The sandwich had been piled extra high, with double meat and extra tomatoes, because the worker girl knew that Mr. Hutton loved his tomatoes.

He had been coming into her small café for a year now, and in that time, she had learned certain things, not from the man himself, for he never utter a word more than necessary to the young woman. In fact, there arose a sort of shorthand he would use when dealing with her, and she allowed that, even though it would be considered rudeness coming from anyone else.

But there was something about the man, something attractive. And that wasn't just to do with his looks, because he wasn't a hunk of a man. He was rather quirky in fact...and maybe that is what attracted her to him. Mr. Hutton had longish hair, wiry hair, brown like chocolate, and his eyes were a steely blue. They could be cold and gray or deep blue pools. His eyes reflected whatever he was feeling, she was sure. If he were raging, then his eyes would be raging, too, storms there whirling inside his head. And if he were pleased, then they would be a calm blue, and his entire face would soften. She knew his mood straightaway from his eyes.

And when Mr. Hutton came in, it was precisely at the same time every day unless there had been some snag in his daily routine, and she would see how that played in, because his mood would correspond to his schedule being out of whack. And she learned from these details that he disliked things to be out of whack, even the slightest bit. If you got upset over coming for lunch 10 minutes later than usual, well, that said quite a bit about you, didn't it?

She would put on soft music for him; she would have it prepared about an hour before he entered the café. It was either classical or smooth jazz--he liked both, she knew by now. And she would have his order all set for him, too: tomato soup, a turkey and tomato sandwich, a small garden salad. Mr. Hutton, whose first name she should have gathered by now but hadn't, would spend exactly 40 minutes at lunch, occasionally checking his watch, and then he would leave the place, without so much as a casual "Bye" or "See you." Hmm...and she was still interested in this specimen. Oddly (even to herself), she was.

There was something about him--she couldn't put her finger on it--that felt very comforting to her. No one else there at the café, including and especially her boss, the big man, could understand why she would give him such obvious eyes whenever the man entered the place. They watched her watching Hutton, and they got a vicarious thrill from the whole episode, even though they did not understand it, what her interest in this man nearly twice her age could be.

Who can say why one is attracted to another? Well, everyone will say; everyone has a point of view and opinions. But for her, there was no speculating about it. It just was, simple as that. And her day, her week, her life was brightened and made "worth it" simply by the presence of this unknowing businessman, who would walk away from the café every day, thinking about nothing but his full, content belly and the work ahead.