A Glance Across a Room: can change things

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Does not look like much, but seldom do we expect life
changing moments to occur in  mundane events.

I was young, but receptive. Sometimes those two things do not go together, I am sure you have noticed this if you have any interaction with children. But all the same, at this time in my life, I was both.


"If your boss, the executive vice president, asks if you have work for his brother, you say yes, and hope he is not a problem" my mother said at dinner the day this request was made of her.

In turn, she said later, he was the best employee she ever had and was delighted the wunderkind ended up being her summer help, Christmas help, and any other time he could get away from school help.

"So funny, great sense of humor" she would say, as if this was hard to find in a twenty year old male.
"So smart, catches on quick, hardly have to show him once and he has got it" which was high praise as she is a women that hates waste, in time or supplies.

Having heard my mother speak of this red headed boy with delight, I was prepared to like this new member of her team. It was several years of hearing about him before we actually met.

I was still in high school and he was "older", in college, he had a very steady girlfriend, named Lisa, (I have never liked that name, petty, perhaps, but there you are.), my mother said he was devoted to her.

It was May, I was meeting my mother at her office, not something I had ever done before, to go shoe shopping together.  A friend dropped me off  at the front door.  I entered the building, without knowledge, walked down the stairs, as she had instructed me to do that morning at breakfast. There I found my mother waiting for me.

Before we left for the store, she walked me around the office, introducing me to all of her staff, (which while I had never met them previously, I felt like I knew).

And here he is now. 

Right now, as I type this, I feel frozen in time while I remember this moment. 

My mother led me into the next room, I saw for the first time, a redheaded young man sitting on a desk, laughing. It was a splendid laugh. The kind where you what to be included in the joke.  Friendly, kind, not hard or mean or cynical.

I do not remember any words spoken.
I only remember thinking:
I do not want this moment to end.

Ever.