Sheila had given up completely on Stan. Three weeks had passed now and no word of him. The hurt she’d felt when she decided he wasn’t going to call anymore had finally diminished. Three dates. That’s all it took and ‘poof’, he disappears. She knew she was attractive to him. She was very pretty and had been always, although she didn’t kid herself thinking she was any Cameron Diaz. Still, she had the blond hair and smooth skin.
“Aren’t you gonna call her anymore?” Chip asked his best friend Stan. The two were resting at a table in the canteen after a tennis match on the university courts. Both were drinking Gatorade. The sky was blue, the sun nice but not hot, so all was well. Stan, as usual, had won. He was the kind who didn’t like losing. Ever.
“Might,” he answered. “She’s playing hard-to-get.”
“Oh,” Chip said. “Know whacha mean.”
“She let me kiss her on the first date, but you sort of get a message with her. I mean, I just knew not to ask for more,” Stan continued.
“In control,” Chip suggested.
“Maybe…for want of a better word,” said Stan. Problem is, I can’t forget her. She keeps popping into my head day and night.”
“So that’s it,” Chip said. “Here’s another story now.”
Stan kept silent. He just looked at his friend.
“Sounds to me like someone you don’t wanna lose track of,” Chip continued. “Here, take my phone. You got her number?”
Stan looked expressionless at Chip again. “Chip,” he said finally, “I’m twenty-one. A little young to be getting serious, don’t you think?”
“I agree you’re young,” said Chip. “We’re young, that is. But, you know, sometimes in life we get only one shot at certain things.”
“Don’t preach, Chip,” Stan said.
“I’m not, Stan. It’s just…take my parents. My dad was twenty and my mom eighteen when they married. She broke off with this other guy to date my dad. And I know he’s not sorry. If he hadn’t married young, she would’ve married the other guy. That’s what I mean. We can’t always set the time ourselves.”
Five or six minutes passed before either one of them spoke again. It seemed to Stan to be forever. Finally he spoke.
“Gimme the phone.”
End of “Sheila”
