The Pearl 2020

“I think so,” I say. My voice is muffled a little bit since my coat is
zipped up to the bottom of my face.
“Okie dokie, so we’re near 1st Ave. We’ll do some crossings back-andforth
and then I think you’re ready to try crossing 1st Ave. by yourself. Sound
good?”
I nod and extend my cane to its full length. Canes are tailored to match
your height and, a senior in high school, I’m around six-feet-two. My cane is
sixty-two inches long, resting just under my chin when standing vertically.
Normal sizing stops around sixty inches, so I had to custom-order mine. You
might not think two inches makes much of a difference, but you’d be surprised.
If I’m accustomed to a sixty-two inch cane and suddenly switched to
a sixty, it would feel like a drastic change, the weight-distribution completely
foreign.
“Hey, Jim,” I say. We begin to walk down the sidewalk. My cane taps to
either side of me, alternating with my feet. Left foot forward, cane on the
right. “I was curious if it was possible to bring a friend to one of our work
days.”
“Oh?” Jim says, perking up. “And who is that?”
“My friend, Claudia. I told her some stories, and she wanted to try
some beginner cane travel.”
“Claudia, eh?” Jim says, seeming to test the name out on his tongue.
“Is Claudia a friend, or more than a friend?”
“Just a friend,” I say, knowing where this is going and dreading it all
the same.
“Yeah, but are you hopeful that she could be more than a friend?”
“Jim,” I sigh. Claudia is one of my best friends, more like a sister than
anything, and I never had any romantic feelings towards her. My two best
friends had both tried and failed with her. All three of them had been interested
in coming on a Jim Adventure, as I’d referred to them during lunch,
where I’d tell them some of the weird things Jim did during our meetings,
but only Claudia didn’t have any after-school complications. This isn’t the
first time that Jim has inquired about my uneventful love life, but it’s still uncomfortable.
At least he didn’t ask if she was hot, like he had done before.
“She can come with us, but she has to fill out a waiver from Grant
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