Rainy Day Memories

Water drops drip from pine branches onto the lid of my coffee cup. Two high school students sit on the third bench on the east side of Portland Park. The girl's blonde hair brushes against the boy's baseball shirt stained with grass juice. The blueberry muffins they share attract three squirrels. The coins in my pocket clink like the sound of the old gumball machine at the back door of the library ten years ago.

It always rains in the fall of 2016. Lila from the School of Nursing occupies the mint green bench to read textbooks. There are always almonds for squirrels in her white coat pocket. "Listen," she tossed her wet hair onto the pages of my book, "Does the rain hitting the pine needles look like popcorn jumping?" At 3:15 on Wednesday afternoon, she was drawing hearts on the anatomical diagram with a red pen when I "happened" to pass by.

The moment the bubbles stung the tip of my tongue when the vending machine spit out ice lemon soda, the memory suddenly became clear: Lila sprinkled hot cocoa on her Converse shoes. "Take me to the lab," she swung her soaked shoelaces, "or the fungus will have a party between my toes." We walked halfway around the campus, and when we counted to 47 steps, she found a heart-shaped notch on the rust of the fire hydrant.

The boy on the bench in front was tying the girl's shoelaces, and his technique was as clumsy as solving a math problem. Lila used a tourniquet to tie my sneakers into a knot, "so you have to come to me tomorrow to untie it." She always found happiness on rainy days - puddles were stamps in the sky, mildew spots on the benches were wrinkles in the bark, and even the leaky library ceiling was described by her as "stars peeking."

The phone rang suddenly, it was Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline". High school students hummed the off-tune chorus, and Lila once forced me to sing this song on the roof of the laboratory building. The smell of blueberries wafted from the direction of the parking lot. When I counted to 36 steps, the tip of my shoe kicked a gum wrapper half buried in the mud. The grape flavor had long faded, but the 2016 rainstorm notice suddenly appeared:

"No classes today, bring an umbrella, see you at the back door of the West District Laboratory. - PS: The squirrels said they are running low on almonds."

The iced coffee trembled in the cup. On the way home, I stopped by to buy a bag of almonds.