The air is abuzz with the relentless ringing of the telephones. Volunteers run to the main board carrying bids in their hands. The auctioneers urge the viewers at home forward, telling them there's not much time left to bid. But even as they do the floor director begins his countdown; starting from five minutes and onward. Even as I sit behind my camera, my mind - and eyes - begin to wander. It had become so routine, my fourth auction in a week, I could divert my attention and still produce results - I knew the drill. Only mid-day at the most and I was already tired; probably because I had been there since nine in the morning. But even as I sat there drowsily, my eyes drifted instinctually to her - the girl in the pigtails.

I didn't know her name, hell I hadn't even heard her voice before, but she had piqued my curiosity. Earlier my friend had pointed her out excitedly - apparently he had a thing for girls in pigtails - and I simply acknowledged her presence and went on with whatever I was doing at the moment. She was out of my league, I had already struck out the previous week, and, quite frankly, I was still nursing the wounds of a failed relationship. But as the day wore on I had caught her looking at me, and that, is when I became interested.

Throughout the previous few months I had been making up for years of romantic malaise; the last few years I had been grieving, trying to figure myself out, claiming my place in the world, and intensely focused on my video work as an early attempt to achieve my goal of film making. I had had tunnel vision. Because of this I had never explored my feelings further with one particular girl, until I adopted what was to be one of my new life philosophes: no regrets. We had a short-lived relationship that lasted almost two months and left me, seemingly, shattered. Until the first televised auction I volunteered to work on with my co-op placement with the local cable TV station; it was then that my friend informed me that I was being watched by one of the volunteers - a jet black-haired beauty operating one of the phones. It was that night that I re-affirmed my mantra and asked her out on a date (and was consequently shot down) in front of her two friends and - unwittingly - the entire production crew in the mobile studio outside. My friend had caught my little escapade on an unused camera - I had officially earned my co-op nickname "Casanova".

And so, I was a little wary about approaching this girl, as far as I was concerned she was out of my league. I was also worried that I was becoming a black-hole of ego and imagining girls watching me. But throughout the day, she served to prove my doubts very, very wrong. I was working a position I had so eloquently dubbed as "cable monkey" and was standing not three feet away from this stunning girl, only to catch her turn her head - about three times - towards me. And later still I noted that she paid more attention to me when I operated the shoulder mounted camera and so, to my shoulder and neck's dismay, I usurped the position from my fellow co-ops for the time being. At some unknown point we both realized we were stealing glances at each other, smiling when our eyes met, this ultimately culminated when I took the initiative to wave, only to have her respond with a wave that had all her fingers moving in that fashion that only a woman, or a very flamboyant gay man, could. There were butterflies fluttering in my stomach and my heart was pounding, my body was already aware of what my mind was debating - I was going to ask this girl out on a date.

The bell rings, the countdown had finished, I knew what this meant - this girl's shift as a volunteer was up, she was leaving. She proceeded to the coat rack with her friends to get their jackets while I tried to work up some sort of nerve; I wasn't worried about talking to her or getting rejected - all of those I can handle - it was doing it in front of her friends that bothered me. I didn't want to try that again. I try to wait it out; she's still glancing over regularly and I'm hoping she'll come over and leave her friends just for a few minutes, because I couldn't bring myself to walk over there. She didn't and they all walked away and she looks at me, as she leaves, with an almost questioning stare. After a minute I realize what I just did and rush to catch up to her, but she had already gone down the elevator; she was gone, I had missed my opportunity and had another regret to live with.

Angry at myself, I ask another co-op student to hold down the fort so I can get some fresh air; so I walked down the stairs to the lobby, with the overpowering urge to slam my thick skull into one of the cement pillars. But as I reach the main floor, I see her, past the glass doors, by the garden, she's sitting by herself. My heart skips a beat as I walk outside, she turns around when the door closes behind me and I'm greeted by the most beautiful smile I had ever seen. I walked over and asked to sit down, she replies by moving over quickly, offering me a space right next to her. I'm still hoping to hear her voice but she hasn't said anything yet. I confess to her that I was coming outside to kick myself because I thought I had missed my opportunity for "something", she laughs because I'm completely transparent, she knows what's coming. I ask her if she'd like to go out on a date and she replies with the yes I had never questioned she wouldn't give me; her voice is every bit as serene as I imagined.

At this point I had somehow lost my nerve to speak and she could tell; she decided to take it from there. She asks for my full name and my phone number, which I gladly give her; but even as I answer I worry I'm hoping that I'm giving her the right number - I'm too insecure about looking stupid to check my cell phone. She offers me her number and I as I type it into my contact list, I'm praying that, just this once, I can add a number on my tiny phone without my fingers accidentally mashing the number pad. I ask for her name and she tells me that it's Alex. I blurt out an incredibly cheesy line and then a quick joke to cover it up; she laughs, I don't know whether it was at the line or my desire to try and fix the proverbial damage I had just done. She tells me she'll call me, we say goodbye and I try to cooly walk around the corner toward the mobile truck to brag to my buddy.

I never heard from Alex again; she didn't call and I had the wrong number. I'll never truly know if we both gave each other wrong numbers accidentally or if she was blowing me off. But I do know this; she helped me. Until that day my self-esteem was shot to hell, I wasn't depressed but I didn't have much self-worth. But when she, a girl I thought I could never get, showed that interest in me, it helped me realize that maybe I have a better chance than I believed. And in the end it's little things like that, that make life easier to live. I will probably never see her again, but I don't have to. Wherever she is, she helped me through a rough point in my recent life and I'll always have her to thank for it.

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