A Girl Named Lisa :: Personal Narrative, Autobiographical Essay

A Girl Named Lisa I was working in the seafood department one day when I saw them...well, her actually. I wondered what her name was. She was about 13 or 14 years old, maybe a bit more, but certainly not old enough to drive yet, or maybe she was. She was with her family, I think...no, I assume. Her father (I assume) was the big guy with a red sash on his waist and a jacket with a yin-yang patch on the front right side of it and it was black. The jacket, I mean. Her mother (I assume) was there too, and...I don't remember anything at all about her. There was another kid there, younger than her, and I assumed it was her brother. She was beautiful. Not in the gorgeous model way or the cute puppy way but in the sort of beauty that just is, Plato's beauty, you know? And I don't know why or how but when I saw her I got a feeling like when you know something's going to happen but you don't know what but you can just tell but it wasn't love. Sorta like butterflies but higher and stronger. Maybe butterflies on steroids. And the feeling stayed, sort of an anticipation. And she went away and I went to work, but I happened to look across the store towards the milk, and she was there. And she looked at me. No, not at me. It was like. . .like when you're driving over a familiar stretch of road and you know it so well that you just stare straight ahead and almost forget you're driving. It was like she knew me. It was like she was me. And then she turned down the cookie aisle and was gone. It had been over a year, and I still hadn't seen her in the store. I honestly didn't know what I'd say if I saw her, but I tried to imagine it. I saw her father (I assume) every week in the store, the same red sash, the same yin-yang jacket, as he bought fruit and eggs and bread and beer and toilet paper. But he never bought fish. And I never said anything to him, and he never noticed me or said Hi. But she noticed me. She knew me. And one day, I knew she would be in the store again, and I would see her standing by the milk, and she would see me standing by the frozen fish.