<\/p>\n
The phone rings, and you avoid answering it. It\u2019s late. 10PM is late for you. You\u2019re already been in bed, in your pajama bottoms. By the sixth ring, the caller gives up. It\u2019s over, so you think, but within seconds it rings again. You opt to pick it up this time.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n This better be good.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u201cHello, Kris?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n You smile. You know the voice. An image swirls through your mind as you listen to Ann\u2019s voice. Telling you she\u2019s just blowing back into town after a long interstate drive. Saying she just took a trip down South. Claiming she wanted to be back where it was warm\u2013 back where a girl could get her accent back. The rednecks didn\u2019t matter, she just wanted to be home for a while.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSorry I woke you, but I never tossed your number. I\u2019m dying to see you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhere are you?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAt a diner.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As her fetching sort of magnolia drawl registers, you get a familiar sinking feeling.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhy don\u2019t you come here?\u201d you venture, knowing beforehand that this was a nonstarter\u00a0 \u2013\u00a0 your relationship, if there\u2019s ever such an entity, always has to be on her turf. \u201c…It\u2019s better you come here. I mean I want to talk. I don\u2019t want to start anything, right away. I just want to see you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m at the Flameburger. I won\u2019t keep you up late.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n You frown and whine, \u201cYou know me. I already think it\u2019s late.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWell, then I won\u2019t keep you up much later then.\u201d You promise you will be there in fifteen minutes; it\u2019s ten minutes away.<\/span><\/p>\n You throw on a T-shirt and some clunky shoes, and you wrap yourself up in a bulky black overcoat. Outside, the icy wind whips back your hair around so angrily as you make your way down the road but all of a sudden, you stop. You stand still.<\/span><\/p>\n You can\u2019t do it.<\/span><\/p>\n You can\u2019t make yourself go there and say, \u201cReally, really…\u201d and you smile as she lifts the coffee cup to your lips and she talks about the sweetness of Raleigh. You can\u2019t smile and you can\u2019t order a hamburger and laugh and pick up the check because she says, \u201cNo, no, I\u2019ll cover it\u201d and you say, \u201cWell, okay,\u201d smiling and springing for the tip.<\/span><\/p>\n You remember the last time you saw her she was with another girl buying cards at the only openly gay women\u2019s bookstore in town. When you saw her with the girl, your smile went away, emptiness filled you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s only a matter of time. The lesbian population in Madison is so incestuous, relationships and marriage and contort. You\u2019d see the two over and over again, not only at your bookstore but at your dance club and your part of the park. No one belongs to anyone, and now she wants to talk and have coffee at the Flameburger.<\/span><\/p>\n You can\u2019t do it. Not again.<\/span><\/p>\n You walk back to your apartment. Because you are now against it. The wind is kind. You wonder if Eliana would have employed the old standbys: <\/span>… I knew it wouldn\u2019t last between her and me… I didn\u2019t love her … I only love\u2026<\/span><\/i> That would be nice to hear in a born-again Southern accent, even nicer to believe as you re-enter your apartment, alone.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The phone rings, and you avoid answering it. It\u2019s late. 10PM is late for you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[16],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1041"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1583,"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041\/revisions\/1583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}