I ask him if they have lamb anywhere and he says, “I think there’s ground lamb past the ground beef.” I look at the man once and then I look at him again, harder, and in that moment I know he looks exactly like one of the main characters in a sci-fi trilogy I’ve been writing for several years. Do I take a picture of him?

My heart is pounding. I try to figure out why he looks exactly like this character I’ve only imagined. He has light brown hair, a straight nose, a square-but-not-too-square jaw, and…damn, there aren’t enough words for face shapes, are there? Besides, it isn’t only his physical appearance, it’s his manner – good-natured, easygoing, with a smile that lights up his face as he talks with another customer. I stare at the ground beef and wonder if I’d be capable of taking a picture of him, subtly, from somewhere behind the shrimp freezer. I push the cart over and get my phone out, but my 1-year-old daughter immediately tries to take the phone from me and I give up, my cheeks burning.

The rest of the grocery shopping trip passes in a blur. I describe the items I’m putting into the cart to my baby as I go over again and again in my mind how the conversation will happen: I’ll walk back to the meat counter and say, “This might be the strangest thing anyone ever says to you, but, I’m a novelist and you look exactly like one of my characters – can I take a picture of you?” I imagine him going home and telling his girlfriend the story, amused and secretly flattered. I imagine him telling the story for years to come, at parties, with a solo cup in his hand – “One time this lady in the store said I looked like her book character and took a PHOTO of me!”

I put too much cheese in the shopping cart. No, he’s going to think I’m flirting with him. I’m happily married! He can see I have a baby and a ring…but he still might think I’m flirting with him. I’m not! I just really want a photo of my character!

The shy side of my mind slows me further, with memories of the time I saw the first Harry Potter movie and how the film erased all the subtleties of the characters I had imagined and replaced them with the faces of the actors. What if the man behind the meat counter doesn’t look as much like my character as I thought? What if I have this photo and slowly, over time, it diminishes the character somehow? I went to a wedding once and had a single bite of filet mignon that to this day was the best meat I’ve ever tasted – somehow the texture of butter but the taste of beef. Maybe it’s better for this experience to become a memory, and I can remember him the way I remember that filet mignon, instead of as a collection of pixels. Plus if I don’t take his picture I won’t have to blush or wonder if it’ll hurt my husband’s feelings when he sees the photo on my phone and asks for the story.

So I don’t take his picture. I’m not sure if I will ever see my character in the grocery store again. It’s a Wednesday night; maybe, somehow, he always works Wednesday nights. I tell myself that if I see him again, I’ll be bolder.

[Featured Image from Wikipedia, public domain]