The woman stands in profile, her shoulder length blond hair falling softly down. Her hands are tiny, and she moves them gracefully. There's a natural quality about her, an utter lack of need to impress. Next to her a friend, likely a publicist and fashionable to distraction, talks on a cell phone. They're on the way, she says. The bus is stuck in traffic, and the taxis are too pricey at twenty dollars a ride.

"I stepped in a huge puddle, and now my ballet slippers and stockings are soaked," she adds.

I follow these women's gestures, trace them in an easy away, certain that both are aware I'm watching, and it's as I fall into listening to Sufjan Stevens, meditating for a moment in song, that the blonde looks my way and smiles. For a second, I'm stopped, the watcher being watched, but I see there's a true kindness in her eyes, an expression of some divinity. A warm feeling floods in at this moment, but unable to sustain it, I look away.

"It'll probably be faster walking," the bus driver says, and so many of us skip out into the street, the blonde somewhere in front of me, her friend somewhere behind. As I pass by in quick steps, I observe this woman one more time. She glances back, and my mind frames her in a medium close-up, her expression one of patient anticipation.

Far from her now, I confirm the thoughts in my mind. This woman, I'm certain, is Taryn Manning.

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