a/n: I wrote this a while ago on a whim, but now that finally has Catherine I can post it here, too. Enjoy! Comments are appreciated.

It takes a lot of nudging in the ribs - hissing and lewd murmurs - before he works up the courage to speak to her.

"I haven't seen you around here before."

Her face, seconds ago glowing, goes flat at the sight of him. He starts to sweat, and he braces his arms against his body and reminds himself not to raise them, because he doesn't want her to see. Not her.

Then he realizes how stupid he must sound because they're at a ballet opening and these aren't exactly regular events.

Her fingers – short and stumpy, he notices, but pretty, like her – curl around her champagne flute. His stomach sinks. She's leaving, he thinks, and he prepares to add this to his list of life's failures.

Then he realizes she's just taking a sip. Angels, somewhere, sing.

She smiles. At him. Her long gloves look cheap. He only notices because his parents have drilled him on designers since he's been old enough to wear clothes. It doesn't matter to him. He wants to see the hands underneath. Are they soft, are her nails short, are they painted? Would they touch him gently or would they be firm?

He's getting ahead of himself. If he keeps that up, he'll trip.

"I'm here for a friend," she says, and she nods in the direction of the most beautiful of the ballerinas. "I don't know very much about ballet, but I thought she looked wonderful." She beams.

"She did," Daniel says, although he doesn't know about ballet either and, anyway, that ballerina is far less pretty than the girl before him. She's willowy and ethereal, a poet's dream. This girl – she walks with assurance. There is something in her that says she wouldn't just drift away.

Wouldn't. This is all hypothetical.

"What's your name?"

"Anna."

Anna. His girlfriend's name is Lauren. At least they don't sound similar.

"Yours?"

"Daniel," he says, "Daniel Kirsch."

She doesn't recognize the name. Nothing in her face changes. She looks pleasant and slightly bored. There's no sense in repeating it.

"Well, Daniel Kirsch," she says, bemused, "Why are you wearing sunglasses indoors? Aren't there rules for that kind of thing?"

He reaches up to where his sunglasses rest and tucks them in his front pocket. The motion is stiff, like a robot's, because he doesn't want to lift his arm away to reveal the wet spot underneath his arm.

Anna looks at him carefully now. "Your eyes are so brightly colored," she says. "I can see why you covered them up." She smiles.

Is she insulting him, or flirting? Daniel feels his breath go short. I shouldn't be doing this.

The ballerina approaches and takes Anna's arm. Daniel feels a stab of panic. She's going – what do I say? What can he say? I have a girlfriend. I'm proposing to her within the next year. That, or my parents will reconsider my father's successor.

That wouldn't go over well.

The ballerina, as he suspected from a distance, is all skin and bones and thin, sleek hair. Her cheekbones are high and her mouth is a rose pout. She's flushed with excitement. "That reporter says he wants to write a story on me, Anna. Can you believe anyone would want to write a story on me? It's crazy, right? Come and meet him."

She hardly notices Daniel. No one does. Not even because his suit is more than Anna or this ballerina must pay for rent, not even because it's more artificially purple than grape candy. He swallows as they turn from him. Anna gives him a wave of her champagne glass as her friend drags her off.

Jim slaps him on the back right away. "Girl had a nice rack. Any luck?"

The words catch in his throat. He's imagining how he's going to propose to Lauren. Down-on-one-knee doesn't seem right for them.

"What about Lauren?" he asks.

"Your girlfriend?"

"That one."

"God, really? What a girlfriend doesn't know can't hurt her. Besides, I think she's interested."

He glances back so quickly that Jim ribs him. "Subtle," he says, but Daniel's already looking in her direction.

"You're lying," he says, seeing the truth of it. She's absorbed in her friend's happiness, in the thrill of being approached by handsomer men than him.

"Does she know who you are?"

"It doesn't mean anything to her."

Jim laughs. "Slumming, Kirsch?"

"Shut up." Daniel looks back down at his toes, away from Anna, even though there's no chance she's going to catch him looking. Girls like that don't look at guys like him. Not until guys like him tell girls like that point-black how much money they have in their trust funds. Some part of him wants to go and tell her, see if maybe she'll at least be interested in him. But he's too upset.

"Try talking to that brunette over there, she looks desperate..."

Daniel tunes him out and tries not to look over at Anna. Tonight's shame shouldn't be different from any other night's, but with women it always stings the worst. He files away her name: Anna. Anna with the red hair. Anna with the ballerina friend. Anna with the middle-class gloves. Maybe he'll see her again.

He should know better.