My sister’s advice was great, but it was tough to follow. If you asked a few of my close friends who spoke to me on Sunday or Monday, they’d tell you that I wouldn’t shut up about my Saturday night encounter. I wanted to know what it meant, what I should do and why he just didn’t ask for my number. To shut me up, one of my friends invited me watch Superbad.

When I got home, I did what I usually do before going to bed. I turned on my laptop and checked my email. It all looked like spam. I was about to delete a message from a sender with a funny looking name, when I realized that the oddly placed X was really an ñ and the subject line looked familiar.

From: ojitos
To: cindylu
Subject: [cute subject line, inside joke from Saturday night]

Hi Cindy,

[Short and sweet email in which he explained how he got my email (the mutual contact), that he had a great time on Saturday because I was there, cracked up reading the magazines, and that he'd like to call me sometime.]

Take care,
[ojitos
phone number]

Eek!

I fired off my own email a few minutes later to Chispa. The subject line read, “you don’t know how happy I am right now.”

As soon as I left the party, I tried to figure out what had just happened. I was so distracted, I got lost on my way back to the freeway.

I kept replaying the night. First the pick-up line which wasn’t really a pick-up line. Then dancing and random compliments. Then more dancing. Then singing along to Los Prisioneros’ “Tren Al Sur” and really meaning “no ves que estoy contento, no ves que estoy feliz?” And finally the anti-climactic goodbye at my car. A hug and a nice to meet you. But no phone numbers.

On the twenty minute drive from Pico Rivera back to Palms I wondered if I had misread the cues. If everything felt so right, then why didn’t he ask for my number? And why was I such a weenie that I didn’t just give it to him?

As I re-counted the chisme to my sister the next morning over menudo (sans tripe, ugh), I explained that all hope was not lost.

“I think I’m going to see him next week at a Los Lobos concert,” I told her. “He also has a copy of Puro Pedo. My name is in that. If he even knows how to use Google he can find me… but that might be weird. There’s always the hostess and M, the mutual contact. He can ask them for my contact info… but would that be stalkerish?”

“Don’t sweat it,” she said. “Whatever happens, happens.”

I took her advice.

I never figured out if his eyes were green or hazel. In the dim light of a bar, they were hazel. On a balmy Sunday afternoon, they were green. I asked him once, and even he didn’t have a definitive answer.

As lovely as they were, his eyes hardly stand out in my memory. When I envision him, I think of his smile, brown skin, curly hair, and how cute we looked together (his words, not mine).

I met him at a friend’s party. I showed up alone expecting other friends to later arrive, but they never showed. A few hours in to the party, he arrived with a mini-entourage. He interrupted as I talked to a mutual friend.

“You look familiar, do I know you?” he asked.

I didn’t know him. I’d never seen him around campus — which we later figured out was why he found me familiar.

There was talking and dancing and more talking and more dancing. He was good at both, but it was hot and we had to take a break for drinks. We went in to the house and relaxed on the couch. In the middle of a discussion on turtles, I noticed his eyes for the first time. I paused for a second and lost my train of thought. I wanted to stay something, but held back for fear that I’d sound like the white woman in those old Máquina de Lenguaje commercials.

Soon there were few people left at the party except for me, the hostess, my new friend and his entourage. It was time to go. He walked me to my car. We hugged and said goodbye.

And that was it.