A Different Kind Of Girl

Walking drunkenly along 16^th and Mission an old Black woman who smelled of spirits and shit approached my father and I carrying a bucket of roses and thrust one at us.

“A rose for your girlfriend, one dollar,” she said.

Dad, wasted and laughing waved his hand at her.  

She then turned to me.

“Or for you. A rose for your boyfriend, your husband. For you, only 75 cents.”

I was glad, she was beautiful. Her hat was felted.

I was glad she tried to sell me a rose because it meant I had fooled her.

Walking with my father, she thought I was the kind of person who could spare money for a rose. Who could spare money for anything.

I got to spend a week in San Francisco as someone who doesn’t sometimes steal quarters off the kitchen bench to do their laundry. I got to be different. I got to be a different kind of girl.