Eagle Point

One late summer afternoon, Patrick found out his roommates would be working downtown until past midnight. Patrick was excited to have the place to himself for the first time in what felt like forever. He texted Samantha, asking her to come over and hang out. He added a promise to order food from her favorite restaurant, an excellent Thai place that her family had been going to for years. Once the other guys were gone, Patrick began to clean up the apartment: the kitchen, bathroom, and his bedroom, which was actually the living room.

Samantha replied a little after sundown. Her text said that she'd come by for a bit, but couldn't stay long. Patrick was disappointed, but he reasoned that she had a lot on her mind. Classes at U of D were starting next week and, though Patrick hadn't gone to college himself, he imagined she'd have a lot to do before fall semester started. Still, he hoped that Samantha would stay longer if the food was already delivered by the time she got there. He called the restaurant and ordered her regular dish.

The chicken pumpkin curry arrived just after eight, brought by an older hippie-looking guy that Patrick had seen all over Dubuque. Patrick tipped him a couple of bucks and transferred the meals onto plates. But as he was doing so, Samantha texted again to say that she was running later than she had planned and probably wouldn't have time to drop by.

Patrick stared at the message on his phone for a long time, searching for clues. He did the math and realized he hadn't seen Samantha much during the back half of the summer and his heart began to ache at the thought that she might had moved on without telling him. He searched his memory for the last time they had really spent time alone together and realized it had been well over a month.

They had walked together through Eagle Point Park. At the time, Patrick had been focused on his music again, a reoccurring theme. He told Samantha that he was thinking about regrouping with his old rock band. He'd been writing a lot of new songs on his guitar and reworking some old stuff from when the band was playing a lot of gigs, just after Patrick had dropped out of school during his senior year. But he hadn't spoken to some of those guys in over six years by that point.

It didn't matter in the end. Not very long after that day, Patrick stopped writing new songs and nothing became of his plan.

Standing in his kitchen over a month later, Patrick tried to remember what else he and Samantha had talked about at Eagle Point, if maybe she'd mentioned another guy or something. He couldn't think of anything to that end and it was killing him to not just call her and-

Ames.

Patrick remembered. Back in the park, Samantha had asked him what he thought about the distance to Ames. She wondered how difficult it would be to transfer her college credits to the University of Iowa. To Patrick, she sounded like she was just thinking out loud. Not understanding what she was actually saying, he had told her it didn't matter where she went to school. He thought it was the beginning of a discussion when it was really the end of quiet transition.

Standing in the kitchen during his night to himself, Patrick listened to every hum emitting from every appliance in the empty apartment. He picked up his phone and texted Samantha back. "All OK. Good luck at Iowa next wk." Patrick stared at his sent message for a while, then brought a plate of curry into the living room to find something on TV.