She waddled to imitate the penguins behind the glass, committing with a dead-eyed, bird-like stare. Her friends cracked up and tried to do it too. Monica’s version was much funnier, Lenin thought, lurking behind a wall of fish. Then, as a crowd passed through the floor between exhibits, she spotted him across the empty space, and their eyes met.

Lenin turned away immediately, not letting the moment of contact last more than a second. He tried his best to act cool, walking to another wall of fish, pretending to read the information plaque. He shot a quick glance back in her direction. He didn’t see her. His eyes swiveled back to the fish and his mind was a tsunami of possibility, both good and bad. But he didn’t have time to let the waves break. Reality was already crashing toward him.

Lenin saw Monica in the reflection of the glass, strolling at him from the spot he had watched her from. All his joints locked while his heart drummed a rhythm of shock and infinite terror.

Monica popped up next to him. When he peaked at her, inconspicuously as he could, she was staring at the fish, not him. He thought about walking away, but his feet were like two ton anchors holding firmly in place. He could not escape this situation, he thought. No matter what.

As he furiously brainstormed something interesting to say to the girl he liked, the girl he just got caught staring at, Lenin was surprised to hear Monica speak first.

“Did you see me do the penguin walk?” Her question was probing, but her voice was trepidatious and guarded.

Lenin was left reeling.

He couldn’t even look at her, his head hung in embarrassment. He struggled to process her question, let alone respond to it. When he snuck a peripheral check, the two managed to catch eyes once more, and this time he was close enough to see Monica react with a look-away just as fast as his. He balled up his courage and shot.

“Um, yeah. I was just looking over at the penguins and saw you… over there. Doing the walk.”

A long silence rippled between them as the crowd of families and students filled the space with idle chatter. The blue glow of the place was mesmerizing in so many ways. But it made it hard to think. Lenin cut through it.

“It was good. The walk I mean, it was funny. You gotta teach me how to do it.” Eyes low, Lenin glanced up toward a little guy of unknown species, and in the moment, he could have sworn it smiled. Hopeful, he turned his head slightly to Monica.

“It’s pretty easy, you kinda just have to watch them walk.”

A brief quiet.

She looked away from him. Lenin’s heart sank. Then she raised it back up.

“Do you wanna check them out?” She asked, a bit reluctant. “They’re actually pretty funny.” She finally turned toward him. Her cheeks were flush.

“Yeah, but you have to do the walk there.” Lenin smiled as there eyes met once more. She smiled back, then went dead-eyed and straight-faced.

Monica proceeded in a waddle ahead of Lenin, then turned back to catch him beaming at her. She reciprocated with an equally powerful beam.

“Now you!”

Lenin stopped smiling with all his might, and with goofy bird-eyes not quite as dead as hers, he imitated her penguin waddle.