The Bus Went One More Stop Than We Needed

June nineteenth. The idea started the way most of ours do: Simone said something at the end of a Tuesday session, something like, there's a lake an hour out if you're willing to add a connection, and I wrote it on the back of a receipt and forgot about it until the receipt turned up in the pocket of this exact dress three weeks later.

We took the bus on a Saturday. Added the connection. The lake was real. I don't know what I expected, something more dramatic, maybe, or something that required more planning than two transit cards and a bag with sunscreen in it, but it was just a lake, which is exactly what it needed to be. Gravel shore, a strip of pale sand, a few picnic tables under pines. The water was still in the way that mid-June water is still before the afternoon wind starts. We stood at the edge of it for a long time without saying anything important.

Simone found the one shaded table and sat on top of it rather than at it, which I maintain is the correct move in summer, and she looked so settled about it that I took a photograph before I'd decided to.

The lake was exactly as advertised. Which is rare.

Someone at the next table offered to take one of both of us and we said yes, which we almost never do, and I'm glad. Later, when I was standing at the water by myself for a few minutes, I noticed the light had shifted into that late-afternoon angle I always want and almost never catch. Simone caught it.

The box from Carol has been empty since May. The windowsill looks the same as it has for years. I've been thinking lately about what it means when a place you didn't plan to go turns out to be exactly the right size for the afternoon, not too much, not a destination, just a lake an hour out and a bus you're willing to catch. We were back before dark, which felt like a small achievement. The receipt is still in the pocket. I don't know why I kept it.