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I see her almost every day, but hardly see her at all. In design lab, in arch. history, she is just another figure in space, engaged in the labor of academic survival. But here in the dusk of Pippin's Pizza, under the puddles of light from medieval lanterns, she shines like a campfire in a clearing. Her short blond hair illuminates the dark wood of the booth where she sits with her girlfriend. Her laugh, barely audible across the raucous frat guys at the center table, reaches my ears and no others. Her thin wrists flicker out of the green blouse she's wearing. She sways gently back and forth across her wooden bench, in seductive rhythm to the jukebox music. In my own booth I'm wedged against a cold block wall by my drinking buddies. We are all watching her. They feel it too. I wish they didn't.

Pippin's is always crowded on a Friday night. Newcomers stand in the door, holding it open, adjusting their eyes to the darkness while they search for empty booths. The cold downtown wind blows napkins toward the back counter; a dingy parachute hanging from the ceiling billows against the nails that restrain it. We shout the door closed.

The newcomers wait inside. Not for the atmosphere: dark, Teutonic, subterranean; but for the pizza: thick Chicago-style, doughy, crispy on the bottom, everything that can be had on top. They serve it hot in a black cast-iron skillet, dropped on the table with some plastic plates, a thin stack of paper napkins, and a heavy spatula with a cracked wooden handle. The table, as much spar varnish as wood, feels no pain.

Neither do we. The beer arrived long before the pizza. Pitchers of it, tasting deep and rich in the red plastic cups we drink from. Jana lifts her cup to her lips, barely tilting it for a sip of beer. I take a deep gulp from mine. When her pizza arrives, though, she greedily consumes it like the rest of us; such is the power of Pippin's Pizza. Maybe in gluttony there is some crack of similarity between us that can be pried wider into a relationship. How often has love been nourished by the steam rising from a garbage pizza?

The fraternity brothers are impatient for their pies. They command the center of the room like a stage, the flanking box seats hold a detached audience. Jana looks toward them, and us, after a loud outburst. Does she see me? She surely remembers the four of us from her classes, but she makes no sign of recognition. Maybe she didn't look past the noise. Or maybe familiarity breeds indifference.

I wonder if I can find her in Pippin's some other time, without my friends and hers, a pitcher and pizza shared, small secrets exchanged, a thread of light stretched between us over the heat of the skillet.

The door opens again. A January gust blows the warmth of my thoughts away from me. Jana will never be mine.

Learn more about this author, Greg Winkler.
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