The Man in the Yellow Beach Shop

Jamie Reese Zimmerman

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Your back is facing me, but I’m pretty sure it’s you, even though we’ve never met. You’re kneeling putting something I can’t quite see from my angle on a shelf. You work in a beach shop. The one on the left side of the street with the tethered yellow awning. The same beach shop I think I may have stolen something from when I was a kid. I can’t seem to recall if that is a real memory or a dream I once had. This time I’m not a kid, you aren’t either. Although, your smile luminates the way I thought only a child’s could. And there’s no stealing, not yet, but there will be. You will somehow with one clean swoop steal all the caution cones from my heart and park your muddy tires in my driveway. But before that, you will turn around, our eyes will meet, mine, emerald leaves, yours, bark of the same tree, and I will awkwardly wave, the way a first Bumble date would, and my dog will stand on two legs begging you to rise to your feet and greet us, and you will do just that. We will walk on a crowded sidewalk bustling with teenagers in clothing made to be too small for their bodies until we find our way to a quiet bench across from the overpriced doggie boutique. You will say words, a lot of them, and call your self-determined excessive talking word diarrhea. I will be tickled by the use of the word diarrhea in your sentence. You will soon walk me to my car and not comment on the make or model. I will like that. I will notice your spider tattoo on your right calf with eight broken cherry stems for legs. We will kiss moments after but not without you asking for consent first. I will like that, too. I will lose time in that kiss. The only kind of losing you can do without a side-effect of grief. And just like that, in 42 minutes of time, you will have changed my entire summer.

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Jamie Reese Zimmerman has spent her adult life jumping back and forth from the East to the West Coast of the United States more times than she would like to admit. She has found love in four paws and has found resilience and patience while befriending the discomfort of dealing with a chronic illness over the past two years. She writes because she is convinced her fingers often know more than her brain does and yearns to be let in on their secret wisdom. Jamie has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Oregon State University, a Master of Science in Applied Gerontology, and a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology. She often writes creative nonfiction and poetry for both her own heart and nonprofit organizations alike and serves her community as a yoga and meditation teacher.

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