a visit to Friend #7

One last parting repartee and I shut the door behind me. (The apartment door with the faded berry wreath, rescued from the trash bin at my house.)

I like her new place. Familiar things are everywhere, including her books-which have been packed away for a long time. I see postcards that she has collected, art prints, a blown-glass ornament, a tablecloth I love. Unfamiliar things are scattered around, too: a striking ceramic dish, a lamp, a shabby-chic dresser, a pair of curtains fashioned from a thrift-shop sheet.

"Does it feel like home yet?" I asked as an aside as two other girls cleared the table.
"No. Not yet."
"It will. Soon."

After leaving, I tip-tapped alone down the wooden stairs, barged reluctantly through the apartment building door, and entered into the bracingly fresh snowy air of downtown Potsdam.

Friend #7 doesn't live with us anymore; not much. She spent her first night in her new apartment already, calling me yesterday afternoon while the last whiteness of the day was being covered with the heavy quilt of a winter's eve.

"I was thinking of sleeping home tonight," she ventured.
"You can. You'll have to sleep on the couch though, as you TOOK your BED with you."
"Yeah."
"Yeah. Huh."
"Hmm."

We don't have to say much, we two -although I usually spoil the silence by throwing in some inane chatter just to get a rise out of her. I didn't say much last night.

"I'll come and visit you," said I. "-k?"
silence.

" -k."

-and I did.