overheard

I'm just not sure why he likes me, what he's got to go on at this point besides physical appearance. She shouts this over her shoulder because I am a few steps behind, trying my best not to intrude on the family portrait setting itself up in front of me. Lately we've taken to wandering the streets, walking it off as she likes to say and today we've ended up in front of the White House, stepping into the frame of who knows how many Christmas cards along the way. SEASON'S GREETINGS from OUR FAMILY ( don't mind the suspicious looking girl in the sunglasses) to YOURS! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

What do you mean you don't know why he likes you? Why wouldn't he like you? I stop and she keeps going, my words chasing her down because a Japanese man has handed me a camera. He is wearing white shoes and pressed white cotton shorts. His white polo shirt and a white visor are made from the same white terrycloth. His socks are brown though, and his short wife, also dressed toe to top in white, has a red carnation pinned to the (white) band of her straw hat. She looks plucky so I tell her so and when she hears the words in her own language she smiles, looking up into the frozen face of her posed husband, I snap a couple shots. There, I think, finally, a picture with a smile. They bow and I bow and then we all bow again before I'm able to push the camera back into the man's hands, the hair on his knuckles very black and sparse. I picture these same hands holding chopsticks, reading the newspaper on a crowded train, as I dart ahead through the crowds to where my friend stands, talking into the air beside her. I'm not like "oh woe is me, why would anyone ever like me?" because you know I'm not like that. I think I'm pretty great. I have a lot to offer, right?

Right. Of course. So what's the problem? She didn't notice, so I don't break her stride.

Well, I just don't understand. Why does he like me? What's he basing this on? A bus barrels past and her words get whipped up and swirled around in the hot air gushing by us. He doesn't know me. He barely knows me. Her face is red now, from the sun and the hot air, but also from the exertion, the emotion behind the words. It's real confusion. She wants to understand so the color rises in her cheeks.

Why do you like him? Why does anyone like anyone? We are waiting to cross the street. The Japanese couple sidles up to us. You do like him, don't you? Even though they don't speak English, I lower my voice. You kissed him and you weren't even drunk. That means something, right. Doesn't it? I want desperately, irrationally to appear respectable for these people -- to fix myself in the album of their memories as that upstanding young girl who spoke their language a bit, took that great picture in front of the White House. The white mother pours some tea for her son or passes a tray of pastries to her neighbor and tells the story again. She smiles up at her stern husband and he smiles back, remembering the red carnation in her hat.

I do. I do like him. She is forging ahead, through a group of middle-aged Italian men who whistle and stare and gawk. They make comments and gestures but she ignores them. The Japanese people turn left, toward the Mall, so I exhale and settle back into who I am today: someone who is wrung-out and and a bit lost in her own town. The sort of girl who finds consolation wandering the streets. I like him she says, and then turns around, all the way, to look at me straight on for the first time all morning. I like him, right?

Sure you like him. I'm not sure what to say because all my answers have been wrong lately, but I keep talking, like a shark who will die if it stops moving through the murky water. Let's put it this way -- you like something about him. There is something you like that keeps you going back. And he likes something about you and it keeps him coming back. That makes sense, right?

Is that enough? She isn't moving. She's just standing there, waiting for an answer. We are smudged and dripping and almost shouting, surrounded by a mill and flow of people who came here to relax, to spend some time with the family, to experience history first hand or didn't know where else to go.

Do you remember when I fell for Martin? Do you remember what it was that I liked about him? She nods her head and turns, walking again and I'm glad that motion relieves the pressure of the moment. She doesn't say anything though, so I go on. I liked his teeth. He had the deliciousest, most toothy grin in the world and I loved it. I loved it. I fell for it.

She does not look convinced. So you liked his smile. I see a million people a day with nice smiles. What does that mean?

It's a starting place. You take something and you go with it and then you add on to it. I liked his teeth. And then I liked the way his teeth fit in his mouth when he smiled and then I liked how he smiled at me when I talked about killing every plant I've ever had. I'm about to be lost, about to be broadsided by a busload of memories, but I keep going. And then I liked the way he wrote with his left hand in the library and the way his left hand wrote a note like an 8th grade boy asking me to the movies. And then I liked the way that we laughed all through the movie and the way his left hand grabbed my right hand and the way he kissed me by the back door. I am shouting now and a mother in squeaky clean tennis shoes, purchased for this trip, gives her daughter a look -- a God-forbid you should grow up and wander the streets, shouting like a crazy person look -- and again I am overcome with a desire to appear ok, hinged and functional for these people, guests in my city.

I don't know. It's such a big gamble. I mean, look how wrecked you were by Martin in the end. Whatever. It will sort itself out, right? We are in front of a coffee shop and her hand is on the door. Wanna get something to eat? This walking makes me ravenous.

Right, I want to say. Right. It will sort itself out. I repeat it to myself because she is already inside, in line, and because suddenly, standing in the confluence of men, women, their children, of history, commerce, love, country, summer I am the one who needs convincing, not her. We only have words and images, projected and gathered, to go on-- only eyes and ears to take them in. And what can they hold? I want to shout. What can you build out of light and sound? Out of nothing?