastic tray on a stack next to the trash can. I then walked back to my table, passing by the woman in red, nodding slightly as she looked up at me.

It was an odd look she gave me, you might call it pained, but, it seemed she was more overwhelmed than anything else. Sitting down at the table, I listened to my friends joke a bit about her, one guy even whispered a comment to several women who were equally flabbergasted at this woman in red, "You see what your competition is these days."