KEPT IT HID.

Yehudit sat with her chin on her knees and her hands wrapped about her bare legs, staring at the water of the pond. Flies hovered over the water's skin, ducks swam, birds flew or sang. Baruch sat beside her, hands on the grass either side of him, watching the scene, smelling her scent, liberated (Yehudit claimed from her mother's room), dabbed on liberally. Marilyn Monroe's dead, he said. Suicide I heard, she replied. Or other, he said, someone wanted her dead. Papers say suicide, she said, least ways she out of it. I liked her, he said, many a guy dreams of her I suppose. Are you one of those? she asked. Is a guy responsible for his dreams? he said, turning his head, taking in her profile, goddess like, he thought, nose, chin, lips and all. Who would you like to wake up to me or Monroe? she asked, giving him the steady stare. You now, of course, he replied, now she's died. Yehudit slapped his arm, seriously even if she hadn't popped her clogs? He saw a rook fly across the pond, noise attending, flap of wings. You of course, he said, even if she lived; you'd be my first choice, he added in whispered voice. She closed her, leaned her damp

forehead on her knees, hands holding her legs tight. There was no wind, just afternoon warm sunlight. I dream of you often, she said, here by the pond, in the classroom, in my single bed. He smiled at this, wanting to give her lips a kiss. He viewed her thigh out of the corner of his eye. Her green skirt had lowered down, thus revealing such. He loved the way she was: her hair, her eyes open or closed, her lips in motion or still, her hands at rest or play. They'd not made it to her bedroom, her mother was always around, upstairs or down; they'd not made his bedroom either (he shared with his brother) and of course, he didn't want to shock his mother. In dear Yehudit's dreams of him they'd made it it seemed, although he didn't share because he wasn't there, which he thought unfair. On the sports field at school, I heard, you see another, she said, her voice hesitant, her words hanging in the air. Oh that's nothing, he said, just a girl with a crush, no big deal. So Yehudit looked away. Sunlight danced on the water's skin, warming flies and ducks and fish beneath within. He wondered how he lied. Words came out of their own accord. That other on the sports field, who'd wormed into his mind and heart, filled his night and dreams (more than Monroe had or did), but because he didn't want to injure dear Yehudit's mind or heart, he kept it hid.