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She was one of those rare girls who was charming only in person, much like a run-on joke which invariably ends with 'you had to be there.'  She was one of those.  Certainly she was comely.  Yet once photographed, her shapely features, like those of models found in department store catalogues, were at once pretty and forgettable.

Her recorded voice was no better.  Over the limited range of the phone, she sounded tinny and vapid.  Lost was the mellifluous will in her character.  She was a siren without song.  My immediate response to her insipid voice mail message was to hang up.  I was a sailor spelled from my trance, charting a new course towards relative safety.


Until, of course, she called me back.