At some kind of outdoor affair. Summertime or so. I decide to leave and start to collect my papers and such from a table (picnic table?). Look up and see Ohio and some guy a hundred feet away or so … they haven’t noticed me, so I move frantically to escape undetected. Then I see that the vehicle I’m to take, which I’d previously seen only from the open back, is a black hearse – theirs.
Instead, I take a bus – a school bus, actually. Its route is more or less through Moraine and West Carrollton, and I wind up disembarking at a small, yellow-infused festival. (Spurred by memories of the Latin American restaurant my sister took me to?)
Somehow, I’m one of four (!) judges for a beauty contest. We’re given papers with the contestants’ names and info on one side and their photos on the other. Looking at the name I’m about to select, I see below it Ohio’s – only this time, there’s no married surname behind it. I flip the paper, see her photo in a skimpy bikini, and skewer the results so she wins. Afterward, she kisses me, tells me how desperate she’s become, which is why she entered the contest.
Do we ever escape the past?
Interesting story!!