and another thing

I was taking the 26 north when I first ran into her. And I do mean 'ran into her.' The bus started moving and I wasn't holding on. I smiled and said I was sorry, and held on to the rail; but it wasn't enough. She started yelling at me. At first she was calling me careless, but she wasn't sure why she was angry--did she think I was just trying to cop a feel, or did she think I was merely clumsy and inconsiderate? But after a few sentences, her ire was no longer directed at me. Weeks, if not months or years, of pent-up frustration were being vented at me. She couldn't hold it in anymore.

I kept smiling at her, even as she started to lose inertia, and the anger faded into a sort of mad desperation. I don't think she was even looking at me. By the time we'd turned onto Latona she'd stopped. It was her stop, apparently. She glared at me one last time, her eyes on the verge of tears. I handed her a slip of paper with my number. "Let me buy you a drink some time."