Her name was Summer. I remember this distinctly, because when she said it, I was struck by what a wonderfully sexy name that was. By this, I don't mean that I found her sexy. She was pretty, but not in a head-turning sort of way. She had a normal, realistic body, which indicated that she ate, kept her food down, and was reasonably active. When I say that I was struck by the sexiness of her name, I simply mean that if I had the name "Summer," I would just have to feel attractive and special all the time. It's just that kind of name. It also happened to be a beautiful day in June; the perfect sort of day for being a person named Summer.

I, with my relatively un-sexy name, was sitting in a waiting room at a doctor's office. They were running behind schedule, and I should have been in to see the doctor about eight minutes before Summer even walked through the door. But the world doesn't run on a schedule, and I had the newspaper with me to read while I waited. Besides, if they had been on schedule I never would have even seen Summer.

I never really took a good look at her. I wanted to, because she intrigued me, but I think it's kind of rude to stare in public places, so I kept my eyes on my newspaper, just looking at her peripherally. Her hair was a nondescript compromise between brown and blonde, and her skin was relatively tan. She was wearing orange sneakers, jeans, and an orange tank top. A tattoo was peeking out of her shirt on her shoulder blade, and from what I could see it looked like a rose. That seemed fitting of a person named Summer.

Feeling self-conscious for peering at this other teenaged girl, I returned my attention to my newspaper. Apparently a hawk in California dropped a snake on a power line. It started a small brush fire, and the snake was found headless, coiled around the pole supporting the power lines. I contemplated that for a moment, trying to decide if it was morbid or funny.

Summer sat down next to me. I moved my water bottle off of the armrest so that it wouldn't crowd her. I shot a look in her direction, but she didn't seem to notice, so we never made eye contact. I never found out the color of her eyes. Now that she was sitting next to me, it seemed even weirder to look over at her. Besides, she was engaged in a conversation with a man beside her, who I presumed was her father.

Back to the paper. Now all that I could see with my peripheral vision was one of her orange sneakers. She had crossed her legs and I could just see her toe. She seemed to have average sized feet. Having ascertained all I could about her feet, I tried to read the paper in earnest. Apparently some rapist had escaped from prison, but no one was worried about him raping anyone else, since he had been castrated before his release. That was reassuring. I found myself wondering if it was a routine procedure to castrate rapists just in case they escape.

The waiting room was uncomfortably quiet. Waiting rooms usually are. Her father seemed to want to talk to her, but he was whispering. This was silly, of course. When you whisper in a perfectly silent room, everyone can hear you just as well as they could if you were yelling, so it's a lost cause. He was making inquiries about people I didn't know, and I only half-listened. When Summer answered him, she talked in a normal voice. Unlike her father, she seemed to grasp that people could hear them, regardless of their volume.

From their conversation, I came to the conclusion that her parents were divorced, and she seemed to be telling her father about life at her mom's house. Apparently Summer's mom unfairly allows her little brother free reign over the television set, and all she ever gets to watch is Nickelodeon. This seemed a little bit mundane, so I returned to the paper. Some politicians want to drill for oil under the Great Lakes. No big deal. They're only one-fifth of the planet's fresh water anyway.

Summer moved beside me, and I realized that she had pulled up the front of her tank top just enough to reveal her belly button. It was pierced. "Wow, that's really grossly infected," she said nonchalantly. My disgusting curiosity as a human being made me very much inclined to look, but I didn't. I'm assuming that her infected naval was her reason for going to the doctor, but I'll never really know.

Summer's conversation with her father continued. They talked more about people I didn't know, but it was increasingly interesting. "She's really mad at him because he's telling people they slept together," Summer unabashedly announced to everyone in the waiting room. Later in the conversation she went on to say that she had grounded her little brother from the privilege of playing with her dog, because he had thrown his cup at her.

Eavesdropping with half my consciousness, I tried to read more of the newspaper. It was the birthday of a friend of mine, so I decided to see what the horoscope writer had to say about him. It declared that anyone whose birthday was June 28th was an undeniably hard worker, and often too hard on themself. My friend is a slacker with an ego the size of a Buick. Oh well.

My mind was pulled from the fascinating clutches of the horoscope page when I heard Summer exclaim loudly, "My shoes match my shirt." Well, no kidding. They're both orange. It's hard to miss. I contemplated the idea of pointing out that my shirt and my socks and my earrings and my necklace were all purple, but thought better of it. Smart-assed comments have no business being voiced in a waiting room. Only thought.

A lady walked into the waiting room, and called out my relatively unsexy name. Putting down the paper, I stood up and walked out the waiting room, taking a final glance at the girl named Summer. When I came out of my appointment she was gone.