Andy makes his gin and tonics using Dorothy Parker gin, Fevertree tonic, and a slice of lemon. Personally, I’m not that picky, as long as it’s a double, but I’ve come around to his style, and the last time we were in Boston I had some Fevertree on hand, and a bottle of Plymouth (which will do in a pinch) so he whipped one up for me. It’s a refreshing change of pace to have someone else make a cocktail, and I savored this one as hints of summer started making their appearance.
It began with the cries of a hawk in the pines across the street from our home. High up in the lofty boughs, the sounds brought back the early summer of last year, and all its requisite drama. I wasn’t quite ready for it. Let’s enjoy a slow spring, I thought, even if it meant a few frost warnings past the supposed-frost-free date. Ghosts of previous sunny days also came back, seemingly out of nowhere. I was in a store studying a woman who looked familiar, trying to figure out if she was someone I once worked with, when I finally realized that she was one of the security guards at the courthouse where I had jury duty. The memories of that trial – almost a year ago – came back in disturbing fragments – things I thought I had buried long ago. Still there, still smoldering. How many memories do we carry that threaten to bring us down should they be jarred into view again?
There is a new season at hand, however. And like Mrs. Peacock I am determined to enjoy myself, threatening hawks and resurfacing memories be damned.
