La Cucaracha

Chapter 2 La Cucaracha

As Andy Foster made his way along Slide Road, sort of strolling, though he was supposed to be in a hurry, he could hear the faint sound of an Ice Cream truck in the distance. Barely loud enough to hear over the noise of the traffic along this busy street, he thought the tune was La Cucaracha. The Cockroach. This amused him, for just then he thought about that poem and the thought made him suddenly skip backwards in mock crawfish fashion.

As he did so, Andy caught the attention of a child in a stroller waiting at the bus stop along with, he assumed, the child's mother. The child giggled and as he did so, his mother turned to see what had so amused her child.

"What did you do?" the woman asked innocently.

Andy, feeling unusually frisky, repeated his act by kicking his right foot behind him, then push, push, pushing back using the tip of his right foot so as to cause his left to follow with a skip, skip, skip. The curious look on the woman's face made him realize how silly he must look so he felt the need to offer an explanation. "I was imitating a crawfish."

"A crawfish," the woman responded flatly.

"Yep. A crawfish. You know, those little red things that look like mini lobsters."

"I know what a crawfish is, but why were you doing your little crawfish dance?"

Dance. Andy hadn't quite thought of it like that. The sound of the ice cream truck grew louder. The Cockroach was gettin closer. He suddenly wondered aloud, "How do you suppose one might go about dancing like a cockroach?"

This struck the woman as particularly odd and she began to become noticeably nervous. "Are you like an actor or something? You know, preparing for a part?" she asked with a hopeful tone.

Realizing that he needed to expound on the explanation, Andy said, "I was just...well, you see...I read this poem this morning about a crawfish and a cockroach, then I heard that Ice Cream truck," he pointed and looked in the direction where he thought the truck was located, "and this little dance as you called it sort of happened."

"You're talking about the one in the paper this morning," she said.

"You read it too?"

"Yea. I thought it was cute," then she kicked her right foot behind her as if to mock Andy's Crawfish dance and added, "apparantly, you did too."

Andy found himself blushing. The woman noticed it and broke the tension by introducing herself, "I'm Damara. Damara Walker," and extending her hand.

He took it and introduced himself adding, "Damara? That's an interesting name."

"I hear that alot."

"Oh, yes. I'm sure you do. So what's it mean?" Andy asked, suddenly very interested in the woman. He noticed that she did not wear a wedding ring and she was very striking.

Damara Walker was not a classic beauty, but she attended to her appearance in such a way that made what looks she did have even more accented. She had chopped her straight, black hair so as to accent her neck, giving it a longer than actual appearance and drawing attention to her smooth, tapered neckline. Further setting off her neck was a dainty, gold chain from which hung a gold, four-leaf clover. Her eyes, while dark, could have seemed like a night too black for even a vampire, yet there was a certain luminescence about them that Andy found inviting. Olive colored skin provided just the right backdrop for pouty, dark, red lips. Completing, she wore a moderately low-cut, white blouse which revealed just enough cleavage to make a man wonder without being too much to seem slutty. And of course, blue jeans, fitting just right, showing that she still had her shape after at least one child. No, Damara Walker was not a classic beauty, but to Andy Foster, she was just right.

"I'll tell you later," she said coyly, "after I know you better."

"After you..." It suddenly struck Andy that this was an invitation. "Oh. Well. In that case, what are you doing tonight?"

Damara smiled. "Working. But I'm off tomorrow night." She dug into her purse, which, Andy noticed, was not the massive kind, but it was large enough to carry everything a woman might need while away from home for an evening. He smiled at this as he recalled his father's advice about never dating a woman with too big or too small a purse. Too Big? She's insecure and tries to prepare for every possible situation in life -- nothing a man does will ever be good enough. Too small? She'll expect the man to do EVERYTHING. In between, she'll ride the teeter-totter with you and you'll both have fun. Andy wondered if his father was right?

Damara finally pulled out her cell phone. "What's your number?"

Andy snapped to and stammered, "uh, 660-4774," as she keyed in the numbers.

Damara hit send and said, "There." A pause, then Andy's cell began to ring "Mister Blue Sky" by the Electric Light Orchestra and she added, "now you have my number." Call me later. If I don't answer, I'll call you back as soon as I get a break."

As Andy nodded her bus arrived. Andy helped Damara get the stroller into the bus, then he watched as it pulled from the stop. Just then, he saw the Ice Cream truck stop on the side street to make a sale to a bunch of kids. Ice cream. Why not? Andy thought, and he made for the truck.


(Author's note: Thanks to all who emailed suggestions. Email is fine, but I would prefer to see suggestions placed at the end of the post as comments. I just think it would be more fun. But whichever you prefer is fine. So how do you think the date's going to go? How should it go? And what kind of ice cream do you think Andy likes?)