Whispers
The rest of the day went by slowly and without incident, for which Evan couldn’t have been more grateful. Most of it had consisted of rather tedious paperwork and reviewing interview notes from the previous week. His early morning episode had only been mentioned once, with that being right before the second interview when Mike asked if he was okay. Evan had quietly assured him that he was.
The second interviewee was interesting in that she was a textbook example of what he and Mike were instructed to look for in an applicant. Of course, it didn’t hurt that even though she was modestly dressed, she was an extraordinarily attractive young lady with a sweet demeanor. All she really lacked was Richard’s years of experience in the workforce, having just graduated from business school. In the end, Evan and Mike agreed that she and Richard were joint number one contenders for the job. That normally wasn’t a problem, but then Evan had never had an applicant handpicked by God before, at least that he knew of.
Before leaving for the day, Evan arranged with the secretary to take the following day off as a personal day. He needed to get out, relax, and hopefully sort out what he needed to do next.
He held his change out and ready as the bus pulled up in front of the building. He deposited it as he stepped on and took his ticket from the driver for the transfer he’d need about halfway home. He walked to the back of the bus, chose a seat where no one was sitting and sat.
Three stops later, two young, college-aged women boarded and sat down a few rows ahead of him. Out of habit, he tried to catch a glance of their left hands to see if there were any rings on them. He hated that habit.
There weren’t any in this case, but that never mattered. Nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand he was never shown anything that could be remotely mistaken for interest. He couldn’t get a date to save his life, so he had stopped trying a long time ago.
His last attempt had been asking Audrey out, and she had declined. He couldn’t remember his last date even, but it had been long before that. After praying about each step and action, and having failed to emerge from each try with anything other than disappointment and self doubt, he had finally decided it just wasn’t worth the hassle.
The only problem now was he still found himself looking at every attractive woman and trying to determine if there was any reason why he shouldn’t ask her out. By the time he realized it and tried to stop himself, he was always up to at least reason three or four. He couldn’t even succeed in giving up.
Before he knew it, his transfer point was rapidly approaching. He stood and moved toward the front of the bus, subconsciously glancing at the two young ladies. Looking forward again, he was startled to see someone standing in front of him, wearing a white suit and hat.
Dozens of questions flooded his mind as he tried to figure out how to approach the man, but before he could form one coherently, the bus had stopped and the man was off. Evan stepped off right behind him, bumping into him when he stopped to get his bearings.
The man turned and looked at him with irritation. “Better watch that last step,” he said, then walked off down the street. In that instant, Evan knew that this wasn’t the man he’d been looking for. The face and voice weren’t the same, and now that he had time to think about it, neither was the style of suit or hat. Disappointed, he sat down on the nearby bench and waited for the bus home.