Summer Love

Last Friday, I was pushing Andrew in the stroller along our local bike path. We were walking behind a young woman, dressed in a black shirt and black skinny jeans. I was admiring her cute flower print belt, and assuming she was on her way to work at Starbucks, hurrying along with her long dark curls bouncing gently as she walked.

She fumbled in her large purse and pulled out a fuchsia pink case. I watched her, phone to her ear, and wondered who she was talking to on her way to work.

As we approached the back door of a restaurant, she walked up to a young man in a white cook's coat standing there and, without skipping a beat, put her hand on his cheek and kissed him.

She smiled and said something to him, doing a half turn and then spun back into her walking rhythm down the path. He stood watching her go, and then she turned, blowing him a kiss. He put his hand up to catch the kiss, then let his hand fall to his side, fingers still closed. He watched her take several more steps away before going back inside the restaurant.

He is who she had called.

I felt a bit giddy, like I had been let in on a little secret--what a sweet exchange I had chanced upon. And I thought about that young couple the rest of the morning, imagining all kinds of stories about them.

Ah, young love. Ah, summer love.