The Book Nook

36

Resuming our walk made the recent events feel as if they had been from a dream, like I had fallen asleep in the warmth of the sun on the soft grass of the park, awakening with a start by something that had deeply troubled me. It lingered momentarily before receding to a faint recollection as Alexandria led us away from the park and further down the river.

I was like a book reader wanting answers but realizing there were still many, many pages left in the novel and so any answers may still require much persistence and patience.

The day was beautifully springlike, the days of summer beckoning just around the corner. Not enough to feel like diving into the water to escape from it, but rather giving an inspired feeling to walk amongst the air like somehow the Earth had finally recognized the perfect temperature that produced the most favorable response on the human happiness scale and so had paused the atmosphere like a setting on a thermostat.

I enjoyed the park and hadn't gone there often enough. To be fair though, a stroll alone and an adventurous walk with another produced two very different emotions.

We refrained from speaking much, save for commenting on the beauty that the spring season brought forward in our comfortable little city. Spring in the park made us feel like we were in another city altogether, far away from home.

Alexandria led us to a quaint neighborhood not too far from the river, through idyllic streets with small apartments in very old brick buildings. The scenery of these streets likely hadn't changed much through the decades.

We went up the steps of one, a darkened brick property that was layered with age. An old, metal fire escape zig-zagged up the side of it. Alexandria put her finger to one of the buttons and buzzed one of the rooms.

"Under normal circumstances, I probably would never have brought you here," she said. "But when I spoke to my friend last and told her about you, she said the best thing I could do was to bring you with me to see her."

"She wants to see me?" I feign puzzlement, even though I already have my suspicions based on what Alexandria had just spoken. I only had to ask myself two questions and the boiling over of possible answers would be endless. Why had she brought me to see this person? And why was this person interested in seeing me?

As we stood together outside the large oak door of this deteriorating building it became plain to see that what I had begun doing was no different than scrutinizing every single scene of a book or movie so that one could figure out the ending. We begin looking for clues in everything, in every character interaction and every bit of dialogue, as if the grand author were leaving us little leads for us to discover where it is the plot will go. Would it be considered insanity if one were to use this mindset in relation to reality?

Attempting to look at it logically, Alexandria likely had brought me to see this person because she trusted them, and heaven only knows that she doesn't throw that trust around lightly. So this person, because of Alexandria's trust shown through telling about me, became interested in meeting me likely to pass their own judgement on me, but seeing as how I've come with a pre-guaranteed stamp of approval from Alexandria, it likely made them all the more intrigued to meet this person who had managed to earn their way into her life in the way that I have. So either Alexandria was, or is, looking for approval from this person, or the logical next step is for me to meet this person only because I already have attained the necessary approval.

Or, I was just thinking about it too much and probing into something that ultimately held little significance.

"Next stop on the Alexandria Grand Tour of whatever-it-was-you-called-it?" I attempted to lighten the mood.