“Hello, spring!” she called. “Not quite,” I said, crossing my arms into myself. “Where’s Lucy? Is she meeting us here?” “She said she had to run an errand and would meet us at the restaurant.” I shrugged. “Come on.” She squeezed her hand through the crook of my arm. “It’s Monday, and it’s happy hour. Let’s get toasty.” We made our way down the street, and it reminded me of my first year in Chicago. The three of us would meet at our apartment after work, change quickly and end up staying out until the early hours of the morning without even realizing it. It was a time when responsibility was just another word in the dictionary. Where had the time gone? Things were different now, there was no doubt. But something in particular felt amiss. With the onset of the new season, I had that ominous feeling of impending change, although I couldn’t identify what or why that might be. The man from the theater’s presence was static cling on my skin. I still could not recall the exact details of his face, or even the way he was dressed.
