SATURDAY, AUGUST 14, 2010
Town Square is Parkhaven’s cheesy attempt at a downtown. The last time I visited here was almost ten years ago. Back then it had been an empty block with a few saplings no one had even bothered to remove the nursery tags from, surrounded on three sides by vacant stores abandoned after the tourists that they’d planned to sell fudge, T-shirts, and wind chimes to failed to materialize. There was a swing, but Aubrey and I were always alone playing on it and that had depressed me so much that I made a point of avoiding Town Square. A fact that Aubrey was well aware of.
As Martin and I approach, it is clear that Town Square is not quite so dire any longer. It certainly isn’t deserted. Signs of life abound. The scrubby trees have grown into broad-leafed oaks shading the park where a pack of boys in droopy shorts and thick-soled tennis shoes perform skateboard tricks on the sidewalks. Moms sit around on benches while their offspring romp on safety-engineered play equipment. Businesses have opened on the streets around the park: a card shop, a coffee shop with a display case of cookies and muffins in the window, an antique store, a Thai restaurant, a shop advertising custom tilework, and a clothes store with a rack of summer dresses marked for clearance displayed on the sidewalk.
The block at the far end of the park is still vacant except for an overgrowth of weeds and one single, solitary vintage Airstream trailer. Even shaded by the tall oaks, the polished aluminum pill bug’s mirror finish shines like a huge, segmented silver bead. In spite of the new life around Town Square, the trailer is still too shiny, too hip for Parkhaven. A Grand Opening banner flaps bravely above the trailer. A few twinkle lights twined over the trailer’s humped arc try for a festive touch. After the genuine gaiety of the street-fair atmosphere in Sycamore Heights, they seem forced and unconvincing.
We park out of sight and sneak in on foot for a closer look. Never taking his eyes off the trailer, Martin points to our right like the leader of a reconnaissance patrol silently signaling to his men, and we tack off at an angle that will keep us out of Aubrey’s sight lines.
We hide behind the racks of sale items outside the clothes store for a long time while Martin watches a form that I know to be Aubrey, moving about inside the trailer. Within the shiny frame of the silver window she moves with efficient grace, doing things I never taught her to do, off on a field trip I never signed a permission slip for.
Martin is mesmerized, grinning as he watches his daughter for the first time in sixteen years. He doesn’t seem to notice that there is no one, not one single customer, outside the trailer.