Tuesdays

Tuesdays

  By

  Eliza S. Morgan

  Tuesdays

  Eliza S. Morgan

  Copyright 2016 Eliza S. Morgan

  It was mid-July and exceptionally pleasant for that time of year. I’d just finished work – I had gotten a job at the library to keep me busy over the summer while I wasn’t in school – and decided to take a walk through the park before heading home.

  I had already been there for about ten minutes when I saw her walking toward me. Or running, rather. She was chasing a small dog, her arm stretched out in front of her, desperately grasping a light blue leash and fighting as it threatened to slip away. I figured she was meant to be walking the dog, but it sure seemed like the dog was walking her.

  She had gorgeous hair. That was one of the first things I noticed about her. It was dark brown and curly. Very curly. It came just past her shoulders. And her eyes. Oh man, her eyes. Even from afar I could see them sparkle. Whether they were blue or green, I couldn’t tell. And I didn’t want to stare.

  But I sure did pick the wrong time to divert my eyes.

  As soon as I looked away I felt something hit my legs, coming at me from the left. It caught me completely off guard and, honestly, I’ve never been the best with balance. I fell over, landing in the grass to the right of the path.

  It was the dog that hit me. Jumping on top of me, it furiously licked my face until the girl was able to catch up to it and pull it off me. Apologizing profusely, she helped me back to my feet. She explained that she was dog-sitting for her aunt who was on vacation in Rhode Island for the week. The dog was stronger than she’d expected considering how small it was, and she hadn’t been informed that it would take off like a rocket as soon as it saw people and definitely shouldn’t be taken on walks in a crowded park.

  Brushing the grass and dirt off my pants, I smiled at her, telling her it was not big deal. She thanked me for not being mad and continued on her walk with the small dog anxiously leading the way. I watched her for a few seconds as she was pulled towards a group of people having a picnic under a large tree. I continued on my way in the opposite direction, not wanting to stick around long enough to witness the disaster that was sure to unfold when the dog finally made contact with the food.

  ***

  The next time I went to that park was Tuesday of the next week. I’d gotten off work a little early and the weather was nice again. I was sitting on a bench sketching the scene before me in my notebook when I heard a voice ask if the other end of the bench was taken. I shook my head and gestured for the person to sit without looking up from my drawing.

  We sat in silence for a few moments before I heard the voice again. “Do I know you? It’s just that you look really familiar and I can’t figure out why.”

  I looked up, finally, and saw her sitting there. The girl from before. I drew in a sharp breath, stunned once again by her beauty. Before I could even begin to speak, a look of realization spread across her face like a wave washing over a sandy beach. “Oh my gosh! You’re the girl Bailey tackled the other day.”

  I nodded, assuming Bailey was the dog. “Yeah, that was me.”

  She blushed, looking embarrassed. “I’m so sorry about that. I had no idea taking him for a walk would be such a bad idea.”

  I smiled. “Seriously, it’s fine. I just hope you two got home okay.” I paused before adding, “And that that family didn’t mind you crashing their picnic.”

  She laughed. It was a cute laugh. It made her skin glow and her eyes light up. They were green, by the way. A beautiful, brilliant green. Like a forest the day after a rain shower, when everything was full of life and basking in the glory of newfound sunlight. “That was a mess.” Her posture relaxed. I hadn’t even realized how tense she had looked. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t realized how tense I was. I tried to relax, allowing my shoulders to fall and my back to lean against the wooden back of the bench.

  “I’m Loren, by the way,” she said as she stuck her hand out for me to shake. I took it and the feeling of her hand in mine, her palm pressed against my palm, sent shivers down my spine.

  “I’m Maria,” I said.

  She’d just come from school. She was talking a couple summer courses at the community college. She was a photography student.

  I told her I was also in college and she asked if I was an art student, gesturing towards the open notebook sitting in my lap.

  “Biology, actually,” I corrected her. Art was just a hobby of mine. It helped me process my feelings and kept me calm when I was stressed. I wasn’t all that good, but I loved.

  She told me how cool it was that I was into biology. She was never that great at science herself.

  We talked for a while. Probably about an hour. Maybe a little longer. Nothing all that special, really. We talked about some pretty basic things, to be honest. It’s hard, though, to talk to someone you don’t know. That’s something I’d never really been good at. I’d always found it hard to keep a conversation going.

  But with her it was somehow easier. Not easy, per se. But easier.

  She told me about her family. I’d already heard about her aunt and Bailey the dog, but I learned that she lived with her mom and stepdad. Her mom was a dentist and her stepdad worked in construction. They were great parents, she told me. She couldn’t have asked for anyone better. Her biological dad was an accountant. She didn’t get to see him very often because he lived five hours away. He’d left town after her parents got divorced when she was eight. She was fine with that – it was probably for the best – but she missed him. She had two siblings. A brother and a sister. Both older. The three of them were really close when they were younger. Then her sister went away to college and her brother followed two years later, leaving her alone at home. They still loved each other, of course – they were still siblings after all – but things weren’t the same.

  We talked about our favorite colors. Mine was yellow, hers was maroon.

  And our favorite kind of music. I liked pop and she liked rock.

  Her favorite milkshake flavor was strawberry, but it had to be from the tiny ice cream stand just down the street from the house she grew up in. Otherwise, she’d probably go with vanilla.

  She’d taken guitar lessons for years when she was younger and always dreamed of being in a band, but it never happened. “Not yet, at least,” she added with a smirk on her face.

  She loved cats more than almost everything else in the world. Her family couldn’t have any because her stepdad was allergic, but once she moved out, they’d have to practically lock her up to keep her from adopting all the kittens within a ten mile radius, just you wait.

  I could have listened to her talk forever. There was something about her presence that was so intensely calming that it hurt in the best way possible. But eventually we had to go our separate ways. I had to get home to help my mom with dinner and she had an assignment that she definitely needed to get started on as soon as possible. She was a master procrastinator and had effectively wasted the two weeks that had passed since it was assigned, leaving herself with just two days to complete the whole thing.

  So we said goodbye to each other and told each other how nice it had been to talk to each other and we walked away from the bench we had shared, me in one direction and her in another.

  I didn’t know it at the time, but that was the first of many, many, Tuesdays.