(B) She politely declines.

A mass of pink and white petals clouds her vision with a gust of southerly wind, and as the confettii swirls and falls she sees him coalesce once more through the chaos. But she doesn't speak.

His face suddenly flushed, Tom looks confusedly at his friend and back again. A firetruck screams by, an insistent reminder of the troubles of Man. "I'll take that as a no," he says, and as he turns to leave she shakes herself from her reverie.

"I'm sorry," she blurts out, "what did you say?" She feels as though she were sitting in the middle of a semi-lucid dream, the air and earth and flesh and blood acting without her, but under her control nevertheless.

At the sound of her pointed voice he stops mid-stride and turns, hopeful. "Can I call you sometime?" His expression is oddly childlike, anticipatory, like a little boy waiting for his turn on Santa's lap.

Something of this childishness registers in her, in that small place within her breast still untouched by life's harsh realities. "Call me?" she asks, bewildered not only by him, but by the request as well. She scans the bright horizon looking for the answer to his question. And when the meaning of his words finally registers she sighs, heavily. "Oh," she exhales, "I live with someone." She offers this information simply, yet with a latent tinge of regret it seems.

And it's the regret he takes with him, tucked safely into his back pocket, as he walks down the path and onto the bustling city sidewalk.

The wind blows warm and dry through the leaves--leaflets, really, so newly unfurled that they merely suggest the idea of a leaf, of a broad, vibrant plane set off against the white sky above. The wind blows warm and dry, and there, among it all, sits a hard and limited girl, her long hair swirling in eddies around her stony face. She sits on a park bench noticed once but now forgotten, and at the end of her hour looks wearily about her, smooths her unruly hair safely behind her ears, and slowly rises.

The heat is settling in the park now, and the last of the breeze is stifled until the air is as still as a tomb. Finally picking up her belongings, she treads the path herself, alone.