Smile, Maybe

I don’t think you know what its like to lose someone. I mean, I don’t. But I saw a girl once who knows the feeling... or the feelings I guess. 

It was funny, because I had seen her before. I suppose then, that I’ve seen the girl twice, not once.  But anyways, I passed her on the sidewalk outside of a soft serve shop. It was a bright day and the sun was behind me, so it must have been right in her eyes, but she looked up anyways. She had been walking with her head down, as if she didn’t trust the sidewalk and all of its cracks. But when she passed me, she looked up. We made eye contact and I quickly looked away because I often get timid when I make eye contact with cute girls.  She was cute. She had a round face with short brown hair and a cute beauty mark on her left cheek, just under her eye. But her eyes were a so interesting deep brown that I almost couldn’t look away. But I did… I always do. 

She was wearing a short light blue dress (a sun dress I think they call it) and flip flops, but what most caught my eye was the oversized denim jacket that she was wearing.  The shoulders were broad.  Too broad to be a woman’s jacket.  It had two front pockets on the chest of it, and she walked with her hands in the hip pockets.  I mean, the jacket was big on her.  It might be more appropriate to call the pockets “upper-thigh pockets.” The buttons were plain and brass and she wore it open.  The jacket looked very worn out.  I wondered if she was going for a retro “I don’t care what you think” look, or if she just didn’t have anything else to wear.  I mean, there was a breeze.  I was wearing a thin jacket too.  I almost smiled before she adjusted her glance back downward towards the weeds creeping out of the cracks.  I almost did, but I didn’t.  I knew I wouldn’t anyways.

After she passed, I looked over my shoulder to watch her walk into the soft serve shop.  Who goes to get ice cream alone anyways?  I thought she might be meeting someone.  Maybe she was meeting her boyfriend.  Maybe it was his jacket.  I had a fleeting thought, then.  Just for a second, just one moment, I considered going in there and having a dish with her.  I’d just sit down next to her, take a bite, and ask her name.  I’ve seen it done before, I think.  Why don’t I ever do that stuff?  I knew I wouldn’t do it, and I didn’t.  I never do. 

Later that week I was walking again, on the same sidewalk.  I often walk on that sidewalk because I like that part of town.  Its nice, and clean, and the shops are small and the shopkeepers chat with you.  I mean, not with me, really, because I usually don’t go into their shops.  I just like to walk on the sidewalk and sit on the benches and watch everything happen.  I almost wished that I’d see the girl with the jacket again, and maybe I’d smile, or maybe I’d invite her to get an ice cream.  I mean, I know she likes ice cream.  Why wouldn’t I invite her?  Because I just wouldn’t.  I don’t do that sort of thing.

Sometimes I also like to walk through the cemetery.  I just wandered over to it one day (its behind the shops, just around the corner of the soft serve place) and decided I liked it.  I like it for different reasons than I liked the sidewalk.  The cemetery is so quiet and all you hear are birds.  No cars, no people, just a nice quiet walk.  I know you think I’m weird, because you think the graveyard is creepy, but during the day it isn’t.  I don’t think about the dead bodies or the sadness that you think about.  Maybe because I don’t know what its like to lose someone close to me, but I already said that.  I guess maybe I haven’t lost anyone because I don’t get close to anyone.

I didn’t expect to see her there.  The girl, I mean.  With the jacket.  I didn’t mean to interrupt her.  I just… happened upon her.  It was strange.  I felt embarrassed.  She was wearing a black and white polka-dot dress this time.  A sundress, I think.  And she wasn’t wearing shoes.  Well, she had taken them off.  Her flip-flops were next to her, with a half eaten ice cream dish, in the grass.  But the weird part was that she was lying in the grass, face pressed to the ground, on her stomach.  Her dress was kind of fanned out a bit.  Then I noticed that her jacket, her denim one I mean, was also there.  It was draped over the headstone that she was in front of.  She was lying in front of the headstone.  I couldn’t see the headstone’s name, because the denim jacket covered it.  But I could see the date.  “August 3, 1987 – June 25, 2008”.  21 years old I think.  And there was a flag or something.  Like one of those little flags that you get on the Fourth of July, you know?  It was stuck in the ground next to the headstone.  I thought I should have been uncomfortable.  But I really wasn’t.  I should have been though, right?  I didn’t walk away.  I wasn’t embarrassed anymore.

But then she lifted her head up.  She looked at the headstone for a little bit.  Well, I thought it seemed like a while to look at a headstone, but it was only a little bit.  But then, I’ve never lost someone.  I wondered if the jacket belonged to the dead guy.  But I guess it could have been a girl.  I couldn’t tell, because the name was covered.  By the jacket, I mean.  The denim one.  Then I wondered why she had gotten ice cream and then came here… it seemed contradictory, you know?  Well, under her circumstances I mean.  I guess it wouldn’t make a difference for me, since I was only walking.  But then she turned her head towards me.  She looked at me, but she was still lying down on her stomach.  Her dress was still fanned out a bit.  Her interesting eyes still caught me, but they were a little red.  Not crying red.  Maybe just watery.  And I still felt comfortable.  Or at least, not uncomfortable.  And then I smiled at her.  I don’t know why or how, but I smiled.  Maybe I thought that she needed it… but then why would she?  I don’t know. I’ve never lost anyone. But I did it.  I don’t know how she felt.  But she smiled back.