Getting To Use That High School French

A New York City summer reeks with heat, and the wet air lays across Brooklyn like a stranger rubbing up against you on the subway.

A middle-aged black woman sits on some flattened boxes under a tree, her legs splayed out in front of her like a child’s, and she is waving to a little girl who watches her in confusion before running to catch up with her mother as she crosses the street.

I walk up to the woman, who is still waving to the air where the child had been, and ask, “Are you thirsty?”

The woman responds in a language I don’t immediately recognize, but eventually I figure it out, and when it seems like she’s done, I try again, asking, “Ummm, l’eau?”