He had walked seventeen blocks to be across the street from her Apartment 9 in Building 909.  He had first heard the address spoken out on his school bus.  He had found himself repeating it, till, not long after, it became a jingle playing in his head, "Nine-nine-o-nine."  He made September 9 the first anniversary of when he first heard this address, and it was not till the day actually came around that he thought of who might indeed live there.  The Doers is how the doorman addressed the occupants, and it took a further year of befriending the doorman's son to learn that the Doers owned a chain of hardware stores, and that their daughter was one of the three completely untouchable girls in his ninth grade.  It took him still another year to now be across the street from her place, dressed in a jacket with a pink rose nestled in its inner breast pocket.  The streetlight had already turned green three times.  He had been waiting to be rid of his grandpa's voice whispering into his ear from a week ago when Grandpa happened to be regarding his son and daughter-in-law at dinner: Men are emotionally dense enough for women to be able to manage them in their unique ways.  Just as the light turned green a fifth time, he grasped a sense of what his grandfather may have meant, and lost his gall.  After four more green lights, the habit of always being punctual finally made him cross the street.  He shook the doorman's hand, made his climb up an ornate stairway, and knocked on Apartment 9.  He felt for the rose in his pocket as not her mother but She opened the door.  He could see by the clock on the wall behind her that he was eleven minutes late.  You're early, she said.  What did she mean?  His own question brought a quick recognition: there are public languages that people use to communicate with and, then, there are private languages that, as with his parents, can be understood only between two people.  I'm never late, he said in this new language.  She smiled, and then fell into a giggle.  He pulled out a now de-petaled rose.  And, he said, holding it out, I always bring a beautiful rose.  It was her uproarious laughter that helped him realize that he would never again be paralyzed by an adult's scare — because he had discovered in himself an ability to be able to bridge, in the moment, wide open and inexplicable divides.