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We stood silently for a moment, unable to turn away, yet unsure how to continue our accidental conversation. Her odd mixture of shyness and forthrightness gave her a coy, flirtatious charm. The two elements seemed to be at war on her brow, and I waited to see which one would win.

Finally she said, 'So, Phil-not-Pico, what you been doin’ tonight?'

I told her I’d had a beer at a place up on Broadway.

'I’m goin’ to have a beer, too,' she said. 'My girlfriend say she meet me in the park. You know Socrates Park?'

'Sure.'

'She say she get some beer and wait for me there.'

She looked down again, scraped one foot across the sidewalk, making a Z with the point of her toe. Both of us followed it with our eyes. Mine lingered on her leg a moment too long, and when I looked up again she was smiling at me.

'So you don’t got no girlfriend?' she asked.

'No, not really. I mean, I’m not sure. There’s this woman . . . it’s a long story. The short answer is, I don’t think so.'

I asked if she had a boyfriend.

'Naaaw,' she said. 'He kicked me out. Kept all my furniture, too. He won’t even let me in to pick up my clothes. He afraid I’ll take everythin’ and leave him with nothin’. And I should, too, ’cause it’s all mine. He know none of it his. My money paid for it.'

'That’s terrible,' I said.

'Yeah, it’s all confused. I moved back in with my mom awhile. But she get all moody and sad. She forget to take her pills and then she just not right. She start whinin’ and cussin’ and feelin’ sorry for herself, and she won’t stop. She make you feel like it’s all your fault. She got diabetes and a bad heart. I had to get out ’fore I hauled off and smacked her one. Since then I been stayin’ with a girlfriend, you know, in the praahhjects.' She stretched out this last word, seeming to mock both her own situation and the white imagination that gave the term its stigmatizing power. 'We don’t get along no more. She get mean. She only really good to be around when she first start drinkin’.'

She shifted the gym bag from one shoulder to the other. Through the unzipped opening I saw what looked like the elastic band of a pair of cotton panties. Later, I wondered if it wasn’t the glimpse of her underwear that made me say what I said next.

'You need a place to stay?'

She shrugged, noncommittal.

'Consider it a standing offer.' I tore a piece of paper from my notebook and wrote my number on it. 'If you’re ever in a pinch, just give me a call and you’ll have a place.'

She took the paper from my hand.

'You don’ even know me,' she said.

'I do now, don’t I?'

'Phil,' she said, reading aloud.

'Michelle,' I said.

We both smiled.

'I goin’ to call you.'

'Good.'

'I mean I may need a place tonight.'

'If so, you know what to do.'

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