have to be in Phuket for you to take my breath away. That doesn’t rhyme… but we do.
Love, Tommy
“Are you serious?” Annalee had closed the card and looked at him. “We’re doing… what… a scavenger hunt?”
“We are.” He had looked so handsome. Crewneck navy sweater and dark jeans. His hair still blond from the summer sun. “I’m at your beck and call, my fair princess. Think about the clues. Where to first?”
“Uhh.” She looked at the card again. “Chick-fil-A?”
“Ding-ding-ding. You got it! That chicken place.” He grinned at her. “Let’s go!”
She hadn’t understood the 2.1 part until they got inside the fast-food restaurant. One of Tommy’s friends from the basketball team was working behind the counter and Tommy steered them to his line. When it was their turn, Tommy gave her a soft nudge. “Go ahead… place your order.”
A laugh caught her off guard. Whatever this was, Tommy’s friend had clearly been expecting them. There was a line forming behind them. Annalee tried to compose herself. “I’ll have a 2.1… I think.” She looked at Tommy. “Right?”
He shrugged at his friend. “The princess wants a 2.1. My treat, of course.”
Tommy’s friend had Annalee’s meal ready. Grilled chicken and a side salad. Her favorite. He handed her the food. “There’s the two.” He chuckled and pulled another pink envelope from beneath the counter. Annalee’s name was written across the front. “And here’s the one.”
When they were back in his Jeep, she opened the card and found another poem. The journey led them to a pottery craft store where they made matching mugs and then left them to be fired in the kiln. Next was a stop at her favorite coffee shop, where they shared a pair of pumpkin spice lattes.
“You don’t even like pumpkin.” She had given him a funny face as they got into the Jeep again. “What are you doing?”
“Seeing things from your side of the fence.” He took a sip and shuddered. “Just this one time, anyway.”
Here in the tube she relived each moment.
At each stop the cashier was ready with a pink card, and each card held another poem, another hint for the next stage of their adventure.
The next poem led them to a custom cookie store. Behind the counter an older woman seemed to recognize Tommy as soon as they walked in. Tommy grinned at her. “My princess has an order, I believe.”
Annalee was getting used to this. “Yes… I’d like a 2.1 please.” She laughed. “Whatever that means.”
“Well…” The woman giggled. She had to have been in her eighties. This must’ve been the highlight of her week. “Today only… a 2.1 is this.” She lifted a small pizza-sized box from beneath the counter and opened the lid.
Pink writing on a pair of enormous chocolate chip cookies read:
Princess lovely
Girl so fair…
I think we make
A lasting pair!
Tommy winked at her. “Pair… get it? Two cookies. Because we’re the perfect duo!”
Again Annalee laughed. The woman gave her yet another pink envelope, and this one directed the two of them to the Fishers Topgolf, twenty miles northeast of Indianapolis. On the ride there, Tommy played Broadway show tunes. Hits from Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen and The Lion King.
They sang at the top of their lungs and laughed at how they had been in the school musical together fall of their freshman year. He had been Frank Butler in Annie Get Your Gun and she’d been Annie. That was how they met.
A “showmance,” they had called it.
The noises in the tube were louder now. Annalee squeezed her eyes more tightly shut.
Don’t think about it. You’re at Topgolf now.
Topgolf turned out to be the last stop on their list of adventures that night. A few times a year, Tommy golfed with his dad and uncles. But Annalee had never done more than miniature golf. That night nearly every time she took the club and tried to hit the ball, she made some mistake.
First, she had accidentally tipped the ball, causing it to roll off the platform in slow motion and down into the scoring area below. As if the wind had blown it off the putting surface. For her next turn, she hit the ball straight at the course map directly in front of her. It had ricocheted off the hard surface and barely missed her face as it settled into the wasteland below.
Both of them had collapsed in a hug of giddy joy, holding each other up so they wouldn’t fall to the ground laughing. When Tommy could finally