The Little Girl on the Bus

Just a short thing that happened while taking public transit.

                The little girl with the curly hair looks like a young Jasika Nicole, with a smile just as bright. With her is a woman with hair and features of iron, who stands and sits and never looks up. The girl talks and smiles and smiles and she shows some other girls the dolls she brought with her. “Watch this,” she says, popping a doll’s arm off. The other girls laugh, but then they leave, and she waves them goodbye out the bus’s window.  She presses her face against it, watching every bush and tree and stoplight with equal wonder. I grin and wave and smile with her, and when she drops her warm hat, I point it out.

                The bus stops, and the iron-faced woman stands. She tells the girl with the curly hair it’s their stop, they have to get off. She doesn’t look up. The girl peels her face from the window. She stands, turns to the woman. Doesn’t move. She turns to me, then skips over and wraps her arms around me, tight and unhesitating.

                “Thank you,” says the girl with the curly hair.

                “Yeah, uh. She’s like that sometimes,” the iron-faced woman scowls. She doesn’t look up.

                A moment passes, and I return the hug. “It was good to meet you,” I say.

                “You too,” she says, squeezing a bit tighter before she’s gone.