stories

Turning points, paradigm shifts, whatever you want to call them, there are maybe a dozen in my childhood and one was the night Dad bought a huge box of books for a quarter. That small thing started me on a writer's journey. I thought about it Friday as I stood in the line to sell a few hundred books to Powells. I tried to decide if I'd come full-circle back to that first box of books or was simply committing literary murder.

Rose growled. I'd been aiming for a nice angled shot down the tracks and unwittingly stepped into her personal space. We were waiting on the platform for MAX, the Portland city train. It was raining, and we were the only ones not under the crowded canopy. My hooded raincoat kept most of the water off me, but this lady perched hatless on a metal bench, out in the rain, clutching a soggy MAX pass. The notice said we had 15 minutes before the next train, and I figured it was even money whether she'd jump the tracks and flee before it arrived, or drown.

The girl on the platform caught my eye because she didn't fit. Just didn't fit at all. Waiting for the train with a dozen Portlanders blinking at the bright spring sunshine, she was as sharply, carefully dressed as they were not.

Frank nodded hello at me as I sat down next to him. "I sure hope," he said anxiously, "that the train doesn't get hung up today too. I'm already late." Usually my seatmates on glassland's MAX train smile politely or nod without saying much when I sit down; it takes a couple of verbal sallies and a stop or two before they're comfortable chatting. But Frank launched into his story before I'd so much as set my purse down.