She Wore Pajamas to the Airport

She smiled. It’d be going a bit far to claim she smiled at me, but it’s a nice thought. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts. It’s always worth a shot. I looked back to my shoes and then up again, trying to pretend I was watching the TV behind her. She doesn’t need to be smiling out of pity, some screw ball kid who wants to lay eyes and you don’t want to know what else on her.

But who am I kidding anyway? You don’t just go up to random people in the airport and say hello. So I just sit here by myself, reading a magazine, waiting for my flight to leave. My flight, that just might happen to be her flight. Who knows, we might even sit next to each other. Here we go again, happy thoughts, happy thoughts.

She’s just sitting there, trying not to be bored. But she is. She gave up on her book a while ago. Now she’s people watching. I’d like to think I’m one of those people, but that’s too happy of a thought. Now I’m people watching as well. More like person watching.

She smiled again. This time I know what it’s from. Everyone’s smiling at her. What do you expect when you’re wearing pajamas? Did I mention that? She’s wearing pajamas in the airport. And it’s the middle of the afternoon. So she’s a little weird, I had other things on my mind. She’s just sitting there watching the people go by, watching the people watching her. Them smiling at her and her smiling back at them like she knows she’s just the cutest.

Sometimes I wonder what it’d be like if I went up and introduced myself. Hi. My name’s Jones. I couldn’t help but notice those fuzzy bunny slippers. Nice. She’d smile, and that’s about as far as I can imagine. I hate to think what she’d say. If I let my imagination go that far it just might get loose and let out a bunch of not-so-happy thoughts, a.k.a. the realistic ones. That’s not cool. So it ends there. A thousand different introductions, and a thousand different smiles. If only life were that non-committal.

She’s probably in college. I’m usually horrible at guessing ages, but she doesn’t look like the girls in class at school. None of them would manage to wear pajamas unless every one of their follow-the-pack friends did as well. They’re always willing to live on the edge, as long as everyone else does too. But this girl’s all alone in the airport, on the edge by herself. I’m guessing college.

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