Daisy likes to circle back. She will drop an idea at my feet, let it sit awhile and then follow up to see how what she wants compares to what I'm willing to do. If my thoughts aren't aligned with hers, she circles around a few times more and rechecks to see if I've fixed my thinking.
So when Daisy suggested that I meet her for lunch, I knew I would be dining with Daisy. I'd made the overall vague lunching offer four years ago when she committed to attend the University of Missouri. "It's close enough that I can come for lunch!," I declared. And those words didn't scare her to a more distant school.
Truly, I don't see Daisy often. I did want to do lunch. I didn't want to drive two hours one way to lunch in Columbia, then drive two hours back. So I proposed that Daisy drive my way 30 minutes on Interstate 70 and I'd drive her way an hour and a half. We'd meet in Kingdom City.
A traffic jam derailed the simplicity of my plan. Thirty minutes from Daisy, my Escape crawled on the highway, I crept one and a half miles until the next exit. Then I drove a narrow paved ditch-lined road, through the wooded hills, dips, curves and small towns that prove why in Missouri trees and memories of trees are valued over straight pathways.
An hour and a half late, I met Daisy for lunch. I drove three hours to get there. Never have I wolfed down a pancake at Denny's as fast as the one I demolished at 2:45 that afternoon. In the nearly empty restaurant, we touched base with each other, good conversation between two women.
All too soon, lunch ended. Daisy had a volunteer children's choir practice to lead. I had St. Louis rush hour to face. With reluctance, we hugged and went our opposite ways on I-70. The other side of the interstate, I could see, was still blocked. What I'd missed witnessing before--the wreck of a tractor trailer--lay visible. Someone didn't make lunch, I thought. And my lunch with Daisy was so good.
www.mosquitonotes.blogspot.com: This woman is far too unlucky for me to stand near during a thunderstorm, I thought.
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