You couldn’t help notice her.  She was beautiful.  She was alone and she had an aura about her that lit the entire section of wooden benches where she sat, reading a book.

I came here every morning, as did hundreds of others, to catch the commuter to the city. 

The trains came and went all morning without hesitation and men and women scurried to board, rarely looking at one another, coffee in paper cups, newspapers and books tucked neatly under arms, but, she had never been here before.  This morning was different.  The rush slowed to a crawl.  Women noticed her and smiled, mostly.  Some paused briefly in front of the giant mirrors by the ticket windows to adjust their attire or to remove the smudge of lipstick caused by their coffee cups. Young and old however, they noticed her.  They marveled silently at her outrageous beauty and secretly wondered who she was, where she had come from and why did they suddenly feel so inadequate?

The men were not as indiscreet.  They stared and glared and were obvious in their observation.  The goddess had a short skirt with legs that were only seen on the cover of Vogue or the fashion runways of Paris, long and perfectly shaped and bare to above the knee.  How could they not look?  How could they not gasp at her total perfection?

As we all walked from the ticket booth to the boarding platform, we had to pass her.  At the end of the same bench sat an old blind man, his silver cup extended, his white hair gently flowing as the masses past him.  Soon the men began to stop in front of him and reach into their pockets for coins and bills to drop into the cup….anything to pause and catch a parting remembrance of the seductive and sultry one seated within arms reach..  They strained neck and eyes as they dropped money into the old blind mans cup and walked away satisfied that they had, perhaps, just seen the most beautiful woman in the world.  As they took their seats on the train, one by one, they looked out the windows, smiling, wishing the goddess would stand or look their way.  Suddenly, just as the train conductor signaled that the journey was about to begin, the old blind man stood and took off his dark glasses and turned and waved to the eyes and faces that were pressed against the train windows. He turned to the goddess and took her hand.  Together they exited through the giant wooden doors, turning once and blowing a kiss to the travelers as the train blew its whistle and lunged forward.

I sat back in my seat.  The car was quiet and I felt my heart filling with a sudden burst of joy.  I smiled and looked around…The others who were smiling as well. We all felt, I imagined, that the memory of such a beautiful grifter had been worth every dime.