So here you are, close to ten years married, and the phone rings and you don’t recognize the caller ID phone number which makes you curious so you pick it up and say hello and a sexy baritone from deep inside your past says hey there and completely fucks up your day.
So you thought you were so totally over this jerk and yet you stammer because you even think that this may be him and when he tells you who it is you’ve already pretty much gone through the whole argument as to why you should hang up right then and there and lost.
Small talk tells him right up front (within the first ten minutes anyway) that you are married–and yes, that’s happily but there’s a touch of wistfulness you think that even this clod can pick up on so you tell yourself to tone it down. And stop smiling.
You light a cigarette and drag the phone cord through the kitchen, out the door, into the garage because your wedding vows included never smoking in the house.
(back in a bit)
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology