O.D.D.

Adelaide was simple, old fashioned.  She wore saddle Oxford shoes and cardigan sweaters.  She cherished both the trinkets and the ideals of times passed:  hand-painted pill boxes, monocles, silver compact mirrors, old books, ceremony, chivalry.  On Saturday, April the fourth, 2008, Adelaide  purchased an antique silver pocket watch, engraved with the initials O.D.D.

Adelaide’s routine was unwavering. Like clockwork, each Sunday morning she walked to the cafe in the square.  She ordered a cup of Earl Gray and a blueberry scone, and stepped outside to the park bench under the bell tower.   From beneath the bell tower she quietly observed.  The people bustled anxiously around her, all on cell phones or thumbing through music selections on iPods, frantically checking the time, late again for something of utmost importance on their never-ending agendas.   But Adelaide spent her time  differently, deliberately slow and ceremonious.

On Sunday, April the fifth, 2008, something odd happened.  Holding her tea cup and scone, Adelaide  headed toward her usual bench beneath the bell tower, and there he sat, a stranger, in her Sunday spot.  One of his long, thin legs was crossed over the other, swinging slowly back and forth, like the pendulum of a grandfather clock.  The man was dressed from yesteryear, in a tweed vest and a gentleman’s cap, and held in his hands Sir Walter Scott’s The Antiquarian . He looked even more old fashioned than Adelaide.  She stopped and stared, contemplating her next move.  He looked up and smiled at her familiarly.  Did she know this man?  He seemed to recognize her, but she could not place him.  His face was youthful.  A sweeping tuft of sandy blond hair peeped out from the brim of his cap.  As he grinned, she noticed the apples of his high cheekbones glowing rosily. She nodded and blushed, then approached the bench, and took her place on the opposite side.  She felt out of place, right there in her own Sunday bench, and sat awkwardly, slightly panicked by the stranger’s presence, and pretended he wasn’t there.  She saw him glance at her, grinning, several times from the corner of her eye.  Finally, she sheepishly, ever so slightly turned to see him.  He looked at her at the same time,  his blue eyes crinkled beneath his tortoise shell glasses in a full on smile.  “Good morning,” he said, and tipped his cap.  “Hello,” she replied, tilted her head to the side, stared at him for a second longer, and returned to her tea.

He studied her mahogany ringlets; the antique hair pin, holding a few of the curls away from her face, glistened in the sun.  Her skin was creamy, blushing peachy, dappled with freckles.  Under the shelter of long, curled up eyelashes,  her green eyes glanced from her tea, to the people around her, to the man beside her.

The bells chimed at the changing of the hour.  The man reached into the pocket of his trousers and retrieved a silver pocket watch.  Nine o’clock on the dot.  He slid his hand beneath his vest, removed from it a yellowed envelope, closed it in the pages of The Antiquarian, and rose from the bench.  “Well,” he tipped his hat again, “I’ll  be seeing you.”

Adelaide glanced up to bid him farewell, but he was gone.  Beside her lay The Antiquarian.  She picked it up and noticed a weathered edge peeking out.  She opened the book and found an envelope, sealed with emerald wax and stamped with the initials O.D.D.  On the front of the envelope, in emerald calligraphy, “Adelaide.”  Her hands trembled as she pried the edges of the envelope open.  She unfolded the letter inside, on stationary embossed with the same initials, and read,

There is no time like the present.

Yours,
Oliver Donald Dixon

Tags: 30 Day Challenge, bell tower, odd, time