One Final Time

The phone clamored incessantly. Ruby reached over to her bedside table and felt around for the receiver, her eyes not opening. She picked up the phone and said a groggy hello into the phone.

“Hi,” Tera's voice rang out clear through the receiver. “Did I wake you?”

“Yeah, but its okay,” Ruby said, sitting up and propping her pillows up behind her. “What's up?”

“Well,” began Tera. “I need a date for my school's prom, but there are no guys that I'd like to ask here so...”

“So, what you're asking me?” Ruby laughed into the phone.

Tera laughed in return, then quieted down and said, “No, um, not exactly.”

Ruby swallowed nervously and said, “Well.”

“I was thinking of asking Les, you know, just as a friend,” Tera explained. Ruby swallowed again, trying to hide her jealousy and smiled into the phone.

“All right, good idea,” was all she said.

“You're okay with that?” Tera asked.

“Why wouldn't I be?” Ruby wanted to know, as innocently as she could sound.

“Well, don't you, I mean, don't you kind of like him?”

Ruby thought about how to start this. Tera was her best friend and she couldn't really lie to her but she had no right to Les either. He hadn't exactly been pounding down her door or calling her off the hook. He hadn't really expressed undo interest in her, therefore, she couldn't really stop anyone else from seeking him out. Not that she had really gone after him or expressed interest, as she usually found herself clamming up whenever he was around, palms sweaty, as she anxiously searched for something “cool” and “witty” to say, usually finding none she felt like an outcast even in her small group of friends. Tera was really the only person she felt she could be completely herself with, no judgment or insecurity attached.

“Well, we aren't dating or anything,” was all Ruby said.

“So, you're cool with it, then?” Tera wanted to know, to clarify. “I mean, just as friends, okay?”

“Yeah, of course, hope you two have fun!”

Tera thanked her and Ruby got off the phone. She pulled herself from the bed and padded down the hallway to her bathroom, pulling her hair into a messy bun to wash her face of the nightly grime. She then walked lazily into the kitchen, anti-depressants pressed firmly in her left hand, to retrieve some breakfast. She opened the refrigerator and pulled out the orange juice container. Pouring a glass, she then slipped her pills inside her mouth, swallowed some juice, and felt them dissolve down her throat. She poured a bowl of cereal and walked into the living room. She noticed leaning against the sofa was her guitar, near by on the coffee table lay her journal and her Rod McKuen poetry book. She had been working on transcribing one of his poems into a song the night before. She walked over, picked up the poetry book, and brought it to the table to peruse while she ate. Opening the book casually, the page fell onto the poem, “Three” and as she read it over she felt it couldn't be more appropriate and a melody matching the words started forming in her words. She finished her breakfast and moved to the sofa, with the book. Picking up her guitar and setting the book on her lap before her, she found herself strumming out some chords and sang the words brokenly.

“We were three, my true friend, my new love and me. And none were as happy as we as we walked beside the Mediterranean Sea. Passion grew as passion has a will and want to do and long before the summertime was through they walked beside the oceanside as two. July's done. It fell beneath the knife of August sun and long before the summertime was done I walked beside the oceanside as one.”

Les sat at his dining room table, sipping his morning coffee and listening to the loud cartoons his little brother was playing in the living room adjacent to the table. Lost in thought, he stared ahead of him at the newspaper lying before him, unread. The phone rang and he did not hear it. His little brother, Skip, ran to answer it and brought it towards him.

“Les, its for you,” he said and then continued tauntingly, “its a girl.”

Les took the phone from him, swatting him gently on the back of his head and held the receiver up to his ear.

“Um, hello?” he said, not really alert yet.

“Oh god, did I wake you too?” came the girl's voice on the other end of the phone. “I keep doing that.”

“Um, no, not really, who is this?” Les answered and wanted to know.

“Its Tera,” she explained.

“Oh, hi Tera, how are you?”

“Doing all right, yourself?”

“Good,” he answered.

“So, what are you doing today?” Tera wanted to know.

“I don't know, not much, maybe homework, hang around the house,” he answered, sipping his coffee. He got up from the table, opening the sliding glass door, and stepped outside to escape his brother's cartoons. “You?”

“Um, the same,” Tera began and then said, “So, I was wondering, I mean, my school is having their prom in two weeks and I was wondering if you wanted to go with me...”

Les hesitated, wondering if all the girls from camp were going to start chasing him down, somewhat flattered he might add.

“Just as friends only,” Tera continued.

“Um, yeah, you know, that could be fun,” he answered smiling. He did like Tera as a friend. She was fun to hang out with. Tera gave him the necessary details and they planned to talk more in the next two weeks to discuss further plans. Tera would be driving since she had her license and Les did not yet.

A few towns over, Ruby sat in her living room, still in her pajamas, and sang out,

“Passion grew as passion has a will and want to do and long before the summertime was through they walked beside the oceanside as two.”

Stay (I missed you)