Reverie

Olivia crossed the block on a blustery summer afternoon as if she had been invited somewhere slightly above street level.

She had the pleased, private look of a woman walking inside her own weather. Her white dress, black polka dots, red strappy flats, matching shoulder purse, and the short denim jacket she had somehow produced from it all seemed to belong to the same bright idea. She was not hurrying to her car. She was drifting toward the set of keys in her hand and whatever ordinary destination waited beyond them, smiling up at the sky as though the day had said something only she understood.

Wind noticed.

At first, it came across her right side with the harmless bravado of a stranger trying to be interesting. It pushed at her skirt. It tugged at her jacket. It lifted the ends of her hair.

Olivia laughed out loud and kept walking.

Wind tried again. This time it wrapped itself around her calves, climbed the backs of her knees, and slipped beneath the hem of her dress with more intention than weather ought to have. Still, Olivia moved forward, amused and unbothered, as if Wind were only a rumor being spread behind her.

This offended Wind.

Wind is accustomed to a certain kind of power. It knows how women react when fabric betrays them in public. There is usually a sound first, a small shocked note, then a frantic clutch of hands, a purse slipping from one shoulder, a sudden sideways dance performed in the name of dignity. Wind has learned to enjoy this.

So it gathered itself. It circled low, found the bottom hem, and threw Olivia’s dress up with a flourish.

For one bright second, the whole summer afternoon knew more about Olivia than she had intended to share.

She stopped walking.

Wind waited for the squeak, the scramble, the public confession of embarrassment.

Instead, Olivia looked around.

Not down. Around.

She searched the sidewalk, the parked cars, the windows, the passing traffic. Her face held no panic, only curiosity, then disappointment. No one had gasped. No one had frozen with a paper cup halfway to their mouth. No one had witnessed the scandal Wind had worked so hard to produce.

Olivia lowered her dress with the plain efficiency of someone closing a cabinet. Then she lifted her chin, slowed her pace, and smiled.

This was not the reaction Wind had rehearsed.

For a few seconds, they moved together: Olivia on the sidewalk, Wind beside her, suspicious and sulking. She seemed almost to invite another attempt, as if embarrassment were a door she had learned not to open.

Wind gave one final restless tug at the hem, but the game had gone out of it.

Some people can be startled. Some can be exposed. Some can be made to participate in their own undoing.

Olivia, apparently, was not one of them.

Wind turned down the block to find someone more cooperative, leaving Olivia to continue toward her car, still smiling, still private, still entirely in possession of herself.