The second morning in a row, I awoke with pounding in my dreams, though this time it came from my neighbors apartment and not my front door. Having a wannabe DJ for a next door neighbor is less than pleasant on a hangover, but I was feeling more tolerant that usual and merely threw a glare and a few muttered imprecations at the wall before heading into the shower.
The hot shower has to be one of the greatest inventions of mankind and stood for a long moment, my head resting against the tiles. The coolness on my shoulder and head contrasted with the water that reddened my skin as I drew pointless squiggles in the condensation.
The night before had a hazy quality in my mind though not the cratered landscape of a black-out drunken episode. It felt more like a memory of skydiving, a rushing screaming terror with scattered tiny instances of clarity. I smiled again and ducked under the spray.
I sat down to a late lunch, still in a towel and flipped the phone open and turned it on. I chewed and idly watched the boot up screen, mind mercifully blank for once. I tensed as it searched for signal and found it. A few moments later the message tone sounded, indicating new voicemail. I took another bite and punched the key for voice mail.
“You have thirteen new voice mails,” intoned the smarmy electronically generated voice. When the same voice announced a message from Rachel, I quickly punched the seven to delete it. I did this eight times before it announced a number with an unfamiliar area code. My chewing slowed. When Jen’s voice began playing I stopped chewing entirely.
“Hi, I’m ah, detained in town a bit longer, family business, and well, my family is making me a bit crazy. I was wondering if you could bail me out for a few hours? I just need a bit of sanity. Call me back,” She rattled off a phone number faster than I could write. I hit replay and noticed the timestamp set the call for just an hour ago. I repeated the number to myself as I killed the voice mail and dialed the number. My finger hovered over the talk button and I set the phone down and rubbed my eyes. I sighed, “Ron, you might not be as stupid as you look,” and I punched the button.
When I arrived at Tom’s, she was already there, just right of my usual stool, where we’d sat when it was Ron, her and I. She was still in school, Ron and I playing the older, world-wise types. Eric was leaning across the bar, his hands moving as they talked. I could see by the way her bright hair shook that she was laughing. I slid into my seat.
“Mike! Damn, when is Ron showing up? We can have a reunion.”
“On a Sunday? Hell, Melanie won’t let him out tonight, you know that.”
“Not even for a special occasion like this? Oh right, she hates you.”
“Still? I’d have thought she’d have gotten over that,” Jen said, “Thanks for saving me, if I had to spend another evening listening to my father cheer on the jackasses on AM radio I was going to take their advice and buy a gun. Unfortunately for them I’d use it to kill them all.”
“Weren’t you a Young Republican once? I seem to recall you campaigning for Bob Dole.”
“If you’re looking to play the youthful indiscretion game, I think I can win that one, now shut your mouth, buy me a drink and tell me I’m pretty.”
“You’re pretty. Eric, get this blackmailing bitch what ever silly umbrella drink she’s learned to love while living in tropical paradise.”
“Whiskey and water as always Eric.”
After we’d gotten our drinks, Jen turned to me said, “Look, I’m sorry our last meeting was so short and after running into Ron earlier today, I’m really sorry I caused a fight with your girlfriend.”
“You didn’t cause a fight with my girlfriend, she caused it because that’s what she does and I’m happy to be done with her. I’m still not even sure how she ended up with the title ‘girlfriend’ for that matter.”
“Surely there was something there at some point.”
I sipped my beer, “No, there wasn’t. I met her one night here with Ron, she was an acquaintance of Melanie’s of all things and we got drunk and ended up in bed. Then it happened again, and again. After a while it just became a regular thing for us to fuck and I was too lazy to care when she started referring to me as her boyfriend.”
“Inertia can be deadly.”
“Millions of car accident deaths agree,” I could tell she was looking for a way to bring something up, but didn’t know how to say it. “So what family matters have got you stuck back here again and how long are you stuck here?”
“Mike, I’m not going back to Florida.”
I stared at her for a moment, then at my beer, then at her again, “Ok, tell me a story.”
“There’s no story, I just don’t like Florida, it’s a bug infested hole and I miss being here, I miss my family, and I miss you and Ron, and I of course miss Eric.”
“Hear that? I can bring a woman back home from across the country!” Eric yelled, having walked up at that moment.
Some wit across bar asked, “How much money do you owe her?”
“Bunch of funny types in here tonight,” he said, “Another round?”
“I think we’re going to need a couple shots.”
“Celebrating?”
“Assimilating. Make it tequila, no wheels.”
“So what happened to Florida as the land of golden opportunity?” I asked after the burn of the cheap tequila had faded a bit from my mouth.
“Nothing, I got my opportunity to get some experience, and I’ve already got a job with the paper here because my resume is no longer a big blank.”
“So you’re back then?”
“Well, I’m here to find a place to live and then I’ve got to go back and wrap and things up in Florida, hire some movers and then I’ll be back.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this the other night?”
“I was happy to see you and I didn’t know how you’d take the news.”
“You thought I’d be angry or something?”
“I don’t know Mike, I was angry with you when I left, and we didn’t speak once the entire time I was living there.”
“I do recall that being your decision, as I didn’t know where the hell you were, and you never contacted me until the other day.”
“I know that, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if you were angry with me and when I talked to you on the phone and you sounded happy to hear from me, I didn’t want to spoil it, not right away.”
I sipped my beer, “I don’t understand why you thought I’d be angry with you for moving back.”
“I thought, I left you, went to Florida, angry with you because you wouldn’t go with me, and now here I am, back after a couple short years, ready to come home and it’s like you were right when you said Florida was nowhere, and you just sit there like it’s no big deal. You’re still as frustrating as ever.” She wasn’t quite yelling, but her face was a bit flushed and her eyes were sharp.
I blinked at her, “Um well, I guess I should say, ‘I told you so.’ and do a little victory dance,” and I jumped off my bar stool and danced around a bit while crowing, “I was right! Oh yeah, gonna rub it in, I was right.”
I sat back down and smiled at her, “That better?”
She was laughing but she repressed it to glare at me, “You are a complete jackass.”
I shrugged.
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