While walking along Third Avenue, I turned my head to look West. The sun was sandwiched between the dark clouds overhead and the pewter waters of Elliott Bay. I squinted.

“Ms. Maria!”

I turned around. Someone had said my name twice; I just didn’t realize it until he repeated my name. Very few people address me as “Miss”, let alone on Third Avenue.

He was smiling at me. I smiled in recognition and reflexively greeted, “Hello! How are you?”

His hair was longer and he was wrapped in a puffy jacket. We both stopped walking and comfortably occupied a small section of sidewalk. The downtown crowd naturally parted around us.

“I’m good, I’m good,” he said. He was not looking at my face; I sensed that he was looking at my neck. “Ms. Maria, can I make an appointment to see you?”

“Of course,” I said. I had actually seen him only once in the homeless shelter; many months had passed since that first meeting. I had hoped to see him again, but he simply disappeared.

A few emergency rooms in the area, however, had contacted me since our introduction.

“There’s a guy here who says that you’re his psychiatrist,” the disembodied voice would say. “He’d like to follow up with you. He’s asking for [antipsychotic] medications, though it sounds like he hasn’t seen you in a while.”

“Yes, please tell him that I’m looking forward to seeing him—please send him my way,” I would enthusiastically reply.

And he never showed up. And he continued to appear at various clinics, occasionally reporting that I was his psychiatrist; other times, he would state that he was receiving services from other medical centers. Consistently, though, he never showed up.

“Can I make an appointment to see you directly?” he asked. His eyes darted to my face, then darted back to my neck.

“Yes, you may,” I repeated. “If you go directly to the building over there”—I pointed—”you can make an appointment.”

“Would it be okay if I had an appointment to see you?” he asked. He was starting to move towards me, his eyes now fixed on my right shoulder.

“Yes,” I said again, becoming increasingly concerned. “You can just stop in if you’d like; at least we can talk briefly about how you’re doing.”

This was not the kind of conversation I wanted to have on a busy sidewalk.

Still intently looking at my right shoulder and saying nothing, he abruptly outstretched his right arm and reached out to touch me. It wasn’t until after I had taken two quick steps backwards that I realized what had happened: I had automatically rotated my torso and leaned away, just as his fingers were approaching my arm. His hand grasped only the cool afternoon air.

We stood facing each other. The space between us had grown. He smiled and a little laugh escaped his lips.

Was that self-consciousness on his face?

He dropped his arm and took two obvious steps backwards.

“Okay,” he simply said.

Standing my ground and noticing that he continued to gaze at my shoulder, I quietly said, “Make an appointment to see me. I want to know more about how you’re doing.”

“Okay,” he repeated.

“And I’ve got to get going,” I concluded. That was the honest truth.

“Okay,” he said again. “Good-bye, Ms. Maria.”

“Good-bye,” I said before turning away to resume my forward motion.

And he never showed up.