"Hey Baby!"

It was the winter of 2013 In the Salt Lake city area. It was exactly mid December and I was at a mall south of Jordan shopping for potential Christmas presents. There was a very vocal foreign Lady flagging down customers as if she was spear fishing. She was very aggressive. she was slim/slender professionally dressed with beauty being her best sales tactic. She had long black striaght hair. I'd wager her age to be about mid 30's. Her skin was soft,radiant & supple. Her product was a Dead Sea Salt hand cleaning aka face scrub. It worked very well as my demonstrating wash water was black from immaculately clean hands. She had demonstrated her black sales magic flawlessly and her confident hungry eyes smilled in my hypnotic response. The product was very coarse but she could smooth your attention out. Her kiosk was intoxicating with her magic tricks. In her conversing she kept saying "Baby", after everyword it seemed with a thick Israeli accent, where in Isreal? I have no idea. I did ask. I forget exactly where. " Your girlfriend would love this Baby." At the time I was engaged, so I bought one for her and one for my mother who I was visiting for the holidays. It was a 2 for one also buy one of these get this get that kind of deal. Fastforward to 2021 roughly. It was winter, I was doing my rideshare work close to Eastgate on the Eastside of Cinncinatti. It was a cold winter night early December. I accepted a ride request for a pick up at the local mall that is barely alive. Many stores are gone, and it has just enough traffic and sales to keep it alive. The name was a strange one. It seemed foreign. Ive heard/read many names in my life this one was odd. My intuition was guessing Israeli. It seemed feminine in nature. I was genuinley curious to who my passenger was. As I pull up in the darkness to the pick up point no one was there. I get a text message thru the app stating " Hey Baby wait for me" a few more mintues go by. "Hey Baby wait for me, I give you a good tip." after the wait time long expired and I could have canceledthe ride a long dark haired woman with militarly straight hair, silky and thin, comes rushing to the car chain choking on a long thin ciggerette. She is attractive at about mid to late 40s. in age. She has a whole bunch of purchased bags and merchandise barely containable in two hands. She excitedly stated, "Thank you Baby waiting for me!" She said it with a familiarity in her voice I had sworn I knew but had not yet fully recognized. She was still smoking, and I have leather interior so I told her it was not allowed. She became very angry. But she discarded the ciggerette after a long red drag that light up her face well in the cold dark evening as she muttered a few words in her natuve language. She was a well dressed person with a business style pin stripped skirt with a matching vest with a puffy collar accenting a white soft leather coat. She also wore a fedora, black, or A gangster stlye hat that mobsters wore in the 20's I want to be sure im describing the hat right. Ive only seen her wear it and it worked. After asking her if she was Israeli, she asked shocked how I had knew that or quessed that. I said, " An intuitive lucky guess sort of, ive traveled alittle, kinda know people." I said in my usual at times tired sputter of akward translated thoughts. "Lucky guess Baby." At that moment Then like a dormant seed in the back burner of my mind that finally had a voice. I remembered her from Utah 10 years ago almost now. Yes it had to be. So I started to ask her if she ever lived or worked in Utah. She looked very surprised. She was quiet for a second, maybe worried. "Yes, I used to baby." I told her some dates, she denied those years, but one of us was wrong on our time frame given her state of stress I would wager it was her. " I was one of your customers you sold Dead Sea Salt Scrub, what a small world, what are the odds?" Her response was silent for a second as in disbelief or maybe this was a set up ran thru her attractive eyes. "Yes, maybe baby, I want to smoke so badly baby." The conversation was choppy and seemingly too short for the ride. she clearly didn't know the area for the first stop was wrong. She looked it up again then we drove away. We where in Milford now looking for a hair place, as her 2nd attempt was getting close and it was possible of being closed "Hurry Baby." we finally stopped at the right place. A hair place in Walmart? Is that the memory? Is my ram corrupted? It was part of a larger store that is clear. back to the story yet before she opened the door she lit up a ciggerette and then quickly exited with all her bags as if they never existed, she was well rehearsed. We had barely made it just before they closed and was without her most loved thing in life. Israeli nicotine. When she said "Good bye Baby" the smell of her foreign ciggerette lingered in the car. She clearly didn't know the town or area and had entered in the wrong address for her first attempt. As the quiet night went on I was starting to guess she might have a kiosk in the small mall and decided to see if I was right the next week. No. No luck. Unless she changed to selling another product. Later it dawned on me she had mentioned she had been to Kenwood mall on her travels and that would be the better but more expensive option as it has huge traffic and mega volume. As a a rideshare driver that is a very hot spot to work. Going to and from. I never looked and maybe I should look this year? naw.. Ive yet to bump into "hey baby" again. But being how unconventional my luck is and the strange odds of events its almost a normal thing. She was a much more attractive sales person. Her real persona was shallow, addictive, blunt. There was an angry hustle and bustle that was rubber stained in her soul that spoke loudly. The Sea Scub stuff/ Present was appreciated by my mother but basically thrown in the garbage by a rich in lifestlye materialistic to the point of madness Brazillian fiance. I too out of frustration and burned out from trying to make a broken relationship work, threw our relationship in the garbage. Hey Baby was like a window into the past bridging the present state of movement our lives continue on despite our braking resistance. "See you Baby-thanks for the 0$ tip."