Lisa Schroeder - The Bridge from You to Me

While she calls, I drive. The clouds have cleared, and it’s pretty nice out. Now that it’s October, I know it won’t be like this much longer. I look over at Lauren, and I think, in more ways than one .

I want to make the most of this. Whatever “this” is.

I pull into the Safeway parking lot. She raises her eyebrows. Before she has time to say anything, I tell her, “I need to run in and get something. You stay here. I’ll be right back.”

I hustle through the store, grabbing what I need, and make it back to the truck in record time.

“Well, that was fun,” she teases. “Probably didn’t need to call my aunt and tell her I’d be late for a stop at Safeway.”

I start up the truck. “Okay, if you want to get technical, we’re making two stops. That was the first one. Now on to the second one.”

She looks at the grocery bag sitting between us. “Can I take a peek?”

“No!” I grab the bag and pull it close to me. “You’ll find out soon enough, since we’ll be there in about two minutes.” I look at her. “Patience, grasshopper. It’s a small town, remember?”

“How could I forget, after I just met almost everyone who lives here at the bake sale? I still can’t believe how many people showed up.”

I look at her after I pull out onto the road. “Yeah, you just witnessed the best of small-town life. We come together and pull for our own, that’s for sure.”

“It’s really great,” she says, staring out the window. “It felt good to be a part of something so important. Even if it wasn’t for very long.”

“That’s why people love football, you know. Why they love coming out to the games and supporting our team.”

She looks at me. Gives my leg a little shove. “But football isn’t that important.”

“Maybe not to you. But to a lot of people, it is.”

“Why? I don’t get it.”

I shrug. “I have a few different theories. Mostly, I think it’s because for a little while every week, folks are able to forget about their dull lives. They have something to believe in. Something to hope for. And it feels good to believe and hope.”

“But, Colby, it’s just a game . Why don’t they find something in their own lives to believe in and hope for?”

I smile. “ Because it’s just a game. Putting your hopes on something like a football team rather than yourself is so much easier, right? And if things don’t go the way you want, well, there’s always next year. Always another chance to try again. To hope again. But in life? Sometimes we only get one chance.”

She doesn’t say anything after that.

Not a thing.

And I wonder what that means.

When i pull into the parking lot of Queen Elizabeth Elementary School, Lauren gives me a funny look.

“This is where Benny and I met,” I explain as I park the truck. I notice the front doors are still a bright yet inviting blue, like they’ve always been. I turn the engine off. “He moved here in the third grade. At lunchtime, he sat down next to me. I watched as he ate his hamburger and Tater Tots in about fifteen seconds flat.” I laugh. “Man, that guy still loves Tater Tots. Anyway, when he was done, he turned and looked at me. And I’ll never forget what happened next.”

“What?” Lauren asks. I love how truly interested she is in this story.

“Benny said, ‘This is my favorite part of school.’ And then I said, ‘You mean eating lunch?’ And he said, ‘Nah. After we eat. Going to recess. Playing with friends.’ And I said, without thinking, because I was a stupid eight-year-old boy, ‘But you’re new. You don’t have any friends.’ He looked at me with those big brown eyes and said, ‘Maybe not yet. But I will. You’ll see. Now hurry up and eat so we can go play.’”

I swallow hard. I remember the moment so clearly, it’s like it happened an hour ago. “And he was right. By the end of recess, we were friends. But you know what’s really amazing to me? He could have sat anywhere that day. But it’s like God knew, and he sat him next to me.”

“Knew what?” she asks.

“Knew we needed each other.”

It hangs in the air for a second, and I want to say, I still need him. Benny. My best friend. And that I miss him like crazy.

But I don’t need to say it. She knows. How can she not know?

I quickly open my door. “Come on. We’re gonna go have a pie picnic. On the playground.”

She smiles. “A pie picnic! Awesome.”

I grab the sheet and the pie while Lauren carries the grocery bag. We walk around to the back of the school and stand there, scanning the place for a good place to sit.

“Over here,” she says. I follow her like she asked, all the way to the top of the play structure.

I point to a steering wheel that juts out from one side. “Who’s gonna fly the spaceship? Or whatever this is we’re on.”

“Don’t worry,” Lauren says as she takes the sheet tucked under my arm and spreads it out. “The driver’s there; you just can’t see him. We’re in good hands.”

“Oh. Right. An invisible driver. I forgot that’s a possibility on playground spaceships. What’s his name?”

She opens the bag and takes out the paper plates and plastic silverware I bought at the store. “Uh, how about Rain Man? After all, he’s an excellent driver.”

“Rain Man?”

“Yeah. You’ve never seen that movie?”

I take a seat on the sheet and set the pie down in the middle. “No. I haven’t. What’s it about?”

Lauren sits across from me. “Two brothers who didn’t know each other existed until their father died. One of them is autistic with lots of quirks. The other is kind of a selfish jerk. They go on a road trip together, and the asshole brother becomes less so, and really comes to love his quirky brother.” She picks up a knife and starts slicing the pie. “In the end, these two people, who were pretty lonely before they met, end up with something they didn’t even know they were missing.” She looks at me. “It’s sweet, right? It won a bunch of Oscars. It’s one of my mom’s favorites.”

I nod. “I’ll have to check it out. You know, you haven’t said much about your mom. If you want to talk about her, about what happened or whatever, I hope you know you can.”

She puts a piece of pie on a plate and passes it to me.

“Thanks, but there isn’t a whole lot to say.”

I fish a fork out of the box of utensils. “Do you miss her?”

Another piece of pie goes on a plate. “Not really,” she says too quickly. Her eyes float up to meet mine. “Well . . . maybe once in a while.”

I’m not sure what to say to that. If she isn’t ready to tell me more, I don’t want to push her. I simply say, “Yeah. I get that. It sneaks up on you sometimes. The missing, I mean.”