Three phone calls, three no-answers. But why? It was Monday and Andy Miller never closed his shop, Blessings Salon, during the week. JJ called again and this time left a message.

 “Andy, it’s JJ. Taking the day off, you bum?” She stretched her legs across the park bench and glanced at the Obelisk. According to its plaque, some pharaoh commissioned it in 1430 B.C. To her, it looked like a 71-foot-tall penis. Wishful thinking on the guy’s part?

JJ continued her phone message to Andy. “I just wanted to say thanks for hooking me up with Rachel Warner. I’m house-sitting for her as we speak. Her grandmother died and she had to fly to Indiana for the funeral. Anyway, give me a call, and let me know if you’re taking a vacation this summer. I’ll pencil you in.” Right. The only other thing on her calendar was her astronomy midterm.

Astronomy. Boring. Studying far-off galaxies was like studying Des Moines. Why bother if you had no desire to visit? And why, why, spend time on complicated theories, the Big Bang being one of them.

According to Cal, the Big Bang explained why the universe was expanding. “Like a waistline?” she had asked, trying to be cute.

“Not exactly,” Cal said. “The Big Bang was more of an explosion, though not an explosion per se. See, about 10 to 20 billion years ago, all matter and energy was concentrated in a very dense state. To use an analogy, it was like putting the entire population of New York City in one subway car during rush hour, during a blackout, on the hottest day of the century, with no air-conditioning. As you can imagine, you’d get quite a bit of pent-up energy in a single place. Let’s call this phenomenon singularity. Still with me?”

Of course not. “Sure,” JJ said.

Cal smiled and waved his hands through the air, his straight black hair falling into his eyes. “Now imagine that the train jerks to a stop, someone yells ‘Fire!’ and one, only one, door opens. It’s like an explosion. Total mayhem. Millions of bodies colliding, pushing, cursing, hitting each other. Some people race away, some have to take it more slowly. Some don’t make it at all. Whatever the case, they are moving away from each other. And as they do, they start to differentiate. From this one mass comes men, women, kids with lip rings, old ladies in polyester pants, Japanese tourists with digital cameras, back issues of the New Yorker, etc. This process is called expansion and it is by measuring its rate — how quickly things move away from each other — that we can calculate, in reverse, when the Universe began and how quickly planets, stars, gases and light continue to move through space. Understand?”

Yeah, right.

JJ laid her textbook beside her on the park bench and closed her eyes. The sun bathed her face.

“Mind if I sit here?” some guy with a Southern drawl asked.

Eyes still closed, JJ swung her legs in front of her and crossed her arms, the body language equivalent of a do-not-disturb sign. Obviously, he could not read.

“Hot, isn’t it?”

Get lost.

“Supposed to be hotter tomorrow.”

Go away, I’m dead.

“Come here often?”

Asshole.

“How ‘bout them Yankees?”

Ha. Ha.

“What’s your astrological sign? I’m Taurus, the bull.”

“Bullshitter,” JJ mumbled.

“So you are awake.”

“Go hit on someone else.”

He didn’t budge. “I’d rather hit on you.”

At this, JJ opened her eyes and turned, “Fuck off.”

“Sorry if I offended you,” he said, not sorry at all. And then the bastard smiled. It was the smile of a man who knew exactly what he looked like and used the knowledge to his advantage. His looks threw her for a millisecond, but it was one millisecond too long. He picked up on it and broadened his smile.

“Crap,” she thought. “The guy’s a wet dream.” One of those brooding hunks from underwear ads. Light brown bristly hair and chin, chiseled cheeks, a hey-baby-suck-my-dick expression. Probably had a six-pack — no, a 12-pack —beneath his tee shirt. Big biceps, maybe a matching dick, a good 10 inches. Yeah, an underwear guy determined to slip out of his boxers first chance he got.

He picked up her textbook and began thumbing through it. “Principles of Astronomy,” he said. “Light reading.”

JJ reached for the text.

He took her outreached hand. His fingers were rough, his grip strong enough to break a heart in two. “I’m Jackson. And you are?”

“None of your business.”

He smiled. “Interesting name. Is it Irish? Italian?”

No way she’d smile back, but no way she’d let him intimidate her. She shook his hand. “Lucy.”

He seemed to weigh this.

“You can give me back my hand now,” she said. He did.

“Live around here, Lucy?”

“Like I’m going to tell you.”

 “Worth a shot. So, Lucy, what do you do when you’re not reading about the Universe?”

“I try to find benches where I can sit undisturbed. And you?”

“I roam the city picking up beautiful women on benches.”

JJ rolled her eyes. “What a line.”

“Corny, but true.

“What’s your success rate?”

“Mid-nineties,” he said.

“Impressive record.”

“I’m an impressive guy.”

JJ had no doubt. He likely was the kind to leave a trail of broken hearts, wherever he went, maybe a few pregnancies.

He leaned closer. “Give me your phone number and I’ll prove it.”

”Dream on.”

He played at looking pained. “Hey, can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“Why not?”

“It’s the Y chromosone.”

“So you’re blaming science?”

“Nothing to blame science for. I like my chromosome.”

She turned away. That damn smile of his was going to her crotch.

“So where do you go to school, Lucy?”

She turned back. “What makes you think I’m a student?”

He pointed to her textbook. JJ shrugged. “Innocent question,” he said.

“Yeah, like anything you say is innocent.”

“Why, Ma’am,” he said in an exaggerated drawl, “My feelings are hurt.”

“Blame my X chromosone.”

He laughed. One of those sudden, authentic laughs, pleasurable to the ears and heart.

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Her eyes ran across his tee shirt, stretched tightly over the muscles of his back.

He ran his eyes slowly up her legs. “Runner?”

“Sometimes.”

“We should run together,” he said. “What are you doing tomorrow morning?”

“I’m busy,” JJ said.

“Doing what?”

“You don’t let up, do you?”

He sat up and draped his arms along the back of the park bench, his fingers inches from her shoulder. “Nope. So what will you be doing, Lucy?”

“Working. I’m an accountant.” An accountant? She could barely add with a calculator. 

He leaned toward her and smiled. “I should have you do my taxes.”

“No need. You’re not getting a cent back.”

He continued to smile but clearly was unamused; still, he kept at it. “Seems to me, accountants especially need to run. All those hours bent over all those W-G forms. Bad for the back.”

She shrugged and looked away. “No biggie.”

JJ waited for another of his I’m-so-clever remarks, but none came. She wondered if he was still looking at her, but she didn’t dare turn her head. He’d think she was interested in him, and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“Guess I’ll mosey along,” he finally said. “Sure’s a shame though, Lucy, you being so busy and all. The Reservoir’s real pretty in the morning. If you change your mind, I’ll start out around 8, from the Reservoir Bridge off 85th Street.”

He stood and stretched, his body facing hers, his prick practically in her face. She didn’t know whether to kick him in the balls or rip open his jeans. “See you tomorrow, Lucy,” he said in his buttery drawl.

“Good luck raising your percentage,” JJ said.

“Dropped a bit today, now didn’t it?” He winked.

JJ gave him a nonchalant wave and he disappeared behind her.

She had to fight the temptation to turn and watch him walk away, at least not immediately. No way she’d let him catch her gawking. Oh but hell, she wanted to watch him, most especially his ass. And shoulders. And back. And legs. And why the hell didn’t she give him her number? Nothing wrong with a one-night stand. Better than a no-night stand. The only sex she had been having lately was with herself. Maybe she would run with him the next morning. She had already planned to jog around the reservoir.

At last JJ turned and there he was, incredible ass and all, cutting across the grass with a casual authority, on the prowl no doubt. How many women would he bag today?

JJ picked up her textbook and headed back to Rachel’s. Forget astronomy. She’d rather rather be studying Mr. Undies and his 10 inches.

“Dream on, JJ” she said as she crossed Fifth. “Dream on.”