Disclaimer: Craig Bartlett had some great characters and here's how I picture a story about two of them.

My thanks to 'acosta perez iose ramiro' and 'loonytunecrazy' for being the first to review.

Her belongings left in the hotel room, her flight clothes shed, her body washed, and a little life restored to her limbs through controlled breathing and personal massage had imbued Phoebe with the vitality needed to overcome the drowsiness brought on by jet lag and enabled her to briskly make her way down the streets she'd known in childhood. Queens had a hum and a life among its people that didn't seem to change, no matter how the world spun. Phoebe had seen so much change in her short life that it was at once both soothing and unnerving to find something of her past so unblemished – well, unchanged at least.

The buses had some different graffiti – as did the walls – police sirens went on and off with much the same regularity they always did so long ago, low-clearance cars drove by, leaving a stereotypical hip-hop beat in their wake… and horns honked at pedestrians that became so lost in their thoughts that they entered crosswalks that had red lights.

Phoebe shook herself from her reverie and rather than attempt to assuage anyone for the undue stress and surprises caused by her inattentiveness just hustled across the street before she caused any more trouble. She found herself at the corner of a very tall apartment complex. Looking up at the top floors, the penthouse suites, she recognized it was the same building she'd lived in with her parents the whole time they'd been in Queens.

So long ago… so many things lost and gone…

Looking up at the windows of the old apartment, Phoebe found herself transported back to the years of elementary school and junior high. She recalled her friend Helga, whom she hadn't spoken to in close to five years now, but whose poetry and essay anthologies still occupied a place on Phoebe's nightstand wherever she went. Phoebe could remember her bossy, opinionated, and often times callous friend from P.S. 118 and the evolution she'd seen in Helga as she matured to become a less stubborn, more open-minded, though still anti-social young woman.

Crushing on Arnold to the end. Phoebe thought.

Helga had gone to Columbia University to expand her skills as a writer, but after graduating moved to Hungary to get in touch with the roots of her most distant family. She and Phoebe had done the best they could to keep in touch throughout that time, but with Helga disappearing every few weeks when she got on one of her insatiable writing binges, and Phoebe being – Phoebe – it was hard to keep each other in their respective loops.

The third member of their adolescent trio, Lila, had gone on to Ithaca and studied Linguistics before eventually settling on becoming a drama teacher in the inner-city. Phoebe hadn't spoken to Lila in a long time and wasn't even sure where she'd be able to find her old friend now. Phoebe could remember Lila as being a melting pot of traits that were otherwise exclusively divided between her and Helga. Like Phoebe, Lila had been intelligent – salutatorian of her own high school class – somewhat demure, and exceedingly polite. Like Helga, she had a feminist's spirit and a fair amount of 'moxie' and no-nonsense attitude when it came to certain issues – though she was not as aggressive in her stances as her blonde friend. What she brought to the group that her fellow girls had lacked was an engagingly social outlook. While Phoebe was content to pass the time in the quiet company of her two best friends, and Helga would've been just as comfortable alone, Lila had shaken up their lives and gotten them to go out, take risks and meet people. Sometimes those outings had turned into the misadventures the girls had endured with their guy friends in earlier years, but the experiences had been rewarding, and memorable.

Feeling the memories come flooding back as she stood in front of the building where she had spent so much time with those two great friends brought Phoebe only a little solace. Most of her felt only pain at being near this place where so many bonds were severed.

It was here when we were last together. She thought.

Phoebe decided to continue on past the old structure and not allow the memories to cause her to become melancholy. She walked down towards the old tenant house where her blonde friend Arnold had lived. Seeing the green edifice with boarded up windows, and police tape over the door brought her up short. Turning to a man with a brown coat and a black bowler hat walking by, Phoebe asked what had happened to the old couple who used to run the boarding house. She received little more than a shrug and a vague answer of time.

Phoebe turned away from the man and felt saddened by that answer. It meant either that Arnold's grandparents, the spry old Phil and Gertie, were dead or worn down from their work in keeping the house and were just up and gone. Either way, two people that Phoebe had grown to think of as permanent fixtures of her old neighborhood were gone. A few tears found their way to Phoebe's eyes, but none rolled down her cheeks. Her father's emotional stoicism had given her a great deal of experience in how to hide her feelings, and though she was technically alone, she didn't feel the need to cry.

Phoebe puttered down the street a little ways, just letting her autopilot from childhood take control of her feet and lead her wherever it chose. She glanced at her watch and saw that it getting close to 19:00. The selected travel victuals she'd brought with her on the plane had not been intended to fuel her beyond the time spent on the plane. Now she needed to grab some dinner. She scanned around to see if there as a sub-shop or delicatessen she could stop at for a sandwich. She walked on, continuing to peer around, and passed a chain-link fence that received a fast-driving basketball as she passed.

She shrieked at the discordant ring and espied a tall African-American man come up to grab the ball and toss it back to his teammates further back in the side-street court. Phoebe regained her composure quickly and out of routine straightened her light overcoat.

"Hey sorry about that," he apologized. "My game's a little off today, I didn't mean to…"

Ever so delicately he squinted to sharpen his view of the girl he'd just startled, and with the sudden break in his apology, she in turn looked up to see him. Though she had imagined, and on some level intended, to see that face again, the suddenness of the encounter threw her off her balance.

"Gerald? My gosh, Gerald!"

"Phoebe Heyerdahl," Gerald Johanssen declared as he walked over to the door of the chain-link fence. "As I live and breathe!"

Gerald shut the gate behind him as some of his teammates began making catcalls. He paid them no heed as he walked up to Phoebe, whose mouth still hung open in wonder. As he drew himself up in front of her, the disparity between the cool boy Phoebe had so adored during her childhood and this living, breathing Gerald Johanssen became more and more apparent. Where the old Gerald from years ago had been thin and wiry, this man had a lean, yet well muscled physique that was showing through his slightly drenched t-shirt. Gerald from way back when had been of slightly above average height among his peers, while this man stood at close to two meters; a veritable giant next to the wispy, 1.59-meter, Phoebe Heyerdahl. His old style Kid 'n Play hair had been replaced with a close-cropped Jheri curl. To top off the transformation to adulthood, his mouth was ringed with a well-kept goatee. And his voice, still rasping when she had heard him last now came in a deep and resonant tenor-baritone that was very soothing to listen to.

When the two embraced, Phoebe couldn't deny feeling as though she were being hugged by a man akin to the gladiators that had trained, slept, eaten and perhaps died beneath the frescoes she'd recently been researching in Rome. If not his size, the perspiration on his body alone gave her mind enough to make the association.

"What are you doing here Pheebs?" He asked as he stepped back. "It's been years."

Phoebe took a moment to take stock of where she was. Looking at the distance between the streets, recalling how many times she'd walked this street – and in whose company – she realized that her feet had led her straight in the direction of the old Johanssen family residence.

"I was… in the neighborhood." She said at last.

"Why didn't you call or send me an alert, anything? I'd 've made myself a little more presentable." He directed his fingers up and down his front where the sweat from shooting hoops had left a T-shaped stain across his front.

Phoebe giggled as she gave him a sideways up and down glance. "Well… you're not exactly attired to meet the Queen, but I wouldn't say this an unflattering presentation." The flirting came so naturally to Phoebe she didn't even register that this was flirting. When she had talked with Gerald in her younger years this was how they frequently bantered. It was like picking up an old bicycle that she hadn't ridden in ages.

"Well I've been keeping in shape." He diffidently accepted before returning to his serious, but excited disposition. "But Pheebs, seriously, it's been forever. How've you been?"

"I'm doing well…"

"Hey Gerald! Save the girls for off-time, we need you back here man!" came the irreverent call of some of the players back on the court.

"Yeah brother, this here's the 'ball court', man. You take care a' yo' booty calls after we win."

Phoebe bit back her tongue and closed her mouth in a gesture of withdrawal. The antagonism from the players on the court was palpable and she had no interest in riling them.

"C'mon honey, you can have the Jo-Hans' man in 'jo hands' later. We in the middle of a game here." One of the other guys shouted.

Gerald, normally a tolerant man whenever his teammates made catcalls to passersby had never had any patience with anyone who cut into his time with Phoebe. Towards the end of elementary school, even Arnold was superseded by Phoebe when it came to identifying who Gerald devoted time and attention to. And after Arnold left, there just wasn't anyone who could compare. Gerald's feelings now were as they had been then.

"Hey man, SHUT UP! This is my best friend you're talking to!" was his rejoinder.

"Gerald man c'mon, we're waitin' on you. Let's get back to the game."

Gerald looked back at Phoebe to show her that he had already made his decision about where he was going, and back to the court wasn't it.

"Man, I'm out. I gotta go home. Catch you guys later."

This was met with even more derisions and invectives.

"Gerald you can't walk out on a game."

"These your brothers, man."

"Bros before hoes, Gerald."

Gerald quickly started walking down the street, guiding Phoebe by the arm before the comments grew any more lewd. He wasn't ashamed of the friends he hung out with, but Phoebe didn't deserve to hear any of that trash talk, and Gerald was enough of a gentleman to not allow her to be subjected to it. Only when they were another block away did Gerald slow the pace and relax his grip on Phoebe's elbow. Phoebe held her elbow tenderly. Gerald's grip had been firm, though not in the least bit painful, but Phoebe resented being hustled or directed any faster or slower than the pace she set for herself.

"I'm sorry about that Pheebs. Those guys aren't bad, they're just serious about the game and they get punchy if anything interrupts them. Forget about them."

Phoebe was busy deciding whether or not she really wanted to forget about the incident. The catcalls had been offensive and being referred to as 'booty' was not something that flattered her or bolstered her self-esteem. Knowing that Gerald spent time in the company of such men did not endear her to him now. Her studies in societal dynamics had included focus into the effects of groups on individual behaviors and how the loner in a group could be influenced by their peers to abandon their intrinsic norms. Gerald had always been a kind, upstanding boy when they were kids, her own father had said as much, but a different environment could change a person and make them into something entirely different from the person they appeared to be in a prior setting.

"Never mind, Gerald," she deflected. "I didn't mean to interrupt your game…"

"Forget about the game Pheebs!" Gerald waved off the apology without a moment's hesitation. "You're in town now. That comes before work, friends, and especially before anything to do with basketball."

At that Phoebe had to smile. Even the cool, level, and unperturbed Gerald Johanssen put all his guys things on hold whenever something came up that involved her.

"Have you had dinner yet?" he asked.

She smiled. "No, I was actually looking for something when your ball nearly hit me."

Her face immediately went beet red and she wanted to begin burying herself in the sidewalk right then and there. Phoebe's mastery of English was equal to her skills with Japanese, German Latin, French, and most other romance languages, and she never made such a serious verbal blunder around anyone she dealt with professionally. That she had made it inside of a few minutes, and few words between herself and Gerald did not bode smooth sailing in further conversation. The slight snicker on his face showed that Gerald had not missed her little linguistic faux pas, but he spoke as though he hadn't heard it at all.

"Well great. I haven't had mine either. Now come on, let's head to my place so I can clean myself up, and then we'll head out to get something to eat."

Phoebe nodded her assent and started walking down the street next to Gerald. Already she had calculated that there was a likelihood that she was going to need a more modern resident of the neighborhood if she were to find some place to eat at this hour, especially since any restaurants would likely be overbooked with reservations or overflowing with customers so late in the day. And aside from the logic of this arrangement, she was too swept up in the thrill of seeing Gerald again to even consider the sense in parting from him now.

And I find him here. Only a short walk from where we were last together. She thought.

I finally figured out how to divide the story text from my messages, so if nothing else that should improve the layout of the story.

Please review, and feel free to suggest how you'd like the story to progress.