Midnight Picnic at the St. John's Oval
Mez brought down her 150 thread count sheet and laid it on the crunchy lawn (grass here is not soft and forgiving like home). The four us each took a corner of the maroon sheet and sat facing each other. We'd already eaten the homemade cookies that Shavon had pilfered from a hallmate, but there was still a third of a bottle of Smirnoff and liter of Coke cuddling together in the middle of the sheet. When the girls chose the music, the laptop played Tiny Dancer. When I selected, I chose David Bowie covers of Lou Reed. We listened to a lot of Tiny Dancer. Shavon lied down along the edge of the sheet to look up at the night sky. She pointed just above the horizon and said, "the southern cross- you can't see that where you're from." Shavon didn't notice that her shirt lifted up and I could see her tanline. She must've got some sun over the weekend, because her skin was still a little pink. In the distance, two naked guys lesiurely strolled in our direction from across the oval. When the three girls spotted these two nude men, they immediately leapt frin the maroon sheet and chased them. The frightened men bolted back to the main road. The girls came back to me, laughing and obviously quite proud of themselves. "Nothing about tonight, I could see where I'm from," I tell them. It was supposed to snow in Portland that day. At that point, I headed off to bed; after all, I had class the next morning.