Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

A strange thing happened at the end of my walk yesterday. We ran into Adele just as she was leaving her place, coming down her cement steps. She greeted Una with a cheery hello and then when Una walked up to say hi, she asked, "Does she bite?" even though I've told her multiple times that she doesn't.

She walked, uninvited, alongside us a couple houses down where she was returning something to a neighbor.

This was one of her less coherent days. She was wearing a white T-shirt that looked as if she had spilled a large amount of coffee down the front of it. She seemed completely unperturbed by this.

When I came back, she was sitting on the stoop of one of the stores, next to a young man I didn't recognize. She was looking through a newspaper. As we walked by, she said hello and introduced us to the young man (though she didn't tell us his name; perhaps she didn't know).

She said, "I hope you're not offended by this, but I think your dog looks a lot like you."

"No, I'm not offended," I said. "She's my baby, after all." She asked me once more how old Una was, and I told her again that she'd be six in October.

Then, even though she'd used my name seconds earlier, she conflated the two of us and called me Una for the rest of the conversation. Not just once or twice, but frequently, in almost every sentence: Una this, Una that.

"Una, what do you think of this ad?" She read aloud an ad for a one-bedroom apartment in the next town over. Then she read another, similar sounding ad for yet another neighboring town. "You see, Una, I want to move," she said.

I tried to conceal my glee.

She had the young man help her to her feet and then came over to me, holding the newspaper out while she leaned in close and read them again. "What do you think, Una?"

"They sound great. You should call them."

Then she recited a litany of how much she's paying now, with rent, utilities, et cetera, and how she'd have to get HUD approval. I nodded and tried to back away to continue our walk. She grabbed me by the wrist.

Adele started telling me all sorts of unrelated things. She said that she was 65. "I look good for 65, don't I?"

I smiled weakly. The first thing that popped into my mind was, "You'd look a lot better if you changed that shirt, honey."

She said she might find a roommate to save on expenses and mentioned an elderly neighbor who's had a hard life. She went into details of this woman's life, which included losing a 7-month-old baby when she was only 17. Then later, she'd had a problem that involved chest surgery. To illustrate, Adele traced her index finger down the middle of my chest, where the incision had been.

"That sounds terrible. Well, I have to get going," I said, stepping away.

She asked me once more where I lived.

"On the same street you do," I said.

"In one of those houses?"

I nodded.

"Are any of those renting?" she asked.

"No, I don't think any of them are. Well, good luck!"

"If you hear of anything, Una, let me know. OK, Una?"

"Sure, if I hear anything." If I hear of anything far, far away from me.

I only hope that she goes apartment hunting on one of her more lucid days, and changes her shirt first.

Copyright 2005 by Alyce Wilson

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