"Yes . . ."
"This is Derek, you know, from the singles class."
"Oh, yes, how are you?"
Before he had a chance to answer he heard "Don't touch that, it's hot!"
and the scuffle of little feet across the floor. "Youjust go on back to your
room and play with your sister. That's right. And don't you mess with her
Barbie dolls! Here, take two cookies for you and two for Elizabeth. Ok, get
along back there,now."
She finally returned to the phone. "I'm sorry, had to get the kids
squared away."
Uh, yeah, I know how that can be," he muttered, slightly thrown aback
by the interruption.
"So, how's everything going," she asked cheerfully. Hecould picture
her smiling at the other end of the phone. "I wonder if she knows how
beautiful she is," he wondered, then,realizing she had asked him a question,
answered abrubtly, "Oh, not bad, just keeping busy. How's everything with
you?"
"Oh, hectic as usual. I've got a paper due for my history class
tomorrow morning, and the kids are driving me batty, sameole story." He
hated this meaningless chatter.
"Uh, Linda, could I ask you something?"
"Sure, Derek, fire away."
"Uh, well, you know that guy Bubba . . ."
"Oh, you mean Bud?"
"Yeah, that's the one."
"What about him," she asked.
"Okay," Derek began, trying to make this as easy on himself as
possible, "I'll let you pick A, B, or C, alright?"
"Fine," she answered, "so what are my choices?"
Here it was. It was going to be either good news or bad, sohe tried to
force a stoical look upon his face, which, scarred
with rejection and anguish and pain for so long, was fighting a losing battle.
"Okay," he muttered. "Bud is A) your cousin, B) your brother, or C)
y'all are seeing each other."
"I'm afraid it's C," she said.
"Shit" rang through his brain so loudly he almost thought he had said
it aloud.
"Yeah, it's really strange," she was saying. "We just started talking at
the Single's Mixer they had a couple of weeks ago, and we just really hit it
off, and bam! I just got slammed. We had seen each other before in class,
but just to say hello or whatever, but that night we just connected or
something, and. .."
Derek thought he heard a bell ringing in the background.