Sometimes life throws you a curveball, sometimes a fastball. But worst of all is when it aims low; Alice knew that blow well. When she was young, she got glasses so thick the lenses strained the frames just trying to contain them. When she was a teenager, she got pimples from her hairline to her butt. When Alice was twenty five, she fell in love with a girl in a photo.
It happened when Sakura came to her with her portfolio; Alice had only put out an ad for photographers in the newspaper the day before, but in strolled Sakura, neat and ready for an interview. Her boss had wanted a bright young photographer for their magazine and Sakura fit the bill. The photos she brought in were beautiful, haunting, and well put together. Too good for their magazine, Alice thought—her bosses wouldn't pay anywhere near their worth. She was trying to think of a delicate way to break that to Sakura when she flipped the page.
There was a large glossy photo of a woman that took Alice's breath away. The shot was of the woman leaning in a diner's booth, staring out the window, chin in hand. A slight smile played on her lips, but her eyes were bright. It was the impetuous look of an adventurer who was only taking a small pit stop on her long journey. Her eyes were bright grey blue behind long fair lashes; her hair was wheat gold and she wore her farmer's tan like a badge of pride.
This sun kissed blonde stunned her to silence while beside her a coworker jabbered on through the interview. Regretfully, Alice forced her eyes to look at the next photo, straining to pull her gaze away from the beauty. Alice nearly shouted hallelujah when she realized the next photo was also of the same woman. She was outside now, hunkered down next to a vintage motorcycle. She gazed up with a defiantly daring smirk, her eyes now steel as she stared the camera down. The camera was closer now; Alice could count the freckles on the woman's ample breasts and felt her mouth water.
She hired Sakura on the spot, ignoring her coworker's confusion as she asked Sakura when she could start.
She didn't get to talk to Sakura for quite some time—their separate divisions meant that it took months before Alice could pin the photographer down long enough to ask. In the meantime, she wrote Sakura's web address down and went through her online portfolio.
"I'm not being creepy," she reassured herself as she clicked through pages of photos. "I'm just curious."
After nearly half an hour of despair, she found one of the photos of her mystery woman. Checking the description, she groaned to see that Sakura hadn't listed the model's name, but she found something almost as good. Sakura, bless her tidy heart, had tagged her photo with a keyword that lead to a special branch of the archive just for people's portraits. Alice punched the air with a victory shout when her darling's face appeared in many more photos.
"It's not creepy," Alice repeated as her neighbor yelled at her through the wall to keep it down. She printed off one (dozen) and promised herself that she was just doing it to bring in to Sakura, so she would know who Alice meant when she asked who her model was. And if she made one of them her phone's background, well, that was just to help remind her to ask Sakura.
Four weeks later, life took another low swing. When Alice got in to work, a coworker teasingly told her that Sakura was in. Alice tossed her purse at her desk and hurried to find the photographer. Someone told her that she was in their boss's office, talking about something. Grinning down at her phone, she thought eagerly I'm nearly onto you, lovely.
Just as she neared the door to her boss's office, a thought stopped her dead. Shite. I forgot the photo! Would it be worth it to run back to her desk to try and find one of her copies and risk missing Sakura all together, or did she dare awkwardly stumble through a conversation that Sakura might not have a clue what she was getting at, therefore just creeping Sakura out to the point she wouldn't tell her?
No, she decided; she wasn't going to go through another month of useless pining for a woman who didn't even know she existed. She strode forward—she was going to get some answers, even if she did turn her coworker off for life.
When she got near the office, she turned to her boss's secretary. Carmen grinned up at her and shrugged when Alice asked after Sakura. "You just missed her."
Alice's stomach tied itself into one lovely knot as Carmen yammered on about the photographer having to get something from her office. Disappointed, Alice drifted back to the elevator, ignoring everything as she stepped in, even when another person ducked in before the doors shut.
She raised her phone and looked at her background, admiring the photo to try and cheer herself up. Well, she blew it today, but maybe some other time. She sighed to herself.
"Oh, that's a really good shot," a voice interrupted her thoughts as a tanned hand gripped her wrist holding the phone and dragged her to it. "That's one of Sakura's, isn't it?"
Before Alice could shriek at the person to let go, she looked up and found herself entranced by a pair of familiar grey blue eyes and cocky smile.
"So," her mystery beauty said, "I take it you're a fan?"
Alice nearly died on the spot.
Five minutes later, Alice stumbled out of the elevator, clothes rumpled and glasses askew with a fresh hickey on her neck. She grinned down at her phone and the brand new contact she had inside.