Clara

I could see her walking down the street. I smiled, ear to ear. I’d missed the time spent with her. I waved. With both hands. Threw in a little hop too. More than a couple cars slowed down. She finally met me.

“Clara, how’ve you been?” I said.

“Ehn, y’know. Doing,” eyes looking to the right. Mine followed.

There was a lake there. It would freeze over during the winters. In our youth, our parents would warn us to go nowhere near it. In our youth, we would. I remember catching fireflies with her next to them. I almost fell in; she caught me before I did. It’d been drained since then. Construction equipment still lay there. Funny. I hadn’t seen anyone work on it for months.

Reaching into my pocket, “Got you this.”

It was a necklace. Clara liked pearls; she especially liked the more amorphous ones. The more misshapen ones.

“I found some of them while I was at Maine. Washed up close to the shore.” My eyes met hers.

“Maine?”

“Yeah, I— I uh, sent you a postcard. Did you get it?”

She reached into the bag she had slung around.

“They give you all your stuff after,” she said, eyes now pointed downwards.

I nodded. She read through the card, and stared at the picture for a bit. She flipped it. The back had a picture of a lighthouse. I climbed it while I was there. The view: beautiful. I still preferred the sand between my toes. I could see Clara’s teeth poke through now.

Eyes still fixated on the card, “Thank you. Necklace and the card.”

“Ah, no problem.”

We walked a couple steps in silence. Side by side. I stood on the left, watching each car whizz by. The sun beat down, it was refreshing though.

Clara’s hand brushed her nose.

“Maisie,” I heard.

“Our lake’s…”

“I know.”