The Misadventures of Anna Cabbot

Gateways

"I'm feeling much better, thank you," Anna said the moment she walked through the door at work Friday morning. She waved to her coworkers but otherwise bustled right on by to her lab space.

She and Jamie — once he'd taken Carson back to Anna's house to get his car, since he had a meeting in Hamilton and couldn't stay — had spent the afternoon at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. They'd been alternatively serious and silly. Jamie's new favorite thing to do was come up behind her and whisper, "A bicycle is just a bicycle" in her ear. One time she laughed so loudly no less than half a dozen people turned and stared.

The most important thing to come from Wednesday's adventures in lake-faring journals was a tentative day and time for when the Calico Lady would arrive. The exact location was still a mystery — Anna and Carson ballparked it somewhere in the vicinity of where the Niagara River met the Erie Canal.

With the tentative time of midnight Saturday, they didn't have a hell of a lot of time to prepare. Prepare for what, anyway? A ghost ship? An accidental meeting with the physical form of the Erie Canal? She had a sudden vision of a portly man in a top hat and spats, and nearly snorted coffee through her nose.

Keeping that happy thought in mind, she put together her to-do list for the day and got on with it.


The bus dropped them off on Niagara Street in the city of Tonawanda out front of a McDonald's.

"It's really quiet," Carson muttered as they started up the street toward Gateway Park. According to Anna's maps app there were paths that would take them down closer to the water, and since they were half an hour early it would be easier to wait down there in case their window to find the Calico Lady was tinier than they thought.

"It's the suburbs," she said, looping her arm through his. She wore what she'd come to think of as her adventure clothes — skinny jeans, boots, and her favorite dark gray hoodie. Carson was similarly dressed, though it wasn't like there was a crowd for them to disappear into.

She tucked her phone back in her pocket while they waited for the light at Main Street.

"What if we don't find what we think we're going to find?" he asked.

"Not a clue." They hoofed it through the crosswalk, and she pulled him more toward the bridge to North Tonawanda. "We're gonna wing it."

"Solid." They stopped halfway over the bridge; he leaned against the railing. "What are we going to do if we find what we think we're going to find?"

Anna looked out across the black waters of the Erie Canal. "Yeah, we're wingin' that, too."

Carson outright laughed.

"Jamie — Jamie says wingin' it as a perfectly valid plan," she said loudly. "I could have said we'd cross that bridge when we came to it but I didn't, and I deserve points for that."

He sighed heavily. "You and your boyfriend are the biggest nerds on the planet, I swear to God."

"Boyfriend?"

He put his back to the railing in order to look at her, arms crossed over his chest and eyebrows nearly to his hairline. "What now?"

"Boyfriend." Anna shoved her trembling hands in her hoodie pockets. "Really?"

"Do you or do you not regularly go on dates together? Including romantic ones."

"Yeah."

"You text and talk frequently, and send each other sweet things like 'good morning' and 'good night'?"

"Time out." She took her hands out and made a T gesture. "First of all, thank you for making my life sound like a romance novel. Second, how does all of that make him my boyfriend?"