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"You are not old and I am in a fucking mood," Shia said.

When she walked away from him, Shia decided that she hated men.

Matthew, a newborn millionaire from Cheyenne, looked kind like his name, heavy set as a bear from the hills of Wyoming. He flew to California to find himself a wife, and decided to target the girlhood of Newport Beach.

He spotted pretty blondes drive convertible BMWs. Matthew rented one. Where could he find one of those girls? He drove seaward on Jamboree, hoping to find girls on the beach, but the never seen before upcoming waves tightened his behind. He made a right turn into the Back Bay.

Wall Street Journal under his arm, head up, the newly hatched businessman thought that he left no doubts in the minds of the onlookers about his social status.

Two pelicans turned his head even higher up as they flew across the bay. Then a one legged bird in the middle of the marsh amazed him as it stood motionless for so long, that it looked lifeless. He decided to buy a camera.

He turned his head forty-five degrees to the left, and discovered a girl on a bench. One short glance at her returned him to his paper. Another glance forced him to dedicate thirty seconds at the girl's silky blonde-brown hair and long lashed hazel eyes. She appeared to be absorbed by a book.

He made enough noise with his newspaper to awake a cat, but she did not budge. Matthew had no inhibition in approaching a girl. He thought he knew them in and out. Those in Cheyenne, anyhow.

"May I join you? I feel rather lonely on this bench," he said.

She accorded him a short glance.

"The park is community property," she replied.

After half an hour Matthew left with her phone number in his pocket. When he looked back, saw her limp away from the bench. All the illusions cumulated in his head during those thirty minutes went up the smoke with the Marlboro he lit. He threw her phone number in a trashcan.

Next Sunday he reappeared with his newly bought camera with the hope to find some other girls. The benches sat bare.

He left the journal on a bench and headed with his camera toward the one legged bird, who stood in the same spot, immobile, two dimensional, as if scissor cut of black paper. When he went closer, at his surprise the bird emerged its other leg, flew above the head of the photographer and marked his bushy eyebrow with a curled black and white piece of excrement. In the same second he screened the girl limp toward his bench.

She had his paper in her hands. Matthew swallowed dry, managed to smile and talk himself into being a nice gentleman with good manners. She looked through him.

"I call myself lucky to find you here; misplaced your number," he said.

"How stupid of me; did I give you my phone number?"

Matthew blushed, thought of how unfair mother nature can be sometimes in combining such prettiness with a deformity. He wiped the bench with his handkerchief, sat down and tried to recall the little he knew of politeness.

"You are pretty enough to make me ignore such a minor defect. I tried to find your number," he said.

She laughed at him.

"I learned how men feel about such a minor defect," she said.

Matthew felt hurt. He wanted to show that he was not an accidental male who takes a little detail out of context when the whole is so charming. He told her so, surprised at his own sophistication.

"You look like the girl I dreamed to marry. One glance at you caught my heart by surprise; it sped up like a firebird. From then on you occupied a tiny spot in my heart and the spot grew by the day. I phoned my mom in Cheyenne and told her about you. But to be honest, when I told her about your little defect?" Matthew coughed a few times.

Shia's face turned mean, as that of an angry cat ready to get her claws into his eyes, only did not hiss.

"You are a clumsy liar, not that I give a damn. You look repulsively ugly. If you were the only man on an island, I'd pick a chimp."

No woman ever talked to him like that before. His mind went blank and he became so listless with anger, that he only came to himself when Shia gracefully vanished with the gait of a gazelle.

He ran after her to make sure that she was real. She never looked back.