Adelaide B. Shaw
Millbrook, New York, U.S.A.

A Wednesday Afternoon

The third day of a heat wave. We escape to a new Portuguese restaurant for a leisurely lunch. Sublimely cool inside. The décor, sun colored stucco walls with a blue tile border. The food, a blend of seafood and rice; the wine, a chilled white.

I smile at the other diners; they smile back. Everyone is my friend. There is no place but here, in this cool, blue tiled room with the sound of guitars coming from an unseen source, the sweet, syrupy port slipping down my throat.

a dip in the lake
floating in the coolness
of dusk