Joe fished his smartphone out of his pocket and swiftly entered his good friend Jason’s new number to convince him to hit a bar or two that evening. Jason had always been a great wingman.
There were several rings and then to his surprise a feminine voice answered, “Hello.”
Jason said, “Oh, sorry, I must have dialed the wrong number.”
“Joe, is that you?” The woman asked.
“Yeah, uh, it sure is. How are you doing?” Joe said, embarrassed that he couldn’t immediately identify the voice at the other end of the call.
“I’m good, really good. How have you been?”
Joe struggled to figure out who he was talking to and then said, “Doing fine. How long has it been?”
“I guess it been since we graduated at West High about eight years ago. Don’t you remember? I moved to Michigan in the summer to attend MSU that fall.”
“Oh yeah, I was really bummed.”
“You were? You ditched me for Amanda that year, the school slut.”
“Oh,” Joe quickly thought back to his senior year of high school but still was drawing a blank. “Well, I was clueless back then. Remind me where you used to live.”
“You really don’t remember? I was on Sherrington Court, just a couple of blocks from your house.”
Ah, Joe thought. It’s Gina. “What have you been up to?”
“I’m on my own now. Glen and I were married after college and then we got divorced a couple of years ago. I’m doing whatever I want now and I’m enjoying it.”
“Sorry to hear that your marriage didn’t work out.”
Joe pictured Gina in his mind. She was great, Glen was an ass, why did I dump her?
“It all worked out for the better. Glen turned out to be an ass. We hadn’t had any kids, so it was an easy split.”
“How about meeting for dinner sometime? We could talk about old times.”
“Sure, I’d love to.”
“Does tomorrow work? Maybe around 6:00.”
“Sure, that would be nice.”
Boy, she sounds sweet. And after being divorced two years she’s probably horny as hell. “Where are you living now?”
“A house at 2450 South Oak.”
“Cool. I’ll pick you up at 6:00. It will be great to see you again, Gina.”
“Gina? This is Beth. You haven’t changed. You always were a dick!”
Joe didn’t think that a modern phone disconnection could make a slamming sound, but somehow Beth made it happen. It left him with his ear ringing and an unfulfilled fantasy.