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7.22.2008
“I miss you and am going to call you in hopes that you have time to talk (YOU BETTER). Fair warning…”
…
“Thanks for the warning,” you answer wearily. Too many hours spent hunched over documents or data sheets or keyboards or graphic novels. I dive in, phone pressed against the side of my head and spending run-on sentences like I’ve just won the grammar lotto. As you speak, I sip my vanilla ice blend, sitting in a comfortable 70 degrees with my nice shoes on. I really like my outfit today, but the scuff mark on my right boot is bothering me. A cute French boy with rainbows on his feet and a striped shirt on his back sits across from me. The cafe is pretty empty; everyone’s outside in the beautiful weather.
I’m pretty surprised you answered. I know you don’t get reception in the basement. Oh you do? Well that’s great! Now we can talk! How’s your mom!! You sound tired, and I tell you so, but extract the worry from my voice. We talk about your studies, my anxieties, our parents. How’s grad school? Yea I still don’t have a full-time job. We talk about life getting too busy for personal relationships and isn’t that sad? But we don’t linger on this topic long enough to reflect sadly.
Remember how we used to have sleepovers at each other’s houses every Friday? Every Saturday I remember standing at my doorway, or on the doorstep of your house, waving goodbye and feeling that the time passed too quickly. “Don’t you get tired of sleepovers?” I think your mom asked that one. My mom just complained about having to drive to your house every other week. We used to make lists or play with dolls, but later grew up to go to separate schools.
One night my parents had a dinner party and you and your brother came over along with some other kids I don’t talk to now. Your brother made up some stupid scary story that wasn’t really scary at all, but curiously, had a man dressed in a bunny costume involved. Do you remember that? And I wanted ice cubes in my milk because everyone else was getting ice cubes even though they weren’t drinking milk. You told me you thought it was weird putting ice cubes in milk. I shook my head – it’s not weird – as I watched the cold oblong shapes float around in their white bath.
But that was a long time ago. Man, that was a long time ago.
