Something Like

It wasn’t even her reunion but it was damn close.  The years had stored up, had built up into an enormous pile of something that needed sifting to find any sense in it and she’d never been one to slow down long enough to sift.  This time might be different, would be, something. 

This is how, because it happened. The three of them were sitting on a bench on Long Point’s eastern side, overlooking the fog-bound milky-blue lake. They hadn’t seen each other in a long time. The hushed tones of their talk were practically drowned out by the slurred whistles of the Baltimore orioles that were high above them in the deciduous canopies just filling out with green. Both sexes sing, she remembered, unusual, at this time of year, spring, the courtship phase. She could also hear similarly deafening warbling vireos, or was it just her?  

It was reunion. And they were back in Aurora again. A place that is never as easy to get to as you think it should be. The roads are direct, traffic usually scant. It flies under the radar and they loved it for that. But it can be a challenge to find your way there. And harder still sometimes to find your way back.

They walked to their rental car, climbed in, two in front and one in back, and drove down Lake Road in the direction of the college. Along the way they passed a small cottage with a shed roof on the lake side that none of them had noticed before. It had a simple sign in a window, for rent, and phone number.  Morgan, in the back seat, called out “Stop!  This is something.” As they turned down Annie Lennox singing “No More ‘I Love You’s,” she said, “We have to take a look.” They didn’t mind stopping though they seemed to not understand her interest. After all, they had an open invitation to stay with friends who had a large ranch-style house in the center of town, why stay way over here? But it was right on the water.  It had a wraparound deck.  Walking around it though it seemed too big for just her and whatever writing she had in mind to do there. It had a loft bedroom but she couldn’t see it well enough to know if it would work. It had a large kitchen.  She could have a party.  Something.  Nobody had a pen to write down the phone number so she took a few photographs of the house. They turned onto the highway and then onto Cherry Ave and started thinking about making dinner.  She kept looking at the pictures she’d taken that day, so overcast.   There was something.  Some thing.  The phone number showed up clearly in the pictures. That was good. It was a start.