Not long ago, while I was in the middle of a busy afternoon at work, I learned from a coworker that I had somehow become the center of a scandal—a really pristine little tempest in a teapot—one as childish and cute and nearly innocuous as a kitten yet to be declawed.

It remains an utter mystery to me how this rumor ever got started, since I tend not to confide in coworkers. I traced it from my source to her source, the floor manager, who informed me of the breadth that this scandal had reached.

“Everybody knows about it,” she told me. “Everybody’s shocked.”

“It’s not true!” Itold her. It was so untrue that I was laughing, as I said it, which may have weakened my defense.

It’s all one, her shrug indicated.

“Well, everybody thinks it is, and they’re shocked.”

I learned that her source was the general manager, with whom Ihave the most spartan of all my work relationships. This—his speculation into my personal life—was the funniest part of all to me. If I had anything of an intimate nature to confide, I would sooner whisper it in the ear of the geriatric pervert who sits in a camp chair on the sidewalk outside our building, sipping old-fashioneds and listening to smooth jazz while assessing the curvatures of women passing by, than to my high-strung, machinistic GM.

So I enjoyed another hearty laugh and assured her that it wasn’t true, at all, and that if she heard the rumor again she should let the tattling parties know the latest and final word on the subject. I thought about telling the other person that the rumored scandal involved—because, of course, it did involve another person—but I decided against it.

I simply hugged the whole thing to myself.

If this were fiction, I’d leave it to you to divine from previous chapters that I was generally perceived as a prude.

Maybe I was one, for real.

Maybe I am.

It was really only a wish not to offend. Not to intrude. Not to demand. Not to take up space that wasn’t mine.

Is it really being a prude if I wanted that space?

I left work just as the sun was setting, and came around the corner upon two men, who were working on a boat. This sight was remarkable not only because it was on an urban side street, with no bodies of water larger than a parking lot puddle for thirty miles in any direction, but also because the boat was an arresting hue of turquoise green, and the men were an oddly matched pair: a guy of about forty, with strong shoulders and sandy hair, and an overweight guy with hooded eyes, protuberant moles on his neck, and a certain cast to his countenance that I took to suggest some feebleness of mind.

*First impressions are necessarily judgmental.

I liked the color of the boat, so turned to admire it as I walked past, and smiled politely when I met the eyes of these men working on it.

But as I passed, I heard, “Hello! Excuse me!”

I turned around. The feeble-minded-looking man lumbered toward me.

(I can’t help it—I thought, “Rabbits!” and felt a little bit of panic—blame it on John Steinbeck.)

“What’s your name?” he asked me. His voice was deep and thick.

I told him my name. “What’s yours?” I asked, feeling that his daring allowed me my own.

“Kingsley.”

In addition to his moles, he seemed to have a few polished wooden claws, as long as my little finger, protruding in a pattern from the base of his neck. I wish I could explain that better, but I can’t—my boldness didn’t extend to staring. Even though his did. He was gazing at me like a puppy with a pork chop being dangled over its head.

“You’re a beautiful woman,” he murmured to me.

I almost started to laugh.

“Thank you,” I said. “That’s kind of you to say.” And then I felt about ready to pop, so I turned around and booked it to my car.