scholarship

"You can't see me," I am occasionally tempted to remind, "but I can hear you."  The seat backs are tall and the rows aren't crowded and we're all Americans practiced in the art of creating space where there's not much: don't see me and I won't see you, we generally pretend. 

But I'm nosy, frankly, and with five hours to kill, if your conversation bleeds through the gaps between my seat and the one I've cluttered with jacket and Newsweek and the hope that no one claims it, I'm going to listen. I just am. Often the eavesdropping price is paid with I- can't-believe-you-said-that or silent entreaties to shut up; more often the snatches are puzzle pieces fit together as I switch between shuffle and podcast. So this time, when the train pulls up to the station and I see my rear neighbors for the first time, I nod at the letter jackets and corresponding purple sweats: that fits. I know the family is up in anticipation of a Tuesday meeting with a coach at Robert Morris. A teenage girl stands from behind and confirms that the voice talking to his parent was the brother, not the athlete, but I cannot place her sport until the mother unwittingly offers their imaginary narrator a better conclusion than expected: 

"Get your balls," she says, "go ahead." And the girl walks by my slowly dawning smile with an air of  here-goes-nothing as she coordinates her equipment: three bowling balls, at least.