Gravity

It was of those November mornings when I wished I had remembered gloves. The air wasn’t quite bitter yet, but my fingertips were numb, thrust inside thinly lined pockets. My shoes led me down the street, slapping a flat-soled rhythm on the damp pavement.

“Morning, Karen.”

Her short blonde hair flipped around as she pivoted on tip-toe, backpack dangling from one elbow. “Hi.”

Shivering, I tilted my head up. “It’s really clear this morning, isn’t it? I mean, it’s so neat to be able to see all these stars, even with the sky glow, and the moon, and you can even see that part of the moon that isn’t lit up by the sun, you know, that other side that we’ve never really seen, and it reminds me of eighth-grade earth science, and it also makes me feel really insignificant and small, you know, in the –”

“You’re ruining the effect.”

Grinning, I threaded my fingers into my scarf. Karen stepped away, sneezing into her hand, and looked down the street for the bus.

“This sky is romantic, I think,” she said, turning back to me. “I’m thinking of a clear night, walking down a country road with a boy at my arm.” She gestured dramatically and batted her eyes.

“Ha! Of course! But I see it more as….hmm….walking down a mostly empty city street, holding some guy’s hand, looking in the little shops closing down for the night, with light snowflakes falling, I mean, it’s not too cold, just barely cold enough for snow, and there’ll be Christmas music playing in the background.” Headlights flashed around a distant corner.

She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Chestnuts roasting…on an open fire…” she sang over the creak of familiar brakes.

“Oh, shush.” I followed her up the bus steps and sat down, as we always do, in the fourth row of seats. Karen pulled her headphones over her pink ears and poked at the CD player in her pocket. The bus lurched down the street.

I watched what I could of the sunrise out of the bus window. The fog over the park, eerily like breath, began to lift. The bus loop of the high school glistened with last night’s rain, reflecting the looming brick building and the pastel streams overhead.

Whispered gossip floated up from the back of the bus. Karen yawned and pulled the headphones off, stuffing them into her pocket. Our driver croaked a reluctant “Have a nice day,” and crouched a little farther over the wide steering wheel. Sneakers drummed another rhythm on the bus steps as thirty-some sleepy teenagers stepped into the keen awareness of dew and concrete, not knowing that later, light snowflakes would fall, at temperatures just barely cold enough for snow.