The two met one winter evening in Cincinnati. The homeless shelter where the girl worked was hosting an art exhibit. The pieces showcased were works of some of the shelter’s residents.
It was a day the girl had been looking forward to for a long time. She was herself an artist, or at least aspiring to be. More importantly she was the one responsible for putting the event together in the first place.
“You’re crazy,” her supervisor told her. “People will never come.”
The line out the door that brisk night proved otherwise. The girl bared a smile, her first in a while, as she peered out the smudged window. Only she wasn’t gloating. It wasn’t her nature.
Instead, she was celebrating how the women she’d spent the past 5 years setting up beds for and serving watery soup had never seemed so happy. She watched from a table strewn with name tags as women the world had beaten down beamed as they shared their paintings.
They’ll always have tonight, she thought.
Across the room a boy she’d never seen before stood behind a rickety table serving refreshments. He had a wiry frame that was obvious even beneath the several layers he insisted on keeping on. He poured punch and handed out little pieces of biscotti wondering briefly why there wasn’t something warm to serve.
She’s on the Ball by Ray Charles played faintly in the background as the boy mouthed the words between “You’re welcomes,” and “Thank you for comings.” This caught the girl’s attention because she too knew the words.
As the evening wound down and the last stragglers made their way into the cold night, the boy finally mustered up the courage to walk towards the girl. He asked if she needed help stacking chairs or folding the bulky metal tables.
“Thank you,” she said.
The two slowly transformed the makeshift gallery back into a nondescript room where people came for a respite, however briefly, from hard living. The thought saddened the girl who hoped the women would cling fiercely to the memory, especially when the world felt a little too much to bear.
The boy and girl made their way outside. It turned out they were both catching buses, but different ones en route to different places.
They spoke easily for several minutes under a bus stop canopy as a light snow began to fall. They got on so well they nearly forgot how cold it was.
It would be the boy’s bus that arrived first. As it pulled up each felt a sense of dread; the night and the boy would be whisked away.
“I’ll just get the next one,” the boy said, as the bus driver snapped the doors shut.
“There won’t be another for at least 30 minutes,” she told him.
The boy just shrugged.
He listened as the girl told him about her inspiration for the exhibit; how art and helping others had helped her find her footing in the world. She told him how lending a hand to those in need, like creative expression, was the greatest contribution one could make in the world.
Moments later another bus appeared. It had more people than the one before. Now it was time for the girl to go.
The doors of the giant caravan swung open. The girl stepped aboard before either had learned the other’s name.
The bus rolled away as the boy watched the girl make her way to the back. Off in the distance he saw the bus round a corner and disappear.
He stood alone waiting for his bus.
Suddenly, it was cold again.
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