Transformations.  Sometimes people just bloom.  That is what happened to Linda.  I'd gone to school with her for years.  She was never anyone you would notice though she was good background material, always smiling and ready to lend a hand.  When I first saw her at college, I couldn't quit looking at her.  She was a natural beauty.  And I was in love.  

She didn't know it, though, or at least I didn't say anything like that.  I'm certain, though, that there was a tone in my voice and a cast to my eye that told her something.  But it wasn't about me she was thinking, probably, for I wasn't the only one who found her so.  With her blonde hair and perfect teeth and her pocket model body, she got plenty of attention.  I was encouraged, though, by the fact that she spent so much of her time talking to me.  

I would later learn, of course, that attention for girls and attention for boys is different.  For her, attention was now like air, something that is always there, something you unconsciously breathe in and breathe out.  It was something you could take for granted.  For boys, however, there is little air, and we spend most of our time holding our breath looking for a place to breathe.  So when a girl gives us an even unconscious smile, we suck it in like suffocating things.  

"Did you see that?  She looked at me.  No, I'm not kidding.  I think she smiled."