The sun is strong and steady, shining in a cloudless sky. The air is crisp, casually picking up the autumn leaves up and carrying them elsewhere.
There is a young white couple in the park. Their three kids are under the age of ten, the youngest is just out of diapers. The mother has a short haircut, a black and gray North Face jacket and matching yoga pants. She shops at Nordstrom and Sachs occasionally, but if you ask her she’ll tell you that Target is where she got her pants. She thinks it makes her sound down-to-earth. Her husband doesn’t care as much. He spends too much time crafting his clean cut clothing style -a white button down and dark wash jeans- with his seemingly mismatched personal style - a consistently scraggly three day beard, tattoos on his arm that imply a cooler time in his life, a blue pack of American Spirits in his back pocket.
He wants you to ask about him, Ra’shell thought absently to herself. It was one those thoughts that come to you without really thinking about it, an assessment of the visuals in front of you. I don’t fit here, she thought consciously. The park was immaculately clean, manicured. Not just neat and clean trash cans, but trash cans that sit next to two different recycling bins. Because that’s something this community can afford. There is no resentment in her thoughts, she’s long past that angsty time in her life. It’s just a dull observation of the world she’s in right now.
She looks down at her jeans, frayed due to time not to style. The inner thighs are worn down. She closes her legs to hide what might be a hole soon. The elastic in wrists of her coat is loose and she places her hands inside - an act of comfort rather than for warmth. Everything she’s done this morning has been pretty unconscious, including waiting in this park watching upper middle class people live their lives. She had decided last night she wasn’t even going to be here after spending the entire day agonizing over the cryptic four word text James had sent at 6am that day.
You know, where they met at last year’s Autumnal Equinox fair when it turned out that his friends and her friends turned were some of the same people and oh my gosh isn’t that funny that you don’t know James!? How is that even possible? Weren’t you both at Cheryl’s party last month? No? Oh, well you two would get along great. He’s even into movies like you are! Yeah that foreign artsy kind of stuff, he loves it. It’s crazy you don’t know each other!
An unreasonable time that she once told him should not exist on a weekend. He was already wide awake, dressed and making coffee. She had slept on the couch because, well, Kim and Rachel and Aaron were all going to crash too and it doesn’t make sense for her to drive home this late. Here, the couch is more comfortable than it looks, promise! Do you need an extra blanket? No she had told him but then regretted when she woke up three hours later shivering a little in the dark. She felt as if she had just fallen back asleep, her hoodie cocooning her and poorly standing in for the blanket she was too prideful to ask for, when James - Jim, he told her. Call me Jim- tried unsuccessfully to tiptoe around his own kitchen.
“Sorry”, he whispered as if she was still asleep.
“Don’t be, it’s your house. It’s 7:30′s fault for existing in the first place,” she whispered back, not knowing that Kim had taken a Uber back an hour after Ra’shell had fallen asleep and that Rachel and Aaron had gone with her so there really wasn’t anyone to whisper for anymore. He had laughed at what she said, surprising her and leading into a casual conversation about morning people as he fixed her a cup of coffee. When she realized that she was the only party guest that remained, she felt weird but only because her pride was rearing up again, reminding her that she shouldn’t overstay her welcome. Not because she was alone in a the house of near stranger. That didn’t even cross her mind until she was walking out a fifteen minutes later, claiming that she had to get home to feed a pet she didn’t own. No, that thought didn’t occur as she drank his coffee and laughed at his argument for waking up early and thought about checking out his music collection but deciding against it, maybe next time because she really should get going.
He probably doesn’t even realize it’s been a year, she thought waiting today in the park. Why would he? Who marks the start of a friendship? Not her usually. But this wasn’t a friendship of course. She knew that the first time he pulled her in for their first selfie, a sight that is always funny to see a six foot tall broad shouldered man do with the unapologetic glee of a teenage girl. They were wearing funny hats, that was the reason for the photo. A strictly platonic act. His free hand fell to the small of her back on accident. Of course.
The white family is getting ready to move on. The father said something about getting breakfast and the oldest child immediately started making demands about what he does and does not want. The father heeds them all, offering up restaurant ideas in a patient tone as his wife collects the siblings. The restaurants are all priced higher than what Ra’shell believes a ten year old should have an opinion on and it dawns on her that this all organic, occasionally vegan, comfortably middle class family has probably never introduced their kids to Denny’s.
James - Jim - was late. For the best really since she needed time to think apparently. Also he would have a snarky comment about the scene playing out in front of her and she wouldn’t have been able to to stifle her laughter.
The idea that he may not even show up floats up and she pushes it back down. Not in the mood for that kind of stuff right now, she thinks.
Her toes were getting cold. She’s need to buy boots soon. She took a second and then noted that would have to be an investment made two paychecks from now. James - Jim - got that kind of stuff which was rare for the circle she constantly found herself in.
You don’t mark the anniversary of a friendship usually. At least people like her didn’t. But she wasn’t here at 7:30am - 7:35am excuse me -for friendship.
The family smiled at her as they left. She nodded respectfully but not necessarily happily. She watched them leave and on the horizon she saw the shape of another man -Jim, not James- approached her.
Work in progress - edited 12:45pm
