Excerpt: Soul Mate

She loved her new home. It was a small, white, clapboard-sided home much like the German Ladies from her childhood would have owned yet hers just had the cement slab for a front porch. “That will be okay”, she thought to herself. Her home would be light and airy, not dark and stuffy. She had few requirements, one being that the living room faced south; another that she had a window over the kitchen sink. Oh and a screened door out back, gosh she loved the sound of that screen door.
She stood just inside the living room door and sighed a great sigh. It was not a sign of exhaustion, or sorrow or victory - it’s just one of those things the body does when it is at a stopping point. And Berneen Flannigan was definitely at a stopping point. She had made some big decisions, and off her mind wanderd. Enough! She reprimanded herself. Her mind again, about to reevaluate and dissect and analyze every bit of knowledge and memory rolling around in her head.
She determinedly set down the box that had ridden next to her in the passenger sit all these hours. She glanced in, knowing exactly what it held. Legal documents, a legal-sized writing pad, a couple of apples (she had not had to eat on the drive), maps, a roll of paper towels, a bottle of hand sanitizer, and two bottles of water, she arched and stretched her back. One and a half hours was her limit of sitting still, and she had just pushed five. She looked straight ahead and saw her kitchen waiting for her. She walked out, opened the refrigerator and saw complete nothingness. It smelled so clean, almost a hint of lemon and was begging to be filled up with fresh food and some ice-cold milk.
She nearly skipped her way back to the box in the living room retrieving her writing pad and quickly folding over page after page until she found a blank sheet to begin her grocery list. Digging into her purse, she found her pen, gave it a click and jotted, “spinach, tomatoes, milk, cheese, bread . . .”
She was contemplating a bottle of wine as she grabbed up her purse, flew her head under the cross-the-body, wide, leather strap of large, leather hand bag and scooped up her keys. She glanced, for a quick check, at the dead-bolted front door and headed to the back of the house. She stepped down the little step onto her back porch and as she closed the windowed, neatly curtained kitchen door, she hesitated for the slightest moment just holding that screen door for a second or two and then letting her fingers relax, the screen door closing, unhibited, she closed her eyes and waited . . . . it slammed shut. Bernie smiled. She smiled for the first time is such a very long time. The slam of a screen door, it was heaven, sheer heaven and her mind flooded with memories of her childhood. She thought that every kid should grow up with a screened door and then she heard the voice of her father.
Pop Flannigan would have been bellowing just then, “Don’t let that screen door slam! How many times do I have to tell you?”
Bernie laughed right out loud. That great laugh, where she threw her head back and pure joy would come out of her soul in the form of a very happy “haHAAAAA” sound. It had been too long, it had been way too long since she laughed.
She jumped into her car, "UGH!" She would have preferred a multi-day rest before feeling that steering wheel in her hands again but her new grocery store awaited her. She found the IGA just shortly after arriving to town. It was no more than five blocks from her home. She had also seen an Alco store at the edge of her fair new city; however, she was hoping to postpone her "big buy" trip until the weekend.
As she walked into the grocery store she took in the smells of fresh produce, the smell of cardboard and, the coffee aromas that filled the air She had picked up a small, red, plastic hand basket when she came through the automatic doors but now she hesitated and thought with a smile, “oh no you don’t, you shall eat good and you shall eat often” and, she grabbed the metal shopping cart with wheels. She placed the small, plastic, red basket atop the pile of perfectly stacked small plastic, red baskets and thought, "Only huge metal carts today folks!!"
She was nearly jogging her way to the carrots, in love with the thought of filling her refrigerator with fresh food and her body with only great stuff from the earth, when; because she was so focused on bee-lining it to the produce, she nearly ran over her first acquaintance in her new town. She came to her senses just in time to see a man wearing denim jeans and a flannel shirt turn his cart at precisely the right moment to avoid a collision. He smiled. Bernie noticed his great smile and was close enough to catch the scent of Ivory Soap. Oh I love that smell, it’s so clean-smelling, what a pleasant First Person to come in contact with in my new town.
He was tall, clearly six foot and a shaved head. Bernie wondered if he had shave his head, or if he chosee to? Hmmmm, she thought. Let’s see . . .warm eyes, but a bit of a frightened look but then again I had just come barreling at him with a crazed look in my eye.
“Whoops sorry!!” she said perkily. She was so surprised at the lightness in her first words ever, in her new town - she giggled aloud. Good grief, she thought, he is going to think I’m a simpering idiot, oh well - so be it - my first encounter ever in my new town! TA-DA!
He began to speak, he was quiet and very calming, his voice soft and reassuring, “You’re fine. Absolutely no problem here . . . none at all”
WOW! He sounded like a college professor or someone . . .ummm . . . intelligent. What exactly do college professors sound like? she thought absent-mindedly as she smiled, nodded and turned her cart to make a big circle around where Denim and Flannel Guy was standing, smiling and looking like he was about to say something else really intelligent. Thinking to herself, Bernie said, “Denim and Flannel Guy, that is a perfect name for my first ever new town relationship; however, this is clearly not a relationship . . .” At just the thought of the word "relationship", her mind trailed off and immediately turned to dark thoughts and sad definitions and correlations of love and true relationships and she sauntered off towards the Granny Smith apples section.