Seeing Her Again

She called me last night at 8:00. It was good to hear her voice, even if the words she spoke were all too familiar: "Can you do me a favor?"

"What?" I asked.

"I know I told you we didn't need your songbook, but the one I thought was going to be here isn't. We have no songs. Can you FedEx your songbook to us?"

The songbook in question is a black three-ring binder full of lyrics and guitar chords. Many of the songs are praise songs; some are popular radio hits. All include transparancies for overhead projectors.

Without the songs, camp just isn't camp.

I said, "You can't have camp without songs. If I FedEx them to you, you won't have them until Tuesday dinner --- and that's not soon enough. If you meet me halfway, I'll bring them to you tonight."

So I drove back to Auburn, on those roads which start out straight but eventually start to curve around low hills. She was waiting for me, at our pre-arranged meeting place: the parking lot at McDonald's.

She walked over to me and gave me a kiss sweeter than any I had ever known. That's when I noticed the half-eaten McFlurry in her hand. "I'll trade you one songbook for the rest of your McFlurry," I said.

We didn't linger long; just long enough to watch a lady pull into the gas station across the street, set off the alarm on her shiny white SUV, and then frantically try to figure out how to make it quiet.

We gave each other a hug, and we got back into our respective cars --- she with the songbook, me with the McFlurry.

As I headed for home, I realized that the sweetness of her kiss really had very little to do with the McFlurry.