Look what we been missing!

—Per text a prescription was ready at my pharmacy. I went there after hiking Lehigh Valley RailTrail and saying hello to my dog’s ashes.
At my pharmacy I was met by a fairly attractive girl who I never met before. It wasn’t pretty *****. No sign of her at all.
I couldn’t talk! Her eyes left me speechless.
“It’s your eyes,” I told her. It took me three stuttering tries to indicate the pharmacy had my prescription.
Gotta not tell her she has gorgeous eyes; but her eyes were smiling.
“No fair!” I’d say. “How am I supposed to do anything with you knocking me out with them eyes?”
I think she liked it. I wasn’t giving her the presidential once-over, or grabbing her privates. I was attracted by her eyes.
Our eyes kept meeting, and hers kept smiling. She wasn’t looking askance — she wasn’t turning away.
“It’s these masks!” I blubbered.
So now I worry about pretty *****. I can imagine her being let go for not meeting “goals.”
Amazingly ***** and I became friends. We’re worlds apart, but she knows me, and I know her, so we talk, which is great fun.
And ***** reverses my childhood. “No pretty lady will ever become friends with you!” But ***** did, and she doesn’t avoid me.
(Plus I owe her son a train-calendar; she tells me he really likes it!)
***** is prettier, but her eyes aren’t those of this new girl.
As I walked away I turned back toward those eyes again and said “look what we been missing!”
Her eyes smiled again.

• My brother and I photograph trains down near Altoona PA, where the old Pennsylvania Railroad crossed Allegheny Mountain. The railroad is now Norfolk Southern. Every year I take 13 of our 89 bazilyun photographs to assemble into a calendar — I do it with Shutterfly. I give those calendars as Christmas presents. (I give one to pretty *****, who gives it to her son, who is five years old, and loves trains.)