She finds a seat by the fireplace, bobs her head to the music, and enjoys the over-priced drink of the day. A few more people sit by the fireplace and she wonders if they’d like her seat, but she likes her seat so she doesn’t move. In her twenties, she would have carried a book or a notebook. In her sixties, the thought of hauling out her phone to look preoccupied is upsetting.
The people next to her seem to have come from seeing a movie. They interrupt each other, highlighting the plot, the facial expressions, the music, the final scenes. She realizes she has seen the film, laughs a bit, then leans over to add her own two cent’s worth. Someone tells her to pull her chair over and join them. She can’t believe her luck.
They exchange names. Talk about ticks while out hiking, careless drivers while biking, and someone recognizes her as the woman he sees walking the cute dog all over town. “They look just alike,” he laughs. His friends look momentarily embarrassed. “No, really. The dog wears this pink harness, and is this cute white furry creature, and I remember you wearing a matching pink coat.”
“That isn’t deliberate,” she mutters. “I mean, the coat. Well, the hair, well, that just happens.” They laugh and they include her drink with their next round.
“I love your white hair,” Maura coos. “I wish my mom would quit dying hers.”
Just like that, she no longer feels as if she’s in her twenties, remembering when she’d head out of the bar with a young man looking for a late-night breakfast diner, an invite to one or the other’s apartment, a long walk through town. Then she returns to the present, back to her sixties, and a new but old Cowboy Junkies song plays, and she says, “I love ‘Don’t Let it Bring you Down.’ I can’t believe this is the Cowboy Junkies.”
“You are so old school!” Maura holds her glass for a toast: “To the old school!”
To the old school, she thinks, the day no longer feeling so grey.
Author's Comment
“A Temporary Guest” was taken from a current work in progress.
Encounter with the Future is a political and social drama running parallel with a rapid coming of age. It is a true story of an 18-year-old girl who arrived in London from behind the iron curtain alone. She became an emigrant when her country was invaded by Soviet Union in August of 1968. She went from sleeping in the telephone booth at London’s Victoria railway station, to waitressing, then becoming a model, actress, even a James Bond girl.
This engrossing memoir is told in series of essays, some previously published, some wholly new.
Encounter with the Future is a mirror of an unforgettable journey filled with fear, pain, veracity, and laughter.
“Pavel is a natural storyteller and shrewd observer with a deep understanding of people. She keeps readers engaged across decades, continents, and pages.”
— Publishers Weekly
“Pavel manages, from her present and sophisticated vantage, to evoke the innocence of youth.”
— Nicolas Delbanco, author of Why Writing Matters
“A touching tale of a woman who makes it through the tornadoes of life and still comes out centered.”
— Goodreads
“Beautifully written and captivating…it will make you look differently at your own life.”
— Cindy Myers, author of Mile High Mystery
Available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop, and your local independent bookstore.
Diane Payne’s most recent and forthcoming publications include: Best of Microfiction 2022, Quarterly West, Cutleaf, Miramachi Flash, Microlit Almanac, Spry Literary Journal, Another Chicago Magazine, Whale Road Review, Fourth River, Pine Hills Review, Tiny Spoon, Ellipsis, Bending Genres, New York Times, Unlikely Stories, Hot Flash Fiction, The Blue Nib, anti-heroin chic, X-ray Literary Magazine, Oyster Review, Novus, Notre Dame Review, Obra/Artiface, Reservoir, Southern Fugitives, Watershed Review, Superstition Review, Windmill Review, Tishman Review, Whiskey Island, Lunch Ticket, Split Lip Review, The Offing, Elke: A little Journal, Punctuate, Outpost 19, Abandon Journal, McNeese Review, The Meadow, Burnt Pine, Story South, and Five to One. 
Marilyn Whitehorse describes her layered life: "In the topside world, I teach academic writing to people who are learning English at Kapiolani Community College in Honolulu, Hawaii. In the river that flows beneath I am a writer, photographer and collage artist."