Act V by Ansley Adams

caller leave a message. “Hello, hello…sorry
just wait a second.” She fast-walked into the bedroom, tapped the
button on the machine and the recording shut off. “Sorry, couldn’t
reach the phone in time,” she mumbled into the receiver, feeling
her cheeks flush.
    The voice on the other end only made
them redder. “Hey, Glynn. How’s it going?”
    She didn’t speak for a moment. She’d
known he would call after her conversation with her mother, but did
it have to be this soon? Why hadn’t she checked the caller ID?
“Hey, Dorsey.” Her voice was as clipped and unwelcoming as she
could make it.
    “ Oh, Glynn, I’ve missed your
voice.” His deep baritone was sleepy and sluggish, and made her
shake down to her core.
    She was torn between hanging up and
begging him to come over. And she hated herself for it. “Dorsey,”
she managed as flatly as possible, “are you drunk?”
    “ Good to talk to you,
too!”
    “ Well?”
    “ I’ve only had a little.”
Glynnis could hear fumbling on the other end of the line. It
sounded like the phone had dropped. More fumbling, then, “Oh dang.
Um sorry, Glynn.”
    “ Dorsey, maybe you
should…”
    “ I miss you. I just thought
maybe you’d want to go get some coffee or something.” He was using
his injured lover voice now. Trouble. “I hope I didn’t take you
away from anything, and I’m sorry about the short notice
but…”
    “ Dorsey, it’s 11 p.m. and
you’re drunk.” Then she felt just a bit of remorse. She’d spent a
year of her life engaged to this man, the least she could do was be
courteous. “Look, I just finished bathing the dog, and I’m going to
bed to read. If you want to talk to me, you can reach me at the
theatre during business hours.” Oh no, why had she said that? That
implied that she wanted to see him. “On second thought, don’t call me at all, here or
there.”
    “ Aw, come on, Glynn, you
never go to bed before midnight. Just give me…”
    “ A chance? Why? Never mind.
I don’t want to know.”
    “ Glynnis, just listen for a
second. I lost my job and just wanted to talk to
somebody.”
    Glynnis took a breath, feeling unwanted
sympathy wash over her. “You just got that job right after we…what
happened?”
    “ I lost my temper
and…”
    “ And you said something you
shouldn’t have.”
    “ That’s about
it.”
    “ I’m guessing you said it to
the wrong person.”
    “ Yeah, my boss.”
    Remorse ran all over her but
she pushed it away. “Dorsey, I’m really sorry. Look, why don’t you
go to the office tomorrow, apologize to the guy and do some damage
control. I’d have coffee with you or even invite you over to cry on
my shoulder, but I’m exhausted.” Plus I
know where this would end up and I’m not going back there. “Are you going to be okay?”
    A long pause, then, “I’ll be fine.
Maybe I’ll call you later?”
    “ Bye, Dorsey.” She tapped
the button and set the phone down feeling like she’d just dropped
the ball and lost the tournament. “Come on, Carl. Let’s go to
bed.”
    *****
    “ I thought they’d never go
to sleep.” Gabby climbed into Kenny’s Trooper, tossing her bags in
the back seat. She took long enough to give him a soft kiss, then
fastened her seat belt. Kenny leaned toward her for more, placing
his palm over her left breast. She swatted him off. “Drive. We’ve
got more than two hours to Atlanta, and if we don’t catch this
flight out, it’s over.”
    “ I don’t know what you’re so
afraid of.” He put the car in gear and pulled out into the empty
road. “We’re both adults. We can get married if we
want.”
    That was big talk and Gabby knew it.
“While that’s true, you know that my daddy will do everything he
can to make life hard for you if he finds out. And he can do a
lot.”
    “ Yeah, I know. And not a
soul in town would marry us because they all know who your folks
are.”
    “ That’s right,” she brushed
a jet-black lock with a single streak of