Saturday

Four of us from work rode together to go to our coworker’s funeral, which was at her hometown an hour away. The service was quite nice. Someone from our office who worked closely with her provided a heartfelt and funny tribute. I was struck--not for the first time--by what good people I get to work with.

We stayed for the luncheon. I sat between Eve and another coworker’s husband, whom I’d never met before. I knew they had a dog with an interesting story (rescued from an area hit by a hurricane a couple of years ago) so I asked about that. Before long he was showing me pictures of her on his phone. With the ice broken we found a lot to talk about as we ate.

When I arrived home I checked the clock to see if I had time for another shower. The heat and humidity were incredibly high, and I felt sticky, frizzy and generally gross. I also wanted a definitive shift from my morning/afternoon to my evening. I decided I had time if I hurried. When it looked like I might cut it too close I sent Blaine a text to let him know I was about to dry my hair and may not hear the doorbell but the back door was unlocked. When he arrived he was carrying a couple of styrofoam glasses that meant one thing: fountain Diet Coke over crushed ice.

“You are the best, most thoughtful, wonderful human being.” My hands were outstretched in the neediest of gestures.

He held out one of the glasses. “I’ve taken a drink from this one but the straw is already in and you look like you can’t wait.” I would have laughed if he hadn’t been so right.

When we left it was cloudy overhead but to the southwest the sky was a telltale gunmetal gray. I checked radar on my phone and saw there was a strong thunderstorm moving toward us. It looked like it would connect with another storm to the north before it swiped the city. The good news was both were only thunderstorms and were weakening so we weren’t likely to see hail or damaging winds. The bad news was it was going to follow us to an outdoor party.

Fortunately, we had almost two hours there before the storm hit. There was time to say hello, grab a drink and go through the buffet line, which they began earlier than planned with the hope that people could eat before the rain moved in.

As planned, we shared a table with Henry and Julia. I reintroduced them to Blaine. I knew all had made a good first impression on one another and wasn’t surprised when the conversation was easy. At first it centered on me, the common denominator, but soon Henry and Blaine found their own common ground: pheasant hunting.

“Wait,” I interrupted when it came up. “You hunt?” I wasn’t sure who I was asking because it surprised me that either one did. I had looked at Blaine so he answered.

“Pheasant, yes. Paul and I go out once in the fall.”

“Paul hunts?” I nearly asked if Eve knew.

Henry asked if I disliked hunting. I don’t understand the appeal but keep an open mind about it. To answer him, I shook my head. “I’m just trying to figure out why I never noticed a gun rack in the back window of your Prius.”

I asked Julia if she participated. She said she doesn’t want to see any evidence of Henry’s success until it’s on plate cooked to the proper internal temperature. I toasted that.

There’s a possibility Henry will join Blaine and Paul this fall.

A short time later cell phones began to chime, including Blaine’s (mine was in my purse locked inside Blaine’s car). “Thunderstorm warning,” he told us after reading the text.

We, along with many others, stayed where we were, around patio tables on the back lawn, until the wind kicked up and the temperature dropped a bit. As the first fat drops of rain fell we went inside the house through the patio doors that opened to the basement family room. Someone had turned the television on. A local station was doing live storm coverage because a little further north there was a severe thunderstorm with a Doppler indicated tornado. It wasn’t going to affect the area we were in but for Midwesterners this sort of weather is like a pop-up Super Bowl.

We waited for the storm to pass and then said our goodbyes. As I was looking for Karen, I came face-to-face with my former boss. He isn’t my favorite person so he didn’t get introduced to Blaine. A quick exchange of hellos and insincere interest in one another’s lives while continuing to move away was the sum of our reunion. On the way home Blaine, who had been amused by how I had squeezed his arm in an unmistakable keep moving gesture, asked who it was I wanted to get away from. I told him, included why I hadn’t introduced him and added, “That job was the dark period of my life.”

“That bad?”

“It can’t be overstated.” I explained the best I could. Examples of dysfunction aren’t difficult to come by but it soon sounds like an exaggeration. “Then Karen led me to Henry, which led me to Eve, who led me to you. Right now life is as light and bright as it gets.”

I saw his lips turn up at the corners. “Yes. It is that.”

As we got back to the city the next storm was moving in. According to radar we were in the lighter rain band, but behind that it was red with spots of pink-purple. “Maybe you should drop me off and go on home in case there’s hail with this one,” I said.

“Come home with me.”

We left the lights off and watched the next storm roll through—cracking lightning casting the golf course in white-blue light, thunder so close I felt it in my bones and wind that sent the flower pots skittering across the deck. There was a lull and then another cell dumped rain and blew it against the windows across the back of the house. Once it passed, we stepped barefooted onto the deck and absorbed the post-storm, middle-of-the-night coolness. The heat, humidity and overall ickiness of the day were gone, replaced by something calming and refreshing.