“. . . monkey. It has the saddest eyes. And I swear they follow me.”
“Monkey?” I was certain I had misheard her.
She laughed. “I know, right? It’s crazy. He’s just a little dude, not much bigger than a cat. And he has this great personality. Come on, I’ll show you.”
A teenaged woman in a duffle coat and hiking boots tugged on my elbow to lead me across a strip mall parking lot to meet a monkey full of personality. It was decidedly not an ordinary day, yet the strangeness now had a natural quality. At least I could not, on the spur of the moment, think of anything more meaningful to do. But, in my middle-aged life, meaning was always companioned by anxiety. As I walked at Chelsea’s side to meet the little dude whose sad eyes followed her, I felt apprehensive, not because of the strangene
