Twenty Minutes on Bench Six

There are eleven benches on the north side of Washington Square Park, and Dara can see all of them from her folding chair. She's drawing the man on bench six.

He isn't paying her, and he doesn't know she's there. Those are the drawings Dara learns from.

The problem is that his face won't stay still.

At ten past four he's worried. He's watching the gate on the east side, and there's a line between his eyebrows. At twelve past four he's calm; he's reading something on his phone. At quarter past he's almost smiling, because a small brown dog is sitting on his shoe.

So which one is the man? Dara can't identify it. Every human face has the same features — two eyes, a nose, a mouth — and they tell you almost nothing. The eyebrows tell you, and his won't stop moving.

Her teacher used to talk about the ideal second, the one second when a face is really itself. Dara has never found it. She draws the worried face, because he's had that expression for most of the twenty minutes.

At twenty-five past four, a woman comes through the gate. The man stands up fast. He's smiling now, and this time the smile stays.

They walk past Dara's chair together. The man looks down at the paper and stops.

“Is that me?” he says. “I don't look like that.”

“You did,” Dara says. “For twenty minutes.”