Walking with Sara

Sara is the girl that has just moved into the apartment next to me.  She has short blonde hair, blue eyes and wide cheekbones.  We have only talked once while waiting for the elevator; she tells me that her parents are visiting her from Colorado for the Fourth of July, I tell her about Millie, the tabby cat that I had just adopted from the shelter nearby.  One late Friday afternoon, she knocks on my door and asks me if I want to go for a walk, and I say sure.  I don’t know her intentions, but I take the chance, thinking that maybe I’ll make a new friend.  We take the elevator down to the first floor, walk through the front lobby and are out of the door.  The wind from the lake breezes past us while two seagulls fly over the apartment awning.  She starts to talk about her old boyfriend, and I listen attentively.  I watch as a flock of geese flies over us, and she asks me if I have a car.  I tell her no, I use public transportation.  We find the path by the lake to ourselves, and I feel an odd sense of intimacy with the situation, almost to the point of discomfort, like we could be sisters who are having an argument.  I realize she is a person who I do not want to be friends with, as her smile turns to a frown, and her eyes shift from me to the road by our side.  Her attitude reflects into something unamiable and ambiguous with her words that show a sense of anger from a source unknown to me.  A silence walks between us.  I tell her I think that the headlights of the fleeting cars seem to glow with the fading light of day, and she agrees.  She tells me that sometimes she stands over the highway on the bridge a few blocks from our apartment and watches the combination of white and red lights of the headlights and tail lights of cars that find their way past her.  The odd sense off anger that I found in her face and gate leaves when we find our own level of agreement.  We walk to the beach, dip our toes in the water, and head back to our apartment building, as cars pass us, leaving us to ourselves.