Annabeth

Annabeth rolls onto her back and looks up into the perfectly clear blue sky.  Some days, she thinks, nature just demands that we be outside.  No specific purpose necessary.  A breeze blowing through her hair and the sun warming her body are enough, today.

Two young men walk down Frankford Ave and she hears them laughing aloud, one punches the other and runs a few steps ahead and they call each other names until they're out of sight.  A pregnant young woman pushes a giggling toddler around in a stroller.  An octogenarian couple walks gingerly to the former Neumann Medical Center on the corner, now an assisted living facility.  Annabeth watches them all.

She sits up and pulls her knees to her chest and then sinks down again onto her back, stretches her arms and legs as far as they'll go, like that famous da Vinci drawing, enjoying the feel of Palmer Park's cool grass against her bare arms and lower legs.

Many a male poker player assumes she deals cards for a living because she wants to meet him.  She’s accustomed to being hit on just about anywhere she goes. 

A guy with tattoo sleeves walks his Rottweiler across the small park and for a moment she thinks it's that bartender guy with the Yoda tattoo.  She's surprised by a feeling of disappointment when she realizes it's not him.  After all, he's just another drunk dumb enough to ask her back to his apartment within hours of meeting her, even after she'd given him her number and made it clear he should call her some other time.

She picks at the grass in front of her and throws it.  What would she do if he calls, she wonders?  The bar was crazy that night and when a couple of meaty dudes became belligerent over nothing at all, she loved the way he handled it, staring at them calmly, somehow displaying great strength in his passivity.  She didn't take him for the type to pursue her so aggressively after last call when she’d stuck around waiting for her sister to stop talking to that Garret guy. 

If he's at Drew's party Saturday night, she decides, she'll consider letting him talk to her. 

She rolls over onto her chest and rests her chin upon her knuckles, smiles and waves back at a young boy and girl who pass.