I am sitting on the edge of my chair, waiting for you. You said you'd be here years ago. I have decided to make cookies while I wait for you. I check them and the heat from the oven wrinkles the air and blows the sticky hair against my face. They are still white. I shut the oven and sit down. My legs bounce up and down. The oven door rattles. The heat seeps out of the oven. I can't think about meeting you so I check the cookies. There, in the center of the burning heat, they sit, still as cool as before, while my face becomes red and shiny in the same heat. I close the oven once again. I don't sit down. I stand at the counter and drum my fingers on it. I listen for your voice outside. All I hear is the cricket's endless screaming about the temperature. You'll be here by the time the cookies are done. As I open the oven door the heat fills the room and surrounds me and my thin clothes become my skin as I stare at the unchanged cookies, looking as if they were anywhere except in the oven. I close the door. I look out the window. The trees have no cool shadows. Their leaves wave and their trunks dance in the heat. The cool breeze tries to get in, but the heat won't let it. I sit down. I think of you and smile. I jump up to check the cookies. My glazed eyes try to peer through the thick hot air and I see your face smiling back at me, and I gasp and fill my lungs with the waving air and I see the same cookies in the oven. A cool breeze carries out their heat and I leave the oven door open since the cookies are already cool, and I plop back in my chair, comfortable in the cool breeze, deciding that you'll never come.n