Her, and the Mornings
Mornings in autumn are like biting into a cold Fudgesicle. Like sitting under a flower-print umbrella on a mossy stone. Like a hedgehog in a garden patch.
Standing high above the city is bad for your health. That’s what she told me. It’s bad for your health. The mosquitoes carry diseases, and the air is filled with smog.
I don’t listen to her. I like to stand in the window cradle, to feel the coolness of the metal and survey the wide expanse of Manhattan and beyond stretching to infinity.
Sancha is her name. Sancha with the long black hair, with the laughing eyes and glowing mouth. She played the double bass, and the electric bass, plus the flute because it was 4th grade and all the girls were choosing that. She was born in the city, though her family moved to the country soon after. But she always says that here is where she belongs: “I’m a city girl. Right after college, this is where you’ll find me.”
Sancha. Sancha is a word that means hope. It means a lineage of queens. It means a tall girl with teasing eyes. And long, long black hair.
I sit on the window cradle and watch her. We always said we would live together after college. After we got out of our quiet little town and made it big in the city. Now we’ve made it to the city but we haven’t made it big. “At least we’re not in Jersey.” Sancha would say.
We haven’t made it big. We’ve made it to a studio apartment decorated with paintings of cats and ramen noodles.
I sit on the window cradle. I sit and I watch. One day, I want to make movies. Or paint pictures. I want to sit and watch.
I like to watch Sancha. The way she dances. The way she throws back her hair and tries to push her glasses back up her nose, even though she wears contacts. I stare at her, and I count the freckles on her face. The lights reflected in her eyes. The shades caught in her oil-spill hair.
Sancha opens the window and slides onto the metal platform, bumping my shoulder with hers. Her black eyes twinkle at me teasingly. Her hair tickles my cheek.
I lean against her, my eyes sparkling wet in the corners, as I take in the sky, the city, the moon, and Sancha.