The Peach

Swish, swish, swish, swish...

My blue checkered button-down was cinched at my waist, and I could feel the soft knit of my orange skirt brushing around my knees as I sauntered across Union Square in the fading, golden and glowy sun, searching for dinner. I tossed my hair, giving my neck a breezy reprieve from its tousled, wavy platinum blanket, feeling the balmy spring air whispering against my collar... and suddenly caught eyes with him.

He seemed about my age and was looking directly at me and smiling, pulling the earbuds out of his ears while coasting quickly through my field of vision. I was startled, but smiled back. And then he was gone. I hadn't broken my stride, but he had broken my concentration, so I fixed my gaze back on the long black shadow leading me across the square. Then I heard it. The whir of small rubber wheels against pavement, and a low voice from back right. He was beside me now. On a skateboard, which explained his previous sudden departure from view.

"Has anyone ever told you..."

Oh, here we go. Men in public like to compare me to famous women a lot. Marilyn? That one isn't so bad. Too easy, but not bad. Anna Nicole? I had been getting that one a lot lately. Bad. I braced myself for what this skater boy with inch-thick ear gauges would say to me.

"Has anyone ever told you that you look like a Georgia peach?"

A big, sweet, easy grin had spread itself across his face as he glided away from me, and I felt something like warm honey spill over my insides. A Georgia peach? No one had ever compared me to a Georgia peach. It felt soft, and sweet, and tender and romantic. Somehow exactly how I always wanted to be, but never realized. No one had ever compared me to a Georgia peach...

"You're the first!" I laughed, "But I'll take it!"

I was so pleased with myself for coming up with anything at all to say, let alone fairly coherent and witty, but now looking back I wish I had stopped in my place and dragged him down off his skateboard for a kiss on the cheek. Or invited him to dinner. Or done something more romantic than acting fairly glib about the whole thing.

Because I couldn't stop smiling for the next three blocks.