A New Leaf by Cheri Crystal

Author:Cheri Crystal [Crystal, Cheri]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2014-07-06T16:00:00+00:00

Saturday morning I woke before the birds. Although my room still pitch dark, I threw back the covers and padded out. Clad only in sleep shorts and t-shirt, I stepped onto the wooden deck off my kitchen to see what needed to be done in the yard that couldn’t wait. The moon still hung low on the horizon but I was too impatient for this day to begin to bother with sleeping late on my day off. I prepared hot cereal, chopped up fruit and had my first cup of coffee while waiting for the sun to rise. It finally arrived hindered by clouds with a biting wind that reddened my cheeks and numbed my bare feet and legs, but I didn’t care whatever the weather. I was going on a picnic with a beautiful woman I had dubbed Temptress, abandoning park bench lady, because that is exactly what she was to me, a temptress. Not knowing her name was only a minor inconvenience that I planned to resolve.

All week, I had imagined lying beside her bathed in her beauty, among other things I dared not hope for, afraid I’d jinx it. Social norms sure had changed while I busily avoided dating. This picnic was a date and not just two women having a friendly lunch. I never thought I’d live to see the day same-sex marriage became legal in more than a few states, but there you go!

I glanced up at the sky; squinted as the sun insistently poked out from behind fluffy white clouds for more than a few minutes at a time; and knew things were definitely looking up. It was the kind of clear, crisp, pre-Thanksgiving day, apparently holding back winter for as long as possible and barely succeeding. The squirrels noisily cheeping like angry birds and chasing each other up and down the branches of the old oak that had weathered more than its share of storms. I reached for the bird feeder and took it indoors to the slop sink in the laundry room. The warmth of the tumbling dryer was delightful as I scrubbed and refilled the feeder with top-notch bird seed and two kinds of suet. My temptress had mentioned hot flashes.

I had not started my changes, but if I had to guess, I would say she probably had. She was obviously older than I was, but I could not be certain by how much, nor did I care. There was little I knew about her, but I was dying to find out. The hour hand moved much too slowly. With the feeder ready to go, I put it back on its pole and retreated to my spot behind the sliding glass doors to wait for the birds to feel safe enough to feast. I planned to help fatten them up before winter set in.

After the sparrows had their fill, I noticed a new family of dark-eyed juncos I hadn’t seen the year before. They preferred to eat their seed from the

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