The picnic was down the hill but Alice stayed up at the peak on the rock looking down. It was windy on the tip and she was a bit cold but she liked seeing for miles ahead and beyond and being able turn any which way and see just about everything that’s going on. She bit a blade of grass and covered her eyes when the sun peaked out, blinded, she could still hear soccer balls being kicked and the clapping of hands. Her knee was cut from a trip but that didn’t bother her, she pulled her skirt down over it then gave into the wind that blew the hem to her thigh. The wind also pushed at her ear which made it red and ring bells that weren’t there. She took a bite out of her egg sandwich. A black man from the trees walked into view and sat down beside her. He lit a cigarette and watched her eat the last bite. She had slept with him the night before and remembered it quite vividly. This was his favorite park and beach to hang out at and she had picked it for the family picnic. Everything comes together when you sit around and wait long enough. Her family wasn’t racist and that wasn’t really the problem but she wondered if she could use it as the problem considering she didn’t really like him and the sex hadn’t been that good. He still had the nerve to come and sit on this hill even when he knew she would be having a family picnic, she had told him in bed that morning. He still had the nerve to light up a cigarette even though there were children running around below who had been told countless times that only evil people smoked. She knew her parents smoked in secret and didn’t care about any of that but she wondered if she could turn the children against him in order to keep him from staying too long. She then came to terms with herself and realized a black smoker was never the issue, invading her party was never the issue, the bad sex was an imaginary issue kind of. She felt like an awful person for thinking any of these things and wished she had another sandwich to bite into or a bigger rock to hide behind. She really was a dumb fool who didn’t know what to say to the man sitting across from her. He finished his smoke and walked down to the party, grabbing a sandwich for himself and sitting down to talk to an uncle and aunt. When it got too windy up above Alice walked back down and stood beside the man who then kissed her on the cheek and held her close. She kicked away a soccer ball that had floated over the grass to her feet.

   “Did you get to see the ships come in?” He asked her, he knew how much she liked to watch the ships sail into the harbor. She nodded and kept close to him, keeping warm and dry from the breeze that had lost its breaking point.