Red Line, 7:40am. Considering the only people on the train at this hour are sleepy commuters, the subway conductor is making rather lengthy stop annoucements: “We’re now approaching Harvard Square. The doors will be opening on your right. Change here for local bus connections. This is a Braintree train, Braintree train. Please don’t forget to take your newspapers, coffee cups, backpacks and luggage with you when you exit the train. Next stop, Harvard… Now entering Harvard Square, the doors will be opening on your right…”
Normally this would bother the piss out of me, but this conductor is a young black man who possesses a strangely soothing voice with the perfect tone and cadence for talking to a train of faceless passengers: Polite yet genuine, friendly but not ingratiating, confident but not brazen. He has a great voice, and he is showing it off, incessantly.
I exit the train at South Station. (“Please exit at South Station and go upstairs for commuter rail service, Amtrak service, Silver line service to Logan Airport, and local and regional bus connections”) and proceed to walk on the platform to the stairs that lead to the street. As I walk, I pass the smooth-talking conductor, who is leaning out of his vestibule to watch for passengers before he closes the train doors.
“Have a great day, Gorgeous,” he purrs as I walk past. I almost turn around, but keep walking, surprised. It has been about 3 years since I’ve elicited flirty comments from perfect strangers based solely on my appearance. But I did just have my hair done, and I am tanned and toned from last weekend’s hiking trip, and maybe the white tea is flattering my aura.
Gorgeous! I smile as I enter the stairway, holding the door open for the person walking behind me. I glance at her, suddenly embarrassed: It is a young, trim black woman wearing a sundress and high-heel sandals, with long glossy hair piled around her winsome face. She is the very definition of the word gorgeous. I run up the stairs, laughing at myself. When I was young and cute, I was contemptuous and even hostile to the whistles, the stares, the pick-up lines. Now I’m reveling in imaginary ones.
