July 22nd

Central Park can be really beautiful on a hot summer day like today.

Especially when you spent part of it with a pretty girl who hit on you.

Yes. I was just sitting here, innocently, trying to get some sort of a tan and working on writing a new performance piece, and this beautiful black woman, probably two or three inches shorter than me (not counting the heels she had on), stopped and asked if I had the time. Now I normally wouldn't have thought anything of this if she hadn't been wearing a beautiful knee-length black skirt and white blouse, with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, exposing a beautiful watch with what may very well have been diamonds encrusted into the silver plating.

I had a feeling, looking at her attire, that she wanted a little more than the time. And by all means, she was attractive enough, not to mention well dressed enough, that I was willing to give her a little more than what she wanted.

I looked down at my watch, which is really Mark's watch, and it said 4:03. I quickly did the math on the paper in my notebook and looked up at her. "It's 2:51." I said to her, flashing one of my famous "Yeah, I know you think I'm hot shit" smiles. Mark's watch happens to be an hour and fifty two minutes fast, a problem that no one in the loft, not even Collins, could seem to correct.

"Thanks a lot," she replied, flashing me a "Are you a lesbian or not?" smile back. I shut my notebook and shifted over a little on my blanket, the Internationally Recognized Sign for, "I'm bisexual and you're hot, so sit down, you fool." However bad Mark is at Internationally Recognized Signs as decided by me, this girl wasn't, and she tapped her finger against her cheek before asking, "Can I sit here for a minute? I've just walked about thirty blocks and my feet are killing me!"

"You are more than welcome to sit down," I said, shifting over a little more. I grabbed my water bottle. "Want some?"

"Thanks," she said, looking genuinely appreciative that she could get off her feet and just have a little water. I don't blame her. I hadn't really realized exactly how hot it was until I looked at her in her black skirt. Black on a summer day is such a bitch.

"I'm Maureen, by the way," I said, forgetting that we hadn't actually known each other forever, like I felt. I smiled again, this time less of the "I know I'm hot shit" smile and more like a "God I haven't been around anyone with estrogen outside of work in an obscene amount of time" smile.

"Joanne Jefferson," she said, extending her hand to me. We shook formally, which was weird, not only because she was in decent working attire and I was in denim shorts that looked like they were painted on to my ass (and that's actually all they covered, too, since I made them out of an old pair of jeans) and a tight white tank top that exposed my thisclosetoasixpack abs, but also because we were flirting and shaking hands. Like…I wanted to hug her instead of shake her head, but then she definitely would've left, she looked like the kind of woman who wasn't gonna take shit from any weirdos in Central Park.

"It's so nice to meet you, Joanne," I said genuinely. And I was being genuine. I mean, as many numbers as I get at work, from men and women, I haven't really run into anyone who I was this physically attracted to from the get-go, and I think that's what I need to even begin to have something with anyone. Not to mention that I hadn't been with a woman in forever, let alone one as beautiful as Joanne. However, I'm never one to chase, I just get chased, so I didn't want to do any more to make myself look overeager.

"So where are you off to?" I asked Joanne as she rifled through her black leather bag.

"Oh," she muffled with her head practically inside the bag, "I'm just on my way back to work from a meeting with a client I had uptown," she told me. "I'm a lawyer, mostly civil cases, and I should be heading back to the firm but I don't particularly love taking the subway and all of the New York transit is especially touristy this time of the year, so I figured I'd walk back from my lunch meeting." She threw a pen over her shoulder and continued. "However, I've only been here about a year and I guess I didn't keep in mind exactly how far Times Square is from my firm up on 86th street."

I may not have been the best math student in school, but I was smart enough to know that 86th street to Times Square is forty four blocks. And I thought it was a long walk to walk six blocks to the NYU subway stop, get on there, get off at 57th street and somehow manage to make my way to 72nd street, where my favorite spot in Central Park, right near the Imagine mosaic, is. I calculated. I walked a total of twenty one blocks to get here, and I probably would've walked less had I wanted to stay out for a shorter period of time. But I don't have to work until later tonight and didn't feel like spending the day in the house with the withdrawal king and the director tooling around with his camera, so I figured I'd hang out around the city for a couple hours. Being outside the Village was nice, too. I've lived there since I was eighteen, when I started school at NYU for drama. I didn't end up graduating because I didn't have the money to finish there and my parents weren't too keen on me becoming a performer, so I've been wasting my life in the Village ever since.

But I digress.

So I laughed at Joanne's bad planning, once I did the math and looked at the three inch heel on her shoes. She finally seemed to find what she was looking for inside the bag, which was her business card. "Ah!" she said, more to herself than me, "I knew I had one of these in here."

"Wow," I said, and adding in a little sarcasm, "You must be a pretty big deal or a pretty big heartbreaker to carry cards around with your number on them."

She laughed. She seemed kind of nervous and I didn't really know why. "Where do you live, if I may inquire into that?" she asked me. "You laughed at my long walk, so now maybe I'll laugh at the fact that you walked out of your apartment and crossed the street to get here," she said, gesturing to the apartment building on the other side of the street, which had apartments that I couldn't afford if I had eighty roommates.

"Well, believe it or not," I said, "it's a big deal that I'm here."

"And why is that?" she asked.

I explained to her that I live in the Village with my two crazy roommates, one who happened to be my boyfriend and the other one was just the recovering heroin addict who had AIDS and was my boyfriend's best friend and that the Imagine mosaic is my favorite spot. The Village was enough of an explanation for her, though. "Please tell me you didn't walk," she said, looking at me seriously, "Wait. You definitely did not walk. If you had walked you would not have laughed so much at how far I'd come."

I agreed with her and explained that I probably walked about half as far as she did, and to boot, I wore flip flops, so I was much more comfortable. "Maybe I should've taken the subway…" she sighed, looking down at her feet.

"No!" I said. "Then we never would have run into each other."

She smiled. She had a nice smile. "Well, I should probably get going," she said to me, with another glance at her death shoes. "Um…if you don't mind me asking…and I hope you don't think I'm a total creep or anything for this, but…" she trailed off.

I knew what was coming. And damn, did it feel good.

"I know you said you had a boyfriend and everything, but do you think I could have your number?" She quickly added, "I totally understand if you say no because I can see that you're straight but I really enjoyed your company and…"

"Of course," I said, taking the pen and business card and scribbling the number to the loft down on the back. "And I'm bisexual, don't think that you have defective Gaydar or anything," I told her, hoping she wouldn't be offended by my use of "gay slang".

Joanne looked relieved as she took the number from me, threw it and the pen back into her bag, and stood up, smoothing out her skirt. "It was very nice meeting you," she said, looking like she meant it. "I hope to see you again soon."

"Nice meeting you too, Joanne," I said, folding up my blanket. She bent down to help me and our hands grazed each other. I felt an electricity that I hadn't felt in a while. "And I hope that we see each other very soon."

I couldn't help myself. I'm usually one to be chased but when you meet someone who is that…good, you just can't give that up.

And I was still getting chased, too. I hadn't exactly asked for her number. It was all in her hands now. Let the pieces fall where they may.

And let's just hope I'm home when they fall. If Mark or Roger hear her call they will be really suspicious, and I'm not willing to give this one up yet. I liked her too much.