Before calamity

At street level, everything is different.
The cars whiz by like they’re trying to achieve take-off. The people zoom about like they have mere seconds to live and need to achieve their personal goals, before calamity.
She walks among them. Quite different, a purposeful stepper, stalking among the trees and bushes as she deftly moves in the direction of her target.
Spying a man waiting at a crossing, she is almost upon him when she feigns a small trip. He moves to grab her, to halt her fall. She reaches her arm about him. She peers up at him, smile prepared, no matter what he looks like. She is confident in her beauty, her radiance. It will take him in like any other.
Somehow, in that split-second, in that Gorgon-glare, she is able to reach inside the pocket of his jacket and retrieve the wallet that is bulkily protruding.
She pockets it herself as the man helps her upright. The unspoken code of personal space already broken, the man feels free to touch this woman a little more, brushing lightly at her coat as though it might somehow have gotten dirty during their collision.
Another smile, this time with a brush of the hair. Magical pheromones must dance from her curls, because the man can do nothing now but beam at her, this woman he’s saved.
Can he buy her a coffee? No. Thank you, but no. She is busy and has an appointment she must reach.
Perhaps he can split a taxi with her? After all, he has caused her lateness! (What lateness? It’s been a matter of seconds since they met!)
No, thanks all the same, but she is merely a few blocks from where she is headed.
She thanks him and bids him a good day. He shakes his head as he watches her cross the road. He can’t believe she’s walking away. Walking away from this fate, this kismet.
She can’t believe she let him look at her face for that long. Idiot! Amateur! She is chastising herself and picks up the pace. Ducking around a corner, she decides to get into a taxi after all. She feels like distance between the mark and her is what is required now.
‘Downtown’ is her spoken destination. The cabbie nods. She has no money on her person, but for whatever she finds in the kind man’s wallet.
She opens it, impatiently. It is stuffed with twenties. She allows herself, at last, a smile. She may be getting sloppy, but her instincts are still strong.
She sits back now, crosses her legs and plays with the hem of her skirt. Confident again, she’ll flirt with the taxi driver now, from here until her apartment.