I see her everywhere I go. She’s about sixty, maybe even a well-preserved seventy. Thin, not frail, she seems active and alert. Normal clothes, kind of… middle-class, aging hippie vibe? That’s not quite right. Professional nonprofit volunteer? Now I’m stereotyping. No, she doesn’t always wear the same things. Usually some dangly sort of earrings. But she has a lot of those scarves, those infinity scarves, silvery, with little tassels of yarn sort of spreading out everywhere from it.
          She’s a regular at my coffee shop. She drinks some kind of flowery tea. Then next time I saw her at the movie theater, sitting by herself in the back row. I went to see an improv show the next week and she was there too. It was crowded, people were crammed together, I couldn’t tell if she was with anyone. She was drinking some bottled water. By that time I assumed she lived in the neighborhood.
          But then I flew to Miami to see my daughter and her husband and the new baby. They’re doing great, yeah. Deanna, they call her Deedee, just three months. They had all these photos on the wall, their wedding pictures and stuff, and I’m looking at one from the wedding reception, and there she is, this lady! In Miami!
          Who is that?, I ask Claire. She didn’t know, John didn’t know. Somebody’s plus-one.
          I went to pick up dinner that night and on the way back she drove past me in a Prius. She was in the passenger seat, I didn’t see the driver. I swear this is true.
          On the way back they fucked up my connection and I have to overnight in Denver. I get to the hotel, get the key, get into the elevator and there she is, already in there. Where was she coming from? The only floor below us was the basement. She had a worn old brown rolly bag and wore a faded jean jacket. She gave me a nod and got off on my floor. I saw her go into the room next to mine. I stayed in the elevator, rode it back down and checked out. I spent the night in the airport and didn’t see her again until yesterday, at the coffee shop.
          I got up my nerve and sat down across from her. She seemed surprised and then I realized it wasn’t the same lady. This was someone I’d worked with about fifteen years ago, I hadn’t thought about her since. Yeah, we caught up for a few minutes, it was cool. But the other lady, the, the ubiquitous one, she’s the receptionist at my doctor’s office, she’s my insurance agent’s assistant, she bagged my groceries at Lund’s yesterday, she brought me my loaded baked potatoes at TGI Friday’s, and when I look at old pictures or movies I see that she’s my ex-wife’s aunt, that she was in the audience at Woodstock and in the crowd when Reagan got shot (no, she was old back then too), and when I look at my fourth grade photos, which mom and I went to Sears to have taken, I’ve started to remember the photographer’s face and yes, it was her, and she said, Smile, baby, and I said, I don’t wanna, and so far to my knowledge those were the only words that have ever passed between us.
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