… before it’s too late.
She timed the exit perfectly. “Oh. Hi Shelley. Seems we’re going out at the same time.”
“Hi Lexi,” Shelley said while stopping her walk, letting her neighbor approach. “Where’re you heading?”
“You first.”
“I thought about shopping down at the mega-mall today. Boot sale at Fairies.”
“Hey, me too! What are the odds?”
Too odd, Shelley thought, but went along with it good-naturedly. She was use to attention like this, could handle the needed distance. She walked her own beat. In her own shoes. Keds, soon to be more she hoped.
But the boots didn’t suit her and she emerged from the Hooktip mega-mall still with Keds. Keds for the kids, she figured, to go along with the hair style she hadn’t changed since childhood. Lexi said she couldn’t find any boots to suit her as well, so retained her own shoes too, black cosplays I believe.
As they arrived back at their apartments, Lexi invites Shelley to help her unpack the big plywood cube from Montana that arrived yesterday’s day before (Saturday). “Get this,” she said. “There’s a robot dog in there just like from my childhood. Can’t *wait* to put it together.” But then Lexi remembered the likewise plywood colored pictures on her living room wall, the shells and, especially, the keyhole with the beautiful girl inside, Lexi’s representation of Shelley as Fern had already determined during her visit several posts back. “Uh, just remembered my apartment is a mess,” she backtracked. “Need to clean up. Maybe tomorrow, he he.”
Shelley stuck out her hand to shake. “It’s a date,” making Lexi actually blush a bit. She’d been waiting for this moment for so long. Date, but not what she hoped. Still the word was out there, ready to be molded into something different. She envisions a happy ending. And she’ll have that robot built by then and they can play fetch with it or something. It can be *their* pet. Together (sigh). She finally remembers to let go of Shelley’s hand.
“Laters,” Shelley says, using that same hand to wave brief parting in one, graceful motion, like a dancer, Lexi noted. Soon she will be dancing to a different beat, she hopes, watching her walk away.
Sunklands 