it's a fruit based love
~tom rosenthal~

It was a fresh morning. The grass on every lawn was green after the downpour that happen last week. It was nine am on a summer morning, which meant no children would be at the park that early.

Not that much kids were going to the park these days anyway. All to attracted to the screen in their air conditioned house. Two perks Nat herself did have, just necessarily didn't prefer.

She messed up her short brown hair. It was a spiky pixie cut style. She usually put it up with hair gel, but the summer heat would melt it to soup, so she left it.

She walked up the basketball court at the far end of the playground, dribbling her ball. When she laid her eyes on the court she stopped in her tracks.

In the usually empty court was a girl with watermelon hair, and seed like freckles decorating her face, laying in the middle of the chalked concrete court.

She sighed and held the basketball at her hip.

"Excuse me, Ma'am, can you please leave?"

The girl looked at her with dark green eyes to match the bottom half of her silky red hair. Her freckled face shone in the morning sun. Nat did an intake of breath.

This girl was absolutely gorgeous.

"Oh," the girl tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and blushed. "Sorry, the sky was too pretty not to look at this morning."

She got up and dusted chalk from off her dark blue cotton dress. It went to her knees with sleeves leading up to her elbows. Nat was sure if she spun around she would look more like a princess then she does right now.

She also felt a tad underdressed, graphic tees and basketball shorts were literally half her wardrobe.

"Do you mind if I stay with you a while, I'm waiting for someone."

Nat shook her head. She walked up to the court that had now been decorated with various drawings of flowers and dancers in puffy dresses. The pretty girl scrambled to pick up her chalk, skipping and jumping all the while, making her dress puff up and fly around.

"Sorry about all the pictures." She motioned to the court. "I got a little carried away."

Nat shook her head. "No I like them, it adds character."

The girl laughed and stuck out her hand. "I'm Ramona."

"I'm Natalia, but please call me Nat."

She smiled sweetly. "Will do, Nat."

~*~

Her time at the park focused less on actually practicing her skills and more on talk to Ramona.

Also she was really nervous to even attempt to make a shot with her watching.

"So," Nat bounced the ball up and down nervously. "Who you waiting for?"

"My brother, he started working the night shift and should be back around ten."

"Cool, cool."

It was silent for a while, she thought it was extremely awkward, but Ramona didn't look like she had a care in the world.

Nat finally ignored the fact a pretty girl was watched by her. Since their talking subsided and she had nothing to distracted her she went down to the end of the court and took a shot.

It landed. Like she suspected it would. She was great at basketball, she's been playing it since she was a child. When her dad actually had time to spend with his daughter.

A few more shots later she was heaving. She went to her back pack, got out a gallon of water and started guzzling. She sighed, closing her eyes and she put the bottle back in the bag.

"Oh my goodness!"

She jumped up, her breath getting knocked out if her again. She looked over at the red head with wide eyes.

"You're so good!" Why aren't you on the basket ball team at school?"

Nat looked at her for a while. She's never seen her around before, she's pretty sure she'd remember a face like that.

"Oh," She messed with her hair nervously. "They made us line up at the beginning of try outs and decided which ones to keep, I guess I'm just to short."

Ramona frowned. "Well that sucks, you're really good at baseball though, the teams lucky to have you."

Nat smiled softly at her. "Thanks, I didn't know you went to the sake school as me, what grade are you going in this year."

"I'm a sophomore next year, the same for you I think," She blushed. "Not because I'm stalking you or anything, I just know you cause of baseball."

Nat nodded. She wasn't the most social person, most of her friends were the other girls in the baseball team and those boyfriends in cooking class. But since she played a sport most of the people in her grade knew her. The school wasn't big, only a thousand kids. She wondered why she hadn't noticed Ramona before.

Ramona turned to looked past her as a minivan pulled into a drive way of a small brick house across the street from the park. She smiled. She was beautiful when she smiled.

"That's my brother, gotta go greet him, talk to you tomorrow Nat!"

She the rushed to put her chalks back into a little plastic bag and skipped across the street.

She wasn't planning on coming here tomorrow, but she guessed she could make an exception.

Nat stared at the small brick house for the rest of her time at the park.