The Second Floor

Jlappy Birthday, The Snowman, or Cary Grant?" the woman asked from behind the counter, holding up the stamps as if they were jewels he might want to examine. "If I say Cary Grant, will you think poorly of me?" he said. "Excuse me?" she said. "The Snowman," he said, to say something. "Give me ten snowmen." He had always been jealous of Cary Grant anyway, and hardly needed the reminder. While he was waiting for his change the rotund, red-faced woman in the line beside him was presented with the same choice by her postal clerk. She hesitated a second, blushed, then said "Cary Grant" in an illicit sounding half-whisper. Outside a strong wind was blowing in the blue sky. When he was a kid, not much younger than Abby, he supposed, he used to think the wind controlled the color of the sky. There were blue winds, and gray winds, and multi-colored winds that produced the colors of sunsets and rainbows. Of course, since the wind does move the clouds it wasn't a completely false notion, he thought, the moral being it's as difficult to be completely wrong about something as it is to be completely right. He'd actually tried to talk about this to Abby once, but she couldn't really grasp it or else wasn't interested. Abby and he had had three conversations so far, four if he counted the first one when they met in the park. He'd always needed someone to talk to-a simple enough need, one would think, but in practice surprisingly complicated. The park where he'd met her and where he'd gone today with the expectation of meeting her again, was in a lowerclass part of Philadelphia. There were some swings (half of them broken), a dented, graffiti-laden slide, a metal jungle gym, and a dirt path that led to a pond. Unfortunately, the pond had largely dried up, and its banks and what was left of its water were heavily littered. It was by