“Miss us, fella?” Seth says, unmistakably relieved that the boat keeper didn’t abscond with Lucky.
We get out of the boat, saying our hellos to Lucky, who is happy to see us. “Look, his tail is wagging.”
“Do you think it means the same thing as a dog’s wagging tail?”
“Of course it does!”
“I don’t think so, Mira.”
Baaaa.
Seth picks him up. “Let’s go get him a snack. Thanks for—” He turns around, looking in all directions. “Where’d he go?” We turn too. The boat keeper is gone. Off the dock. Out of sight.
“When he closes up, he doesn’t waste time, does he?”
Apparently not. I scan the shore, the park, the shadows in the trees beyond. He is gone.
“He probably wanted to get lunch.”
“At three o’clock?”
“Sounds good to me.”
We indulge Aidan. Our first stop is our second lunch of the day. This time pizza by the slice. I get three. Pepperoni. Hawaiian. Veggie.
The money flows.
We have our picture taken at a novelty studio, Seth and Aidan as gunslingers and Mira and I as saloon girls.
We get henna tattoos; mine is a thorny vine that wraps around my upper arm like a piece of jewelry.
We shoot cardboard ducks at the arcade.
Minutes later, we are saving a mama duck and her brood of four ducklings who are crossing a busy road. Aidan notes the irony. Mira notes the fairness. Seth notes the timing. I try to note nothing at all.
The afternoon is giddy. Lightness. I only allow myself to think of what comes next. Not later. Minutes, seconds, in the moment, in the now. It’s like it is all happening in one long inhaled breath. Keep moving, don’t think. I am smiling. One time I laugh. A loud belly laugh. It draws looks from the others.
I don’t blame them. It sounds foreign to me too. Aidan even whispers under his breath to Mira, What’s with her?
A fair day. That’s what. For a couple of hours, I am outrunning chance. It is a day like no other. A once-in-a-lifetime day, and it makes me wonder: What kind of journey am I really on? One to lead me away from all that is unfair in my life, or a journey to lead me back to all that is right?
We pass an appliance store. A dozen televisions all on the same channel fill the front window—a travel channel showing the green hills of Austria. I am hoping Mira doesn’t break out in song. A salesman within walks to the door and opens it like he’s been expecting us. Suddenly the green hills disappear from the televisions and are replaced with a News Alert message. Seconds later, the president appears at a podium. Aidan is already walking through the open door of the store, and we are right behind him to hear what the news is about.
“He’s still wearing the same clothes from this morning! I saw that shirt. I almost touched that shirt!”
“Shhh!”
The voice of an unseen reporter tells us that the president is holding an impromptu press conference from his mountain weekend retreat. He called for the conference to announce something important. The president smiles and begins.
“Thank you all for coming on such short notice. I’ve been thinking about and discussing this for a long time with my advisers, but just this morning I spoke with a young man . . .”
The president goes on to describe a patriotic teen that he met in a small town not far from his retreat, a boy that any of us might know, he could be our brother, our son, our student, a bright young man with hopes and dreams for the future of our great county. I wanted to reach inside the television and shake the president and tell him to stop. Now Aidan would be insufferable for at least the next decade.
“But I can’t think of a more fitting place to make this announcement than here in the mountains among the pines and birches, where countless Americans have trekked to refresh their souls and minds. And so I am asking Congress to form a committee—”
Mira claps her hands. “You, Aidan! He was talking about you!”
“Shhh!”