o you like my hat, I ask. It is a simple straw hat, a white scarf tied loosely around its crown. It sits quietly on my lap as I finger the tails of its bow, wispy like gauze.

He is talking about basketball jerseys, of blue or gold, but not of both because they're much too expensive. The jerseys are for the church youth group, awkward adolescent boys with acne and bulges. All that testosterone, you know.

I listen and smile and nod, I don't know what else to say. I want to tell him that it's great what he's doing, working with these kids, the future of our country. I want to say that I admire his work, his heart for God, his vision of instilling these pre-pubescent boys with the hope of Christ.

The sun is much too bright, glinting off the street and the sidewalk until everything is whitewashed like bleach. I put the hat on my head and tuck my hair underneath the brim. I spent fifty-six dollars on this hat.

The jerseys would cost forty dollars each, he says. Forty dollars! He sniffs and sips from his can of Coke, his little finger curled out, beckoning.

I wish I could tell him that I'm sorry, that we're really not all that different, that if we worked at this, if we cared enough, if we loved enough . . . as Christ loves us, as he loves those basketball boys, sweating in a hot city gym, where he sits on the sidelines and watches them, and I wonder if he thinks about me, in our ninety-degree apartment with the fan on, me in my blue silk slip with the spaghetti straps, slipping off my smooth shoulders, a musky daub of perfume behind my ears and knees.

Do you like my hat? I ask, adjusting its brim to shade my eyes.

He shrugs and says, I'm not much into hats, he says.

So I smile, and nod, and look away.