The girl on the bike in front of me keeps showing me her panties. Well, only the band of them as she’s hunched over pedaling. But I can see their outline good enough through her shorts. “Sugoi,” it says across the band — I bet it means something in another language. We’ve been leap frogging each other since Fulton and Divisadero, even though I’ve been more than willing to lag behind and watch her calves flex under her olive skin.
I study everything about her as we glide along down the hill past Alamo Square. Her handle bars are wrapped in pink tape. Her helmet is pink. Her seat is pink. I bet her Painted Lady is…
But at Fifth and Market another girl on the bike to my right is showing me that she has no panties on at all. Just riding spandex. She’s straddling the center tube stretching out her ankles and then the light turns. She’s a strong rider; I can’t keep up.
On Sansome a girl is walking down the sidewalk in cowboy boots and what looks like an extra large t-shirt and nothing else. I break my neck to keep looking. She yawns.
A girl with a yoga mat and her hair knotted up with chopsticks. A girl in pointy heels. A girl with flip-flops and Juicy Couture. What are they trying to tell me?
Sometimes it seems like girls are falling out of the sky. They’re everywhere and all of them are giving off hints. Clues. Suggestions. I want to ride around all day following them. I could take each one and piece together the message. It would say: We’re not teasing, we’re for real, but far, far out of your reach.
But not you. You’re there when I finally get to work. In the elevator, hair still wet from the shower, wrestling with the straps of your bags, slapping at the button to close the door. There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. But when our eyes meet, we both look away. The door reaches out to take in its other half and I see only myself as a mottled reflection in the metal. What was it again, I think as I climb the stairs.
