I went out on the patio and sat down on the front step. My glass swirled the thick red liquid around like a lost, dark promise forgotten. Soft footsteps made me look up to see small eyes glinting my way. A little girl about 10 with a bowl haircut and a ripped knee in her dirty jeans. She was holding a ball and stopped to say hi.
“Hi yourself. You out playing some basketball?” I shaded my eyes as the sun was just starting to descend.
“Yeah. Do you play too?” Her front tooth made a window in her mouth as her words curled around a smile.
“I use to actually. Not so much anymore.” I tilted my glass for a sip and met her smile.
“What position do you play?”
“Guard. I'm real good. I even got a three pointer once only the game was over.” She bounced the ball with her tiny hand and I wondered how in the world she could control the ball at all.
“Wow. Three pointers are difficult. You keep playing I bet you'll get one while the game is still on.” she shot a smile my way and shook her head.
With only a child's trust, she crossed the grass toward the patio with the ball on her hip.
“How did you skin your knee?” I pointed to her jean hole and she shrugged.
“I dunno. I climb trees and play ball all the time. I'm faster than most the boys in my grade. I probably did it playing.”
“I use to do all that stuff to. Well, you just keep doing it and having fun.”
“Why don't you play ball anymore?” her brown eyes asked the glass in my hand as I consciously set it aside to think.
“I don't know actually. It's different when you get older.”
“Howcome?”
I laughed uncomfortably and said I really didn't have a good answer for her other than priorities change when you get older and she would understand that one day.
Then, with all the maturity a 10 year old can have with a gap toothed smile and ripped knee, she made a kind of exasperated sigh and looked me dead in the eye.
“Sounds awful. You shouldn't ever stop having fun.”
Before I could respond, she shot me a quick pass with her ball and I almost knocked over my glass to grab it last minute, but I got it. I smiled in response through the one upping that had just occurred.
Then a thin voice carried in the air down the street and the little girl turned quickly in that direction and stated, “That's Mom. Gotta go.” Her skinny legs carried her down the street and around the corner before I could say a thing.
I stood up to remind the girl about her ball, and my ears heard a second faint call in the air -
“Amy! Dinner...”
I looked down at my hands with a strange smile and saw only a glass.
