Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Shayla, Shayla, my boyfriend's back

Thinking about Cary Grant led to thoughts of Dad and thoughts of Dad led to, well, back to Shayla. She’d run away at fifteen, called Angie from a phone booth.
“You know, Angie,” she’d said darkly, “you know, why I’m not there.”
“Did something happen?” Angie felt a lump in the pit of her stomach. “With Dad?”
“No, but it could,” Shayla said, “it could.”
Shayla came back ten days later. For the next couple of months they shared Angie’s twin bed instead of staying in their separate rooms. Nothing happened.
During that time, their father was diagnosed with liver cancer and his decline was rapid. At the funeral, held on an impossibly sunny day, Shayla had cried harder than anyone.
Angie’s cell rang, interrupting her thoughts. It was someone from her real estate office with a number of work related questions. Angie had to snap out of her daydream and deal with the real world for awhile. After they’d dealt with a couple of issues her assistant asked how things were going. “They’re not really going at all,” she said again staring out at the mountains but the scenery is,” and here she paused as a man entered the lobby, “the scenery, is gorgeous,” she said, looking not at the mountains but at the man.
The guy nodded at her, then did a double take and said, “Shayla?”

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