One evening, prior to the fin de siecle, I found myself at the Osco in Evanston with the purpose of acquiring various and sundry items that might offer some marginal benefit to my day to day existence. I was a student, that term being loosely used, at the time.
In the store, a beautiful young woman caught my eye. She met my gaze, smiled and approached. She said, hello and we began to engage in small talk. At this point, I realized that she knew me, or at least thought she did. But I had no idea who she was. I couldn't imagine how I could have possibly met someone of her pulchritude and subsequently forgotten to the extent that she did not seem in any way familiar.
I desperately attempted to conceal my ignorance in the course of conversing with her. I ended the encounter somewhat abruptly since I don't have much to say to someone I don't know. I left convinced that this had been a case of mistaken identity--that she had spoken to me falsely believing me to be some vaguely familiar acquaintance.
At the time I was serving as Assistant Director for that year's Shakespeare at the Rock production, Twelfth Night. There was a rehearsal that I attended the evening following my mysterious encounter with the unknown beauty. I walked into the room and there she was. She was Olivia; that's how she knew me. The night before I saw her in Osco, I was probably sitting just a few feet away from her at the "read through" and yet I could not add the sums together when the circumstances required. Isn't it strange how one can see someone he knows and yet not see her at all?
