Being with Georgette #20
“This must have been the kind of place they sent you,” Georgette said.
The low, whitewashed building in a park-like setting sprawled across the grounds like it would melt into the lake behind it in no fewer than ten thousand years.
“I was never sent anywhere,” I said.
I pulled open the heavy oak door and Georgette stepped in. She skipped across the threshold and mussed my hair and said, “I hope they don’t keep you.”
The lobby was warm with a stale smell, a cross between institutional coffee and day-old thrift store.
“I’m here to see my Uncle Nate,” Georgette told the girl in white behind the counter, and she gave her name.
The girl looked at me. Georgette said, “He’s just my ride.”
“Have a seat, someone will come and get you.”
Five minutes later, someone came and got her.
“Don’t let them keep you,” Georgette said, and she followed the orderly down the hallway.
The girl looked at me a little too earnestly, and I went outside.
* * *
The lake was calm. I sat for an hour under a tree by the creek at the outlet of the lake. I studied the transition from still water to rapidly running water and tried to find the very spot where you could say this is lake and this is creek.
“It’s laminar flow,” a voice said.
I looked up at the woman. She was watching the water too. She smiled at me. She pointed to the same place I had been looking at and said, “Where the water flows smoothly, like one body, no turbulence. That’s laminar flow. Peaceful.”
I saw what she meant. “Yes,” I said.
“Mind if I sit?”
I shifted to my end of the bench, but she remained standing.
“Are you from here?”
“No.”
“You look familiar.”
“My friend is visiting her uncle.”
She sat at the other end of the bench. “I’m Doctor Stacey.”
I told her my name. She studied my face as though trying to place where she had seen me before, then she gave up.
“I study English lit,” I said.
“At the university in town?”
I nodded. A twig on the lake slowly drifted toward the outlet of the lake. It took its time but finally hit the point where the water accelerated, which Dr. Stacey had called laminar flow, and shot off down the creek.
“I studied there too,” she said. “Not that long ago.”
“And now you’re here?”
It was her turn to nod, and then she said, “I’ve moved up in the world. How long are you here?”
“I’ll be going soon.”
She looked at her watch then put her arm on the back of the bench, turning slightly toward me. “You’ve been here before.”
“I’ve visited a few times with my friend.”
“Maybe I’ve seen you another place I’ve worked at?”
“The university maybe.”
“Am I familiar to you?”
“Depends what you mean by familiar.”
“You mean I’m being familiar. Pretty sharp.”
I watched the clouds flow across the sun, across the sky, roiling as they scudded along.
“That’s turbulent flow,” Dr. Stacey said.
The sun dimmed and a slight breeze rose goosebumps on my arm.
“Shivers,” she said. “Come up to my office. That’s it, second floor, third from the end.
“My friend will be finished soon. You have a nice view of the lake from up there.”
“Seniority,” she said. “I haven’t worked here very long, but neither has anyone else.”
* * *
I stood and took one last look at the creek flowing from the lake.
She followed me around to the front of the building to the portico at the main entrance.
“Don’t walk so fast, I can’t keep up. Why are you in such a hurry?”
“My friend is waiting.”
But Georgette was not in the lobby.
The girl behind the counter looked and me and then at Dr. Stacey. She picked up the phone and said, “Orderly.”
Two orderlies appeared from the hallway and rushed toward me, but they did not stop. They stepped behind me and said, “Dr. Stacey, it’s time you went back to your office.”
With a half smile she gave a faint wave and went up the stairs with the orderlies following close behind.
“She’s a doctor?” I asked the girl.
“She was a graduate student in physics. She thinks she’s at Princeton.”
Georgette appeared and the girl went back to shuffling papers.
“Am I interrupting something?” she asked, her eyes sparkling.
“How’s Uncle Nate?”
She giggled and took me by the arm and pulled me outside.
“You always seem too at home when you bring me here. These are your kind of people.”
“You are my kind of people.”
I helped her into my truck. She gave me a peck on the cheek and said, “Don’t ever go away again.”
I shrugged and said, “I just go with the flow, you know that.”
As I drove through the parking lot, I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw myself standing next to the bench by the creek, my hand frozen in a faint wave.
I punched the gas and pulled the truck out of the parking lot and back into the turbulent flow of Georgette’s happy life.
