There's a man that I meet about every six months. Call him Michael. He's Caribbean and handsome with broad brown smooth features. We first met on a train. Now, I see him as I enter Barnes and Nobles. He is about to leave, but then he sees me. He stops and stares. I stop and smile.

"You're from Grenada?" he asks.

I shake my head and wonder if he'll finally remember.

He studies my face. I appreciate again that he actually looks into my eyes. He doesn't ogle my breasts or my legs. "Then Dominica?" he says with a triumphant grin.

"Nope." I lean against a heavy brown bookcase labeled New Fiction. "Virginia."

"You look just like a friend." He shrugs. "She's from Dominica."

At this point, he asks where I’m from. We chat for a while.

We've had this encounter about four times now. I am always a new experience for him. He has yet to remember our first encounter on the train. I do and quite vividly.

It was summer at Park Street Station in downtown Boston. We made eye contact as we waited for the train. He smiled and I smiled back. The train felt oven-warm as we piled inside. He followed me, which I found flattering. Then he started asking questions. I answered politely. When he asked about music, I admitted to liking everything but most forms of jazz.

He frowned and said, "I can fix that. Give me time."

"I don't need fixing," I said.

The train lurched and stopped and then resumed. A collective groan filled the air.

"What about children?" Michael asked, as if ticking off a list in his mind.

"I don't have any."

He gasped. "But who will take care of you when you get old?"

Obviously not him, I thought, but all I said was, "I'll worry about that later."

His eyes narrowed and I knew he was adding to the "Things to Fix" list. I took a step back. He took three steps forward, leaning close and looking down. I was aware of people listening as they pretended to read their books.

"Will you give me your number?"

"No."

He frowned. "Why not?"

I pressed my lips together, thinking of friends and family waiting with bated breath for me to get hitched, or at least to sustain a relationship. I was so tired of them wondering if I was gay, or as my older brother admitted once, that I was alone.

"I just want to know that you have someone," he said. After a moment's hesitation, he added, "I don't even care if he's white."

I glanced around the train. A white man with intense light brown eyes gazed at me over his book. He smiled at my predicament. I felt the corners of my mouth responding.

"Hell," I said softly.

"Excuse me?"

I glanced up at Michael. He did have sweet eyes, I thought. I was such a sucker for eyes. My "list" popped into my head. Easy on the eyes. Check. Intelligent. Probably a check. Creative. Check. I took a deep breath and released it slowly. He opened his mouth, but I raised a hand before he could speak.

"Give me your number," I suggested. "No promises though."

When the train stopped, we stepped onto the platform. He searched his pockets for pen and paper. I bounced on the balls of my feet. As he patted his pockets and dug in his bag, he said, "Let's go have coffee and talk some more."

I told him the truth. "I'm sorry. I'm already late in meeting a friend." I pulled a pen and piece of paper from my purse.

He took the items and just held them. "I know a shop right on the corner." He started physically herding me toward it. "I know a drink that you'll love."

"Did you not hear what I said? I'm late." I planted my feet and glared up at him. "Give me the number and get out of my way."

With a perplexed look on his face, he wrote down his number. I ran to meet my friend, to whom I fumed the rest of the night.

When I met him in the bookstore, so many months later, I laughed at the fact he didn't remember me. The second time it happened, I felt a sense of disbelief. Meeting him this third time, well, … I stop analyzing my feelings and just go along with the scene.

As he talks to me, I wonder if fate is telling me that he's the one. Maybe I've been too picky over the years, waiting for some Prince Charming to ride in on a dark horse, to sweep me off my feet and make my heart go pitter patter. There's been lots of attempted sweeping but no resulting pitter patter.

If I were a guy, my status would be fun, even a badge of honor. Single, without children, living in the city. But I'm a woman and so there's a stigma. Not only am I a woman, but I'm an educated brown woman. It's like there's a clock ticking somewhere, but it's not biological. It's cultural.

My parents were married forty-five years, so I know what love can look like in its finer moments. I've felt enough of the pitter patter to know that it’s a sensation that I crave, and hopefully can induce in someone else. And, I've a number of good friends for whom Prince Charming did indeed appear.

"Can I have your number?"

As I look at him, I think of jazz. I read in an article that appreciating jazz requires patience. That like great art, you have to keep coming back to it. That you don't have to have a studied ear to listen, but you do have to listen.

"No." I study his face, then reach into my purse for pen and paper. "Give me yours."

Who knows? One day I may call him.