sniffing

12:32 AM 10/1/10

I went to his territory. I have a one out of two chance of being right just by guessing. I first went to North Atherton. I walked around and I didn't feel anything. I bought a couple of small things and left. I thought he would probably be working at North Atherton because it seemed more straightforward. All you have to do is keep driving down Atherton Street. I think they are coming from the Boalsburg direction. It seemed like it was not much farther. That's probably because State College, and North Atherton, used to be my frame of reference. That's the first area I lived in when I moved here in 1997.

Then I went to College Avenue. I was checking the layout of the place, scouting it out, casing the joint - what's the word I was using? I had a word. I wanted to feel what it was like to walk in there. The one at College Avenue exposes you to the produce department the moment you walk in, very much like it does at my Weis. Although, I guess I could walk in the other doors.

I didn't think he'd be working at College Avenue, because it seems like you have to go a longer distance in a more indirect way to get there from Boalsburg. But actually, now that I think about it, all you have to do is keep going down the bypass. It's nicer - you don't have to go through town and all that traffic, no stoplights.

One bad thing about the College Avenue store is that I think they get less business. So they might tend to cut hours more than the North Atherton one. I worked at that one only briefly. It was mainly the North Atherton one that I used to work at. I was only at College Ave for a couple of weeks, and then I quit my job because I was doing other things - I was still working for the temp agencies on and off at that time, and I hadn't settled down in a job yet.

So tonight I went in there and as I was walking my nostrils opened up and I started sniffing. I was sniffing fast shallow breaths in and out and hyperventilating. I used to do that when I worked with him. I pretended I was able to smell him. I can't actually smell anything, not the way you can smell perfume. He used to wear a wonderful perfume. I don't know what it was. It smelled like concentrated human pheromones. I saw it as a bluish-purple colored scent, in my mind. But he stopped wearing the perfume, and I still felt like I could smell him. So I walked around at the College Avenue store pretending I could smell him again. It felt like I really could smell him there. I felt this elated rush of joy. My body - I pretended I was an animal and my body had found him again.

It's funny, like I said, I have a one in two chance of being right. I'm going to feel like a fool if all that sniffing was mistaken. I'd never trust my nose again. I guess I'll find out.