And a perfectly flat river stone she’d found the last time she changed at Oak Creek a few miles away from her condominium. Its name was Sylvester, and she shoved it into her pocket now for good luck. She hoped her other rocks at home didn’t miss her too much.
“Oh my God, this is literally why I’m single.”
On second thought, she took the river stone out of her pocket and replaced it with the golden wiener rock. Felt right.
Birdie tugged her bangs down farther. She’d gotten a haircut a couple of days ago, so her bangs didn’t cover her eyes very well and she felt exposed. People would notice if she wore sunglasses to dinner. If she could just stay calm though, her eyes would stay a soft brown that was a normal human shade, and she could look normal.
A knock sounded on the door and she startled hard. One glance in the mirror, and her eyes were glowing gold. Fart.
She gritted her teeth and asked, “Who is it?”
When no one answered, she marched to the front door and yanked it open. On the porch sat an envelope. She looked around, but the only person out here was a dark-haired man who was making his way toward the main lodge.
She opened up the envelope and unfolded a piece of fine cardstock paper.
A poem had been handwritten in cursive.
Roses are red
Balls are blue
We hate Valentine’s Day
As much as you.
No more love,
And no more mush,
And anyone who complains
Can kiss our tush.
Dinner is served.
She laughed and peeked around the corner in time to see the dark-haired man jog up the stairs to the main lodge. At the other cabins, people were on the porches reading their poems too. Ha.
Okay, this was already a little fun.
Birdie set the poem on the bench inside the door and grabbed her purse, then locked up behind her.
Dinner was in five minutes, and the others were starting to file toward the main lodge too.
She selfishly hoped someone was weirder than her. There was nothing worse than being the weirdest one in the room.
“Don’t talk about rocks too much,” she murmured to herself. Or the iridescence of fish scales because apparently she could get hyper-focused on that conversation too. Which she proved with the poor banker who was just trying to giveBirdie her travel money to come here, but got locked in a ten-minute conversation that poor woman did not have on her bingo card yesterday. The worst part? Birdie knew how lame the conversation was, but she hadn’t been able to stop talking. That lady had given her no less than fourteen polite but hollow-eyed smiles, like she was internally praying for Birdie to leave her bank. That had been her socialization for the week until this afternoon, when she’d tried to knock on Lance’s shoulder and confused the hell out of him, and then threw his phone into the snow. Heavenly wind, take the sails of this ship, she was not in control of these tumultuous seas.
Okay, self, don’t say stuff like that aloud either.
She offered the lady from Lodge 6 a smile and a wave, but the woman, all dressed in black, said sternly, “No,” and walked faster away from her.
And now the competitive little animal in her was pushing Birdie’s legs faster. This lady was trying to get to the lodge first. Not on my watch.
The black-haired lady grimaced over at Birdie and started walking faster.
Grrr. The trail through the snow wasn’t very wide here.
Birdie pushed her legs into a brisk walk, pumping her arms slightly.
