Feeling:
Listening to:
Reading/Watching:

I have no idea how old he is. I'd estimate late twenties, possibly early thirties at the very oldest. He has a daughter. He's divorced.

He has a crush on me. Or something like that.

It's very weird and hard to describe, this situation. I worked at a restaurant all summer, and I figured the older waiters were nice to me because they were mature enough to look past appearances and appreciate my niceness or hard work or something. I never looked into it beyond that- that they thought I was sweet and were nice to me.

When my younger brother and friend and I went to dinner there one night, one of these older waiters was our waiter. He was witty and great, and when I jokingly asked him to fill my water glass with Sprite, he brought me a free soda with cherries in it. It was so sweet. My brother and friend thought he had a crush on me. I denied it because it seemed so utterly ridiculous- I mean, this guy has been married and has a daughter (I think she's six or seven). No way he'd look twice at a shy little nothing like me, unless it was a sort of big-brotherly thing.

But once they called my attention to it, I noticed things. And while I wondered whether I only noticed because they made me self-conscious about it, I still noticed. He would help me out in little ways, always unexpectedly. He stood behind me while I was ringing up an order and put his cheek against mine to ask me to sing for one of his tables once. Then again just a couple days ago. I'd glance at him and see him looking at me with a smile in his eyes.

I really hope it's just my imagination. I really hope I'm making something out of nothing, that he sees me as a sweet girl and nothing more, that I remind him of how his daughter might be someday, or something. I don't know. He once teasingly mentioned how he had a weakness for redheads, because both his ex-wife and daughter are carrot-tops (as am I, for the moment). There's the constant repart�e between waiters and waitresses, sometimes verging on flirting, that I have with most of the guys there (the nice ones that don't think I'm beneath them, that is).

It's all very confusing. I feel hopelessly out of my league. I wish and wish I had a clue about how all this stuff is done, because right now I feel about two years old.

Tonight was my last night there. I leave for school Saturday. Everyone knew it was my last night, because it's a tradition there to haze the departing employees with whipped cream fights before they leave. This guy was promising to talk the other guys out of it because I didn't particularly like the idea. He seemed warmer than usual today, and my overanxious imagination wonders if he's trying to accept that I'm leaving, or something.

When we got into a conversation about the whole hazing thing, he said, "I don't think they'll really go through with it."

"Why not?" one guy asked, laughing, as he passed by.

"Because she's an amazing woman and she deserves to be left alone if she wants to. She's one of the sweetest people here..." and he went on while I listened in disbelief, pretending to be occupied swiping a credit card for table 502. He put his hands on my shoulders, standing behind me, and said, "Really, you are."

"Don't be too nice to me, you'll make my head swell." I smiled and pretended I was joking, but he apologized. Why would he apologize? Unless he thought, as I did, that it was my quiet way of saying no? My way of saying he was hopelessly out of my experience? I didn't want to say the thought of being with him terrified me, but it sort of does. I'd be way in over my head. Not that he's not wonderful and sweet and funny and will make some woman deliriously happy, but... not me.

Someone tell me I'm overanalyzing. I don't like to think he feels that way about me. Because I just can't do that. And I wouldn't want him to be hurt, even by default because I'm leaving. I should have just tried to confront him, figure it out. But I was too shy of being completely wrong and him being horrified.

I was sick of the shallows, of dealing with highschool boys who weren't ready for anything, but I'm not ready for deep water with men who've already done everything. I hate to sound childish, but it scares me. And I wonder what he'd feel if he really knew me, and how inexperienced I am.

Doesn't help that I'm reading one of my favorite books (Ever After, by Elswyth Thane), which features a twenty-seven-year-old American man meeting a shy fifteen-year-old daughter of an Earl and falling head over heels at first sight. It opens the door to too many possibilities.

And to whom do I go, to talk about this? No one from work, who might know. None of my friends, who would be speculating based on my inferences. It's hopelessly jumbled.

I can't stop being grateful it's out of my hands; I leave in less than 48 hours.

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