Olivia woke to a brisk day. She had time to linger. What mattered was getting to the forest for the bird count. That was at noon. At last year’s count, animal paths led her through underbrush and thickets. She plowed through. Her noisy presence flushed out feathered quarry. That world noticed her. She savored the encounter. Olivia tallied doves, crows, cardinals and starlings. She rewarded them by not charting less common Indiana birds.
Enthused, Olivia met her morning with a liturgy of tasks. She tended to her plants, rooting out a few browned leaves here and there. She decanted water into her kettle and turned on the burner. She ground the coffee beans as the water neared its boil. She counted spoons into the press. She stirred in the water, attached the top and steeped the coffee. After a while she slowly and gently pressed the plunger. She filled a porcelain cup and poured the remaining coffee into a thermos. After a few sips, she reached for her flavor wheel for an apt word of the taste and aroma of the brew which she noted in her journal. She edged over to the computer and gazed on updates and images. She felt connected.
Toward noon, she wandered toward the detached garage behind her shotgun cottage. Olivia fumbled for her keys. She was distracted by a slate grey streak high up over the roof of the garage. She realized it was a falcon momentarily upside down at the top of his arc. A distant memory descended upon her. She grimaced. She realized she would see Brandi tonight. As she drove to the forest, she put herself in Brandi’s place. She saw the route Brandi took.
She had no joy for the count when she arrived at the snowy forest. She slipped away from the group and headed into the forest alone. She moved as quietly as possible. She avoided stepping on icy twigs and moved silently through white mounds covering tall grasses. After a while she doubled back and circled downwind before sitting down to rest. For a quarter hour she leaned her head into her lap, her hands cupping the back of her neck. She went back to the parking lot, backed her car around and returned home.
The Infiniti tunneled past curved mounds of snow as it neared the store. Inside, Erica nestled like a spoon against its heated seat. Off to the side, she saw an array of plows harvesting a parking lot of its winter crop. Erica found a spot near the food coop and sloshed inside. She waved at a clerk who nodded back. She liked that the store sold just a few types of wine and frequently changed selections. Her lips tightened into a wry smile as she placed a bottle in her canvas bag. A moment later her phone vibrated with a text message. At the checkout she sampled a biscuit offered by the clerk, paid and hurried to her car. She read the text from Dan just as another arrived from Sam. She fired off a quick reply to Sam. Back out on the street, the Infiniti kicked a wake of frozen brine onto the sidewalk. A few blocks later she pulled in front of the yoga studio. She arrived just as class was beginning.
Erica inhaled the torrid air. Music whispered in her ear. She lowered her hips and held a long awkward pose. Sunlight wove in through a studio window. It cast a ripple of shadows of her across the maple floor. She released. Calm fell upon her like pillows of snow on a spruce branch. Out of habit, she cusped one arm under the other, and then her legs in the same fashion. As she compressed she realized everyone else in the class had risen into a mountain pose. Erica fought the urge to fall in sequence. She looked straight ahead. She stayed in this moment long enough to sense a root of her discord. She released and felt diminished notes that dominated her life resolve.
The story is told that Brandi hit the post, driving Olivia and Erica into peril. Brandi felt that missed the mark since the wreck just sort of happened. How would she have known that the bollard was planted in the roof of a cistern, or that the nudge would dislodge the stones holding it together, or that the parking lot would collapse, or that their car would plunge - rear bumper first - into rubble? In the aftermath, Brandi thought of it as an adventure, a tale to be told.
That is, until they got together a few weeks later with a group of friends. They failed to hear her out, the story the group was interested in seemed substituted, and it went beyond what she expected. The incident was received as just another false step by Brandi, another example of Brandi that diminished her in the eyes of those she held dearest. Brandi retreated into her own world. Her studies languished. Her smile waned. Eventually her parents transferred her to private school. Tonight, Olivia, Erica and Brandi would meet for the first time in decades, for the second time since their backwards fall.
Brandi welcomed the short walk to the restaurant. It allowed her to collect herself before meeting up with her old friends. Splatters of slush pooled on the street edge of the sidewalk, so she kept near the buildings. She passed several cheerful window displays of pleasantly arranged goods. Brandi grasped the bar of the glass door and noticed her reflection slide away as she pulled. Brandi carefully folded her coat over her arm as the hostess escorted her back toward the low slung couches grouped around a hooded fire pit. “Everybody just got here Brandi,” said Olivia, her legs tumbled across a sofa, “would you like a cosmopolitan?” Brandi adjusted her grey tunic blouse and looked up at her old friends as a tear rolled gently from the corner of her eye. She was happy. “Yes, I would,” she replied.
