I had a memory of being ten and living in Phoenix. I grew up on the lower side of the middle class. We lived in apartments for most of my childhood. In Phoenix, there was a very large apartment complex I lived in. Behind it across another major road was another large apartment complex. The challenge with living in the desert during the summer months, when your mom wanted you out to play, was that there was nowhere to go that was not sweltering.
I would walk to the 7-Eleven and get a Slurpee if ever I had money. I would sometimes go to the apartment playground, which wasn’t great and the pool was off-limits without my brother who did not at all want to hang out with me. I ventured outside my circle to meander around the other apartments. They were newer and thus had a better playground. The playgrounds as a ten year old were hit or miss. You often would come across young kids and you would not want to be caught playing with people below your age.
One time at the nicer playground, I came across Gretchen. She was about my height (I am tall) and she was roughly the same age. As a ten year old boy, I was not looking to evaluate Gretchen as a suitable life partner or mate, but she was kind and we would hang out and talk. This carried an air of something special as I had never seen her before and one did not just talk to girls at that age. It was my new go-to as a place to hang out that summer. I would catch her there, but often not. There were no schedules or phones to text each other. It was all left to chance. When summer was over, she never did show up at school, so I always wondered what happened to her.