"Do you need some help?" a voice inquired.

"Huh?" I managed to breathe out.

"Is there anything you're looking for?" asked Guinevere. Her voice was deceptively deep--as though spoken through a thick haze.

"Just looking," I mumbled, my face still buried in the old paperback.

"Let me guess, your mom found your dirty magazines, and this was the best you could do?" she questioned, tugging gently on my book. I yielded to her pull, and peered over the top of the pages. Her eyes were of the most brilliant green I had ever seen. This was the first time I had ever been close enough to see her eyes, and I could do nothing but stare. Realizing that I had not picked up on the acerbity of her wit, she took the book from me and placed it back on the shelf. "Here, try this one," she said, handing me a yellowed copy of a book called Tropic of Cancer. I took the book in my hand, but kept my focus on her as she made her way back to the counter. Every few steps she glanced back over her shoulder, watching me with a look of puzzlement. Helpless, I simply stared back. Stopping at the counter, she smiled and asked, "Have we met before?"

"I think so," I replied. "We waived once."

"No, you live on Freemont don't you?" She had noticed me after all. Perhaps she had watched me as I had watched her.

"Yeah, I do. Do you?" I almost choked trying to hide my blatant lie.

"I just moved in a few months ago...the old house on the corner."

"That's great," I chuckled nervously. "Really great..." And thus began our first conversation. It may have lasted five minutes, maybe 15, maybe an eternity, but during that time, I learned that she was living with her grandparents, had graduated from high school early because she was an insomniac and took to homeschooling at night, and that she was planning to move to Dreighton in the next few months and go to the City College to study literature. Well, we'll worry about that later, I thought to myself. At least we have each other now. Lost in her talk, I didn't at first notice the long-haired man approach and inquire if I needed help.

"Don't need anything then?" he rasped through his smoker's voice. "Well, you need to catch up on some inventory," he added, motioning my little pet to the back room.

"It was nice meeting you," she said.

"Yeah, really nice," I replied sheepishly.

"Hey, if you're not doing anything this Saturday," she added. "You should come down to the West End Market. I'll be selling some books, art, vases, antiques, a couple bracelets I made."

"I'm not doing anything. I'll see you on Saturday," I blurted out. She smiled back coquettishly. I turned to walk to the door, but stopped with a sudden impulse to say more. "Wait!" I hollered to the back of the store. She poked her head through the doorway. "What's your name?"

"Guinevere," she replied.

"Guinevere," I whispered back, then took off out the door. As I pedaled back home through the winter slush, I sounded her name over and over again. I relished its smooth syllabic movement through my mouth--lips puckered--tongue to the top of the palate--a shallow breath--my front teeth softly buried in my bottom lip. It was as though every letter was affixed firmly to my heartstrings--gently pulling on my marionette heart.

Saturday could not come soon enough, and I was again streaking across suburbia, destined to meet my lover beneath the yellow haze and lurking shadows of the great dying city. West End Market was an additional four miles into Dreighton, but by now I was so accustomed to pedaling at a frantic pace that I felt no fatigue.

The air was brutally bitter outside, but inside the market, it was quite warm and pleasant. I scanned the stands and isles looking for Guinevere, while my rapidly moving feet skipped to the cadence of my beating heart. The multitude of items being sold at the market--rabbits, second-hand clothes, old vinyl records, car parts, baked goods--made my search for Guinevere all the more difficult though. I shuffled through the sea of merchants and shoppers, searching eagerly for my sweet, red-haired beauty, when alas, in the back corner, beneath a cracked mica window, I spotted her chatting with a group of young men. She smiled with that same, coquettish smirk that she had given me, and laughed loudly as they prodded her with their rehearsed lines of vanity and pretense. I moved into her stand, and ran my hands across a row of beaded bracelets, never taking my eyes away from her. I tried to listen to their conversation so that I could join in the amusement of the moment, but the more I watched, the more I burned and seethed with anger. These boys, with their ridiculous hair and thrift shop clothing, their stupid horned-rimmed glasses, and stupid bearded faces. I ran my hand across my cheek, smooth, and yet to have met the burning menace of a razor. It was aflame with hate, and jealousy. Fixed in a stare, I barely heard her voice ring in above the guffaw of the boys, "Can I help you?" I said nothing. My lip quivered and my teeth rattled inside my mouth. "Are you going to buy something?" she added, with a roll of her emerald eyes. Now the boys were also staring back at me. "Can you stop staring at us?" she said. "And if you're not going to buy anything, you might want to just leave," she snickered.

Slowly, I turned away, and Guinevere and her crowd again began to joke. As I walked down the isle, my eyes welling, and my throat knotted, the realization that I had been deceived by my own vanity hit me like a punch to the face. Suddenly, I was running full speed, barreling past shoppers, trying to hide the grotesque look of sadness upon my face. Outside, the air seemed colder, and the wind whipped harder. I knelt before my bicycle and cried for the first time in years. Now I realized that more often than not, love is merely an illusion--not much different than the snowflakes falling before me, that would, in time, simply melt away.

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