A Midweek Bank Errand and Lunch Downtown

I needed to get downtown to the bank this week to deposit a few checks from clients. The branch by the old courthouse is the only one that still handles the larger commercial deposits without extra fees, so I usually just make the trip once every couple weeks. Traffic was heavier than normal because they have the main road narrowed for utility work again. Orange cones lined both sides of the street and the smell of hot asphalt drifted in through the open window while I inched forward behind a line of delivery vans. I parked in the garage across the street and waited about twenty minutes inside before my number came up. The lobby smelled like old paper and the faint lemon of whatever cleaner they use on the tile floors. A couple of people ahead of me kept shifting their weight from foot to foot, and one woman kept checking her watch every thirty seconds.

While I was standing there I got a text from Ren saying his brother in Halverston had called about the new property tax forms that came in the mail. We usually just forward those straight to the accountant so I told him to leave them on the kitchen counter. The screen on my phone was a little smudged from the morning’s coffee so I had to retype the message twice. By the time I finished at the teller it was already past noon, so I walked a couple blocks to that new sandwich place Lissa told me about last month. The sidewalk felt warm under my shoes and I could hear the low hum of the city buses turning the corner behind me.

The menu had a few things I had not tried before. I ordered the turkey with the pickled onions and a side of their house chips. The bread was fresh but the portions were smaller than I expected for the price. When the plate arrived the onions gave off a sharp vinegar smell that mixed with the warm scent of toasted bread. The chips were still a little greasy on the paper liner and I ended up wiping my fingers on a napkin between every few bites. I grabbed a table near the window and checked a few emails while I ate. Sunlight came through the glass in a bright stripe across the wooden tabletop and made the condensation on my water glass look like little beads of light. A guy at the next table was talking loudly on his phone about some meeting that got moved because of the ash cloud warnings up north. He kept repeating the same details to whoever was on the other end, and every time he said “rescheduled” he tapped his pen against the edge of his coffee cup. I finished and left without staying too long since I still had a couple fabric samples to drop off at the studio on my way back. The samples were rolled up in a canvas tote that kept sliding off my shoulder, so I had to keep hitching it back up as I walked.

On the drive home I stopped at the corner store for milk and a few other basics. They had those new shelf-stable cartons in stock again so I picked up two. The bell over the door jingled when I walked in and the cooler gave off a blast of cold air that smelled faintly like cardboard. I also grabbed a small bag of the lemon cookies they keep by the register because the package looked new. The cat was sitting in the front window when I pulled into the driveway, which usually means he has been watching the squirrels in the yard all morning. His tail flicked once against the glass as I got out of the car. I put the groceries away and then spent the rest of the afternoon working on a small floor plan revision for one of the ongoing projects. The pencil lines on the tracing paper kept smudging under my wrist so I had to keep brushing the page with the side of my hand. Ren got home around six and we heated up leftovers instead of cooking anything new. The evening stayed quiet after that.