Liberating, I wrote down. Reggie said, “You know, this explains a lot.”
No kidding, I thought.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harriet asked.
“Nothing,” he told her. “So what makes you give up the silent treatment? When do you decide to talk again?”
Harriet considered this as she took a sip of coffee. “Huh,” she said. “I guess when someone else does something worse. Then you need people on your side, so you make up with one person, just as you’re getting pissed off at another.”
“So it’s an endless cycle,” I said.
“I guess.” She took another sip. “Coming together, falling apart. Isn’t that what families are all about?”
“No,” Reggie says. “Only yours.”
They both burst out laughing, as if this was the funniest thing ever. I looked down at my notebook, where all I had written was not speaking, comfort, wellspring, and liberating. This project was going to take a while.
“Incoming,” Harriet said suddenly, nodding toward a guy and girl my age who were approaching, deep in conversation.
“. . . wrong with a Persian cat sweatshirt?” said the guy, who was sort of chubby, with what looked like a home-done haircut.
“Nothing, if she’s eighty-seven and her name is Nana,” the girl replied. She had long curly hair, held back at the nape of her neck, and was wearing cowboy boots, a bright red dress, and a cropped puffy parka with mittens hanging from the cuffs. “I mean, think about it. What kind of message are you trying to send here?”
“I don’t know,” the guy said as they got closer. “I mean, I like her, so . . .”
“Then you don’t buy her a sweatshirt,” the girl said flatly. “You buy her jewelry. Come on.”
I put down the feather duster I was holding, standing up straighter as they came up to the cart, the girl already eyeing the rows of thin silver hoops on display. “Hi,” I said to the guy, who, up close, looked even younger and dorkier. His T-shirt—which said ARMAGEDDON EXPO ’06: ARE YOU READY FOR THE END?—didn’t help matters. “Can I help you? ”
“We need something that screams romance,” the girl said, plucking a ring out and quickly examining it before putting it back. As she leaned into the row of lights overhead, I noticed that her face was dotted with faint scars. “A ring is too serious, I think. But earrings don’t say enough.”
“Earrings don’t say anything,” the guy mumbled, sniffing the incense. He sneezed, then added, “They’re inanimate objects.”
“And you are hopeless,” she told him, moving down to the necklaces. “What about yours?”
Startled, I glanced back at the girl, who was looking right at me. “What?”
She nodded at my neck. “Your necklace. Do you sell those here?”
“Um,” I said, my hand reaching up to it, “not really. But we do have some similar chains, and charms that you can—”
“I like the idea of the key, though,” the girl said, coming around the cart. “It’s different. And you can read it so many ways.”
“You want me to give her a key?” the guy asked.
“I want you to give her a possibility,” she told him, looking at my necklace again. “And that’s what a key represents. An open door, a chance. You know?”
I’d never really thought about my key this way. But in the interest of a sale, I said, “Well, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, you could buy a chain here, then get a key to put on it.”
“Exactly!” the girl said, pointing a finger at the nearby KEY-OSK, which sold keys and key accessories of all kinds. “It’s perfect.”
“You’ll want a somewhat thick one,” I told her. “But not too thick. You need it to be strong and delicate at the same time.”
The girl nodded. “That’s it,” she said. “Just what I had in mind.”
Ten minutes and fifteen dollars later, I watched them as they walked away, bag in hand, over to the KEY-OSK cart, where the girl explained what she wanted. I watched the saleswoman as she pulled out a small collection of keys, sliding them across for them to examine.
“Nice job,” Harriet said, coming up beside me. “You salvaged the sale, even if we didn’t have exactly what she was looking for.”
“It was her idea,” I said. “I just went with it.”
“Still. It worked, right?”
I glanced over again at KEY-OSK, where the girl in the parka was picking up a small key as her friend and the saleswoman looked on. People were passing between us, hustling and bustling, but still I craned my neck, watching with Harriet as she slid it over the clasp, carefully, then down onto our chain. It dangled there for a second, spinning slightly, before she closed her hand around it, making it disappear.
I’d just stepped off the greenway, later that afternoon, when I saw the bird.
At first, it was just a shadow, passing overhead, temporarily blotting out the light. Only when it cleared the trees and reached the open sky did I see it in full. It was huge, long and gray, with an immense wingspan, so big it seemed impossible for it to be airborne.
For a moment, I just stood there, watching its shadow move down the street. It was only when I started walking again that it hit me.
It’s herons and waterbirds you really need to worry about, Heather had said. One swoop, and they can do some serious damage.