The Graphic Details Read Free Page A

tried my
hardest. And that font, what is that font?” I asked. It wasn’t as
plain as Helvetica and it wasn’t quite as self important and curvy
as Edwardian Script, but was something in between. And it had a
serif; I love serifs.
    “Oh, that’s something of my own design.
Designing fonts is something of a hobby of mine. This was something
new that I was trying out. My friend liked it, but I don’t know if
I do yet. What do you think, Katherine?” he asked me, and as he
said my name, his breath, which, for whatever reason, smelled as
sweet as the morning rain, had entered my ear and made the hairs on
my neck stand up in excitement. With every passing minute it was
getting harder and harder to stay professional.
    “I think it’s beautiful,” I said. Maybe this
guy would be able to help me out with my problem, I thought.
    “Hey Charles, do you think you could take a
look at something?”
    “Of course. What is it?”
    “Time for you to stand up and walk over to my
side,” I said, and he chuckled. It was the cutest little chuckle
you could imagine.
    I brought him over to my side to take a look
at what I was working on and he stood directly over my chair, and
placed his chin inches away from my shoulder. He smelled good.
Something about this guy was strangely comforting.
    “Um, I’m working on something and I can’t
quite figure out… what? What’s wrong?” I asked, because at that
moment his eyes grew quite wide and his mouth was agape at what he
saw on my screen.
    “My God, that is a beautiful photograph. How
did you do that?”
    I looked at the picture on my screen. It was
just a picture of a woman sitting on the lip of a bathtub shaving
her legs.
    “Do what? Stop messing with me. It’s just a
regular picture.”
    “That is no regular picture. What filters did
you use?”
    “Now you’re just being ridiculous.”
    “I swear I’m not,” he said.
    “I used one filter and perhaps I feathered
the edges a bit around this part, but the rest were just color
adjustments, erases of blemishes here and there. Nothing special.”
Was he serious? Did he really think more of this picture than what
it was worth thinking about?
    “Don’t sell yourself short. At first glance
it may be just a simple picture of some woman, but whatever you
did, you made sure these colors worked together. And your use of
shade right here,” he pointed at the screen and as he did, his
finger just ever so slightly brushed past my cheek, and my heart
skipped a beat. My heart doesn’t skip beats. That only happens to
women in sappy romance comedies. I was off put and excited all at
once by this emotion.
    “I don’t know what you need my help on, but
judging by this, it can’t be much,” he said. The compliments were
getting a little suspicious now. This douche must be fucking with
me, I thought. There was no way he was genuine. I was starting to
resent him. I ignored it.
    “Ha ha. Funny. But can you please stop with
the insincere comments now? It’s a little tired,” and as I said
this, he grabbed my chin with his rough, yet smooth forefinger and
thumb and turned my head so that my eyes met his and he spoke
softly.
    “Katherine, I know you don’t know me well,
but if there’s one thing that I would want you to know about me is
that when I compliment someone, I always, and I mean, always mean it,” he said. The tone of his voice was absolutely serious and
his words dripped with sincerity. I instantly felt horrible.
    “I’m so sorry. I… I believe you now.”
    “Please do. This is beautiful work you’ve
done. And sorry for touching your chin like that. That was
unprofessional,” he said. At that moment, there was something else
I wanted him to touch.
    “No, no. I’m sorry for doubting you,” I said.
And after a slightly awkward pause, he said, “Well, what is it that
you need help with?”
    “Oh. Yeah. Well, I’m having trouble finding
the right font for this, and since you seem to have a grasp on
fonts, I was