Ogdensburg, by Myfanwy Collins
I wore a white skirt. Earlier that day I sunbathed with his roommate while he was at work in his polyester uniform.
The roommate and I gossiped, drank wine out of plastic cups. He knew that I knew about him. I didn’t want to ask the question. It would leave him vulnerable in his world of uniforms and regulations. On his day off he could sit in the overgrown backyard and drink wine with a stranger.
There was a spring unwinding in me, pushing me out and drawing me back in. Nothing good had happened yet. I was always waiting.
The show was across the border and an hour away. Beforehand we sat at an outside bar and I drank, but he didn’t. He was baked already because, since rehab, that’s what he did. We were with another couple he knew. The woman told me she was pregnant. We ordered another drink.
I wanted to tell her I was living inside myself like a fetus, nuzzling against the heartbeat, expectant.
In the morning, I traveled home and away from him, from his roommate, from the woman. I drove along the river, the Amish clip-clopping beside me in their buggies, the tall grass pushing up, waiting on summer.
