The man standing next to me in the Classic Literature section of the bookstore has interesting taste. Surreptitiously, I'll look up every now and then to see what else is in his stack of books; I can't see all the titles, but from what I can tell, it's an eclectic mix of occult philosophy, poetry, history, and something I can't quite make out. Some kind of fiction, maybe. Given the section we're both browsing, that seems to be a reasonable assumption to make.

He's also very good-looking, for an older man. Hair dark sable, with strands of silver - a shade of brown so dark that it's almost black. On second glance, maybe it is black. I can't tell in this lighting. Nice wool dress trousers, silk shirt, both slightly rumpled, both in dark hues. Slender - unusually so - I suspect he has muscle, but of the wiry sort. Pale skin, a bit on the olive side. Almost my height, so he's tall. I'd say he's probably about six feet one or so, maybe six-two.

There's something compelling about his hands, although I can't for the life of me say exactly what. Maybe it's because of the way they're held still, but seem full of pent-up energy. Maybe it's the fascinating way they're gnarled and lined. I look at his hands and think of the grove of birches that was on the lawn in front of my college library.

He's interesting.

His books look interesting, too.

Heck with it.

"You buy books the way I do - in bulk," I say to him. "What have you got so far?" It's been a long while since I've been able to buy my books rather than just read them in the store while soaking in the bookstore ambiance, but I don't feel like talking about that.

Without a word, he holds out his books for me to see. Books on the Golden Dawn; the complete poems of William Butler Yeats - all right, I saw those earlier. A rather outdated text on the supposed religion of the Etruscans written by Charles Godfrey Leland. Saw that. Then I see the titles I didn't catch earlier. An issue of Gnosis. An issue of Yellow Silk. Nice. Umberto Eco's Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language. Jung's Red Book. Some paperback with a plain yellow cover and the title in understated black lettering; the author appears to be French. So does the book's title, which means whatever the book is he's reading, it's in the original French, unless it was written in English, in which case he's reading a French translation for whatever reason. The first scenario seems the more plausible one. Hmm. Histoire translates as "story," if I remember correctly from my very rusty lower-school French classes. It's fiction. Other than that, I've no idea what it is, and I can't puzzle it out.

At the bottom of his pile are a couple of Julia Child cookbooks.

"You cook?"

"It's one of my hobbies."

He has an accent. I can't place it, though. His voice is too quiet. The only thing I can determine is that it's not Midwestern, so he's possibly not from around here.

I want to hear him talk more. It's not just that I'm hoping I might be able to place the accent if I listen to it more. It's also the fact that his hushed voice is warm and velvety and seductive. It needs to be on a recording. (Ideally, that recording would be a romance novel).

Cute. Unusual voice. Multilingual. Broad taste in reading, including some stuff I've heard of or read, and some stuff I've never heard of that looks like I might want to hear of it at some point in the indefinite near future... and he cooks? Very interesting.

"Leland's not considered very reliable," I remark. "He had a pronounced tendency to embellish or to just make things up. His writings are classics, as far as the Western mystery tradition is concerned, but they're not good primary resources for mythological or anthropological research."

I'm so good at making polite small talk that I amaze myself.

"True. Of course, Aleister Crowley made up more than half of what he wrote, but he's a classic in his own way, as well." He's so quiet. Shy, or just reserved? I can't tell.

"Haven't read him yet. He's on my get-around-to list, though."

Silence.

"You like poetry?"

"Yes. Although I'm also reading Yeats as part of my study of the philosophy of the Order of the Golden Dawn."

"Oh."

More silence.

"Where did you find the magazines and the books? I've never seen these in the New Age section." His selections look way too esoteric for a little shopping mall bookstore like this one.

"I put them on order."

Our hands brush as I hand him back his books.

I think I just made him blush.

Shy. Definitely shy.

I've spotted him again. Funny how I'd never noticed him here before, given how I practically live in the downtown library when I'm not selling magazines - a part-time telemarketing job that I hate, because no matter how good I am at it, I'm always afraid one bad week will get me fired. Also, faking being an outgoing "people person" is exhausting, especially since they have me assigned to a day shift right now, which means I also have to fake being a "morning person," and no amount of free coffee seems to completely do the trick for that.

It could be I've never spotted him here because I don't usually use the reference section. Most of what I read is in circulation even when it's not fiction. Today, though, I'm looking for books and journals on archaeology related to the Trojan War. Rereading Lattimore's translation of the Iliad made me curious, and of course, I couldn't let the subject rest once it had lodged itself in my mind (well, reading it completely for the first time, really; like many books I was assigned for courses, while I was taking the honors tutorial on Bronze Age Greece I couldn't bring myself to read the assigned material from cover to cover, and only skimmed it, only to rediscover it later when I had more time on my hands and when the reading was not compulsory, and part of a heavy course load that competed with several other classes, all of which had their own homework). Translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey are in circulation, of course, as are some books on ancient history, including a couple that focus exclusively on the Trojan War, but aside from a coffee table book by Michael Grant that seems to be the book form of a PBS miniseries, there's nothing on archaeology in circulation. So now I'm here.

He's one of the reference librarians.

I walk up to the desk. "I don't know how to find the journals Manfred Korfmann published his findings in. Could you help me, please?"

"I can check the print index. You'll have better luck finding those in the university library, though. What we have on classical civilization and archaeology is extremely basic. If you like, we could order some materials through interlibrary loan... But I think you should use the classical collection at the university library. It's well-stocked, plus they currently have an exhibition of documents on loan from the Blegen Center archives, including excavation records from the Palace of Nestor and some of Carl Blegen's original papers. They also have some first-edition Schliemanns. You'd love it."

And then his face lights up.

"You again!"

"Me again."

We act quietly flustered at each other, including some obligatory awkward conversational pauses.

Finally, I blurt out, "Want to go out on a date with me?"

Another awkward pause.

He smiles. "All right. Yes."

This more than makes up for my not having found the journals I was looking for.