some third person on my lunch hour in washington square park

There are little girls, behind the boy. the girls are maybe nine or ten years old. They’re wearing one piece bathing suits and scooting around the fountain on those skinny scooters that are so small that you can fold them up and take them in your backpack on the ferry to fire island… all the other bicycles have to go on a separate boat- the freight boat, which goes back and forth only once a week, inconvenient for the cyclist who is only on the island for the weekend.
The boy is sitting straight backed to avoid leaning against the uncomfortable backrest of the green bench, his hands are resting over the academic looking, but possibly poetic marble notebook in his lap.
She sits down across the path from him, takes a novel from her bag and watches him over the top of it.
The man in the round glasses and the tucked in white t-shirt, sitting to the left of the boy, on the next bench, is watching the girl.
The girl is uncomfortable and tries to lean in a way that doesn’t dig the clasp of her bra into her spine. she is waiting for the boy to open his notebook and write something down. She wants to imagine that he is writing about her.
The man in the round glasses and the tucked in white t-shirt is watching the girl.
The boy stands, puts his unopened notebook under his arm. He wanders over to a stone bench near the fountain where he lies on his back placing the notebook on his chest, under his crossed arms like a teddy bear or, she thinks, like a very small light lover.
The sun has shifted slightly over head but she hasn’t noticed. She looks away from the boy and sees the man in the white t-shirt, his face is turned in her direction. The lenses of his glasses, opaque in the glare a moment before have turned clear and now she can see his eyes and sees that they are closed.