Last Call

by Michele G Miller

  "My bad," he apologized; his voice quivering slightly like he was nervous. We both ended up bending down to pick up my dropped supplies and I smiled kindly when he handed them to me.

  "Thanks."

  He nodded his head and bustled off without another word.

  "M’kay, I think I've got everything. Let's go." I walked to the checkout counter with Riley on my heels, bugging me all the way there about the dating thing. Ryan stood at the register and asked if we’d found everything alright.

  "Sure did," I mumbled absentmindedly, turning back to Riley as the clerk rang me up.

  "Riles, would you lay off?"

  "Well Savannah, you have to admit it's kinda creepy. You're meeting them at The Garage, right? That's what Sara said."

  "Yes," I snapped tightly. "I'm not crazy. It's all for fun, so stop your worrying."

  The sales clerk Ryan coughed and interrupted, "That’ll be twenty seven dollars and eighty-nine cents. Cash or credit?"

  I swiped my debit card and he surprised me by asking to see my ID. I commented on the fact saying, "Wow, most people don't bother asking anymore."

  "Sorry," he spoke softly. "We like to keep our customers safe from fraud."

  "No, I appreciate it actually," I admitted, as he scanned my ID and compared it to my card.

  "Here you go, Ms. Guthry," he said; handing me back my ID and card. "Would you like the receipt in the bag?"

  "Sure," I agreed. Stuffing the ID in my wallet, I grabbed the bags when Ryan handed them to me over the counter. "Thanks."

  "My pleasure. Come back again soon," Ryan called out after Riley and me as we walked away.

  "I'm sure I will."

  Later that evening I received two phone calls. The first was a surprise. The second threw me for a loop.

  I was stepping out of the shower when I heard my phone ringing on my bed. Wrapping my towel around my chest, I ran to catch the caller. Seeing the name "Jax" on the screen brought a smile to my face.

  "Hello?"

  "Hey, it's Jax."

  "So I saw. How are you?"

  "Tired." His voice was missing its usual excitement from our other conversations. "They've got me working twelve plus hour days and I'm exhausted, Savannah."

  "Aww, I guess this is a preview to life as a grown-up."

  He groaned, "If this is what being a grown up will mean, then I want to go back." I laughed, but I knew what he was saying. I was only a year away from graduation. One more year and I’d be saying goodbye to school life and my best friends. To endless nights of chatting and pigging out.

  "Kinda scary, huh Jax?" I asked; sharing my thoughts. "I'm ready in some ways, but I'm really gonna miss this." I looked around longingly at my little cottage bedroom as I said it.

  "I was calling so you could cheer me up, but it sounds like I'm just bringing you down."

  "Ha. No you're not. How can I cheer you up?"

  "Well I was hoping you’d pencil me in for a date Friday."

  "This Friday?" I all but squealed.

  "Yep. I'm flying back into town for the day and I’d love to see you."

  I didn't know what my date situation was for that day, but I didn't care. I would just have to cancel on whoever it was.

  "I'll be free."

  I heard some commotion in the background with Jax when he spoke again. "Great. Listen, I'm at the office and they’re waiting on me to get some numbers. I'll call you Friday to confirm, but how about you plan on being ready for dinner around five?"

  Agreeing that dinner would be great, we hung up; making promises to talk again in a day or two.

  I was lying in my bed enjoying a new romance novel when an unknown call flashed up on my screen. It was ten o’clock, so I let it go to voicemail, and then waited to see if the person would actually leave a message or not. After a few minutes, the double beep signaling a message sounded. I dialed into my voicemail curiously, and heard a voice I hadn't heard in three years.

  "Savannah? Hi, it's Spencer. I've been back in Charleston for a few weeks, and I've played golf with your dad twice and spoken to your mom. I can't seem to get away from you here. Can you give me a call when you have time to talk?" There was a long pause and then a sigh. "We need to talk, Savannah."

  I squeezed my eyes shut tightly to keep the tears at bay and listened to the message again. His voice sounded dejected. He said he couldn't get away from me? What did he mean by that? I was surprised that he was back in Charleston. I’d assumed that by now he'd probably finished law school, and I always expected that he would get a job in Atlanta.

  When things ended between us three years ago, they ended with the mutual decision that we would both move on and have no regrets. I agreed, simply because I wanted to seem wiser and older than I was. I kept my end of the deal and walked away at the end of that summer, but it wrecked me. I never once tried to contact him.

  Fear coursed through me when I thought about him saying that he'd spoken to my mother. Was he calling because she’d hounded him about taking me out and now he was mad? No, thinking back, he didn't sound mad. He sounded…sad.

  “Damn it,” I muttered, my finger hovering over the call button. What a day. Between the conversation with Riley and now hearing Spencer’s voice, I was emotionally strung out. Jax cheered me up some, but I’d gone from the pinnacle of highs to the deepest of lows in a matter of just a few hours. Setting my phone on my bedside table, I buried my head under my pillow and screamed into the bed. There may or may not have been kicking, too.

  If this was the life of a grown-up, Jax was right. I wanted to go back.

  Monday - April 29, 2013

  Spencer

  Hearing Spencer's voice cut me deeply. He was the one part of my story that I'd never shared with anyone. He'd been home on Christmas break from the University of Georgia when I had my debutante ball over the winter of my senior year. Somehow our mothers roped him into escorting me to the event, and then I hadn't seen or heard from him again. That is, until the night I discovered that Daniel and Mary Anne were an item.

  It was my graduation party. My parents threw me a huge cocktail party at the club - think MTV's My Sweet Sixteen-style - and there I was, standing awkwardly in my mother’s required receiving line. As friends and family drove up in their eighty-thousand dollar vehicles and fancy sequined party dresses, I shifted from one foot to the other, totally uncomfortable in heels that were half a size too big.

  My dress was a simple, strapless sheath in a plum color that flared at the hem in a short ruffle. The top kept slipping down because my mother refused to see that my chest was now larger than hers. She’d actually picked the dress out for me on her own when I refused to go shopping with her. I hadn't wanted the party, and decided to stand my ground for once and put a halt to her plans - or so I thought.

  Erika Guthry was not a woman who accepted defeat. Ever.

  She proceeded without my input on planning the big event and invited all of her society friends and their kids. I didn't care anymore as I stood there robotically greeting them all. Most of the kids were friends of mine from school. Up until senior year, I had been a pretty socially outgoing student. When Daniel and I broke up, my mother hounded me for weeks about what transpired and how 'we' could get him back. I finally grew tired of upholding the precious Guthry family image; the social graces that were constantly drilled in my head, the debutante parties and charity parties I was forced to attend wearing my plastered-on fake smile.

  I was sick of it all, and that night was the proverbial icing on the cake. I was standing there talking to a man old enough to be my father who was, in turn, standing as closely as he possibly could to me; his eyes delving greedily down my top. As I yanked the top up for the umpteenth time that hour I watched, as if in a dream, as Daniel walked through the double glass doors of the club.

  He was dressed in a sleek black tux and tie; the crisp white of his shirt collar creating a sharp contrast with his tanned skin. His dark blond hair was combed back and gelled to perfection, a
nd his one hundred watt smile was turned to full blast. He turned to the side just as he reached the inside of the door and held out his hand expectantly. My heart skipped a beat as I waited for the person who he was reaching out for to materialize. Surely it would be his mother or his sister. I knew his parents were invited, but I hadn't really expected him to show.

  I recalled how false hope blossomed in my chest as I envisioned him walking swiftly across the floor to reach my side. He would apologize for making the worst mistake of his life by letting me go. Then he would pull me into his arms, drag me out of the building and kiss me until I was weak in the knees. Cue record scratching and daydream crashing to a bloody halt.

  Through the door came none other than my cousin Mary Anne. But she wasn't some distant cousin – oh no. She was the cousin that I'd spent more days of my life with, than without. Up until she’d left for school the previous year we had been practically inseparable. For a second I thought that maybe she just happened to walk in behind Daniel, but that moment came and went in a flash when she grasped his hand and he stole a quick kiss.

  No, scratch that. Not a quick kiss, but a full on, his-hands-on-her-ass kiss. My stomach dropped to the floor and my vision blurred when he wrapped his arm around her tiny little waist and they began to walk towards my party. Their eyes were locked on each other as they took the first few steps, and I recall thinking how in love they looked. How was that possible? Surely this was some elaborate joke. Someone was going to jump out of the planted palm tree at any moment, yell "Gotcha!" and pull me out of this surreal nightmare.

  "Is that Daniel…" my mother whispered, " with Mary Anne?" Her voice had risen a couple of octaves when she said my cousin’s name, which caused Mary Anne’s head to jerk up. She and Daniel obviously hadn't expected to find themselves standing a mere twenty feet from me.

  Daniel's face actually went pale for a moment. Mary Anne, on the other hand, held her composure and finished walking the length of the room without flinching.

  "Aunt Erika," she exclaimed. "What a magnificent party. Savannah, congratulations on your graduation. Sorry I missed the ceremony. Classes and all, you understand." She looked from my mother to me and then back to my mother again.

  "Daniel?" It was my voice that croaked out his name. I barely recognized it, and opened my mouth to say more when my mother’s hand clamped down firmly on my forearm.

  "So glad you could make it, Mary Anne. You look lovely," she spoke evenly. "Daniel, it’s been a few months. Lovely to see you. Your parents are here somewhere," she added with an imperious wave of her hand.

  "Thank you, Mrs. Guthry. It has been a long while. You look lovely as always," he drawled. The perfect politician. He turned to me, his eyes boldly sweeping over my body. He had the audacity to actually linger on my ripened curves. "You've changed," he smiled lasciviously.

  "Well yes, of course she has, Daniel. She’s a woman now. Off to college in the fall. She has taken on so many duties lately…."

  "Mother," I stammered, interrupting her sales pitch. Did she have no shame? I recovered my wits about me long enough to formally welcome them to the party. "Thank you for coming, Mary Anne," I commented. As an afterthought I added, "And thank you for bringing Daniel with you. It was so very kind of you," for good measure. I promptly spun on my heel and entered the ballroom where my guests were waiting, and found the first available guy I could latch onto.

  It just so happened that the guy was Spencer Alexander. Spencer had been my savior five months earlier when he stepped up as a favor to my parents and escorted me to my debutante ball. He was three years older than me and handsome as homemade sin. He stepped up again that night and became my savior for a second time. He danced with me, escorted me around the room and made sure I spoke with all of the "important people" per my mother’s request. Most importantly, he laughed and teased me to distraction.

  As he took me into his arms for a slow dance late in the evening, he mentioned Daniel for the first time. "You know you deserve better than him, right?"

  I remember how I gave him the look that so many stupid teenage girls have perfected. That 'Yeah right, I-have-low-self-esteem-and-never-deserved-him’ look. I truly believed it as an irrefutable fact back then.

  "I just thought we were in love, you know?" I whispered. My eyes got misty as I spoke. "It hurts to know that evidently he didn't care enough about me to keep from coming here with my own cousin."

  He tightened his grip on my hips and we swayed quietly to the music. The songs changed, and when ‘Amazed’ by Lonestar came on, his face took on a new look of tenderness. As if the fates were striving to kill me, Daniel and Mary Anne ended up on the floor by us; their bodies pressed closely together, her cheek pressed to his, his hand on her lower back and his eyelids half closed as I saw him whisper words into her ear.

  Twisting my head away from their flagrant PDA show, I glanced up at Spencer and wound my hands behind his neck, clasping my fingers tight. I noticed his eyes dip down to my chest and realized that by raising my hands, I had allowed my cleavage to put on a show for his private viewing. I didn't care. In fact, I actually shrugged my shoulders up and down a little - trying to push my top down some more. It worked.

  Spencer's hands went from holding my hips to winding around my back and pulling me flush with his body. The heat in his eyes flared as he looked down at me.

  "Do you actually know what you're doing, Savannah," he breathed raggedly, "or are you as naive as I think you are?"

  Shrugging, I tilted my chin up and looked at him through my lowered lids. ‘Bedroom eyes’, Cosmo called it, and I was putting the two hundred word lesson into full effect. I was damn naïve, but that night I was hurt and wasn't about to let Spencer know how inexperienced I really was.

  "I know exactly what I'm doing," I purred, running my fingers into the hair at his nape.

  "You're playing with fire."

  "Do you plan on burning me?" I teased; biting my lip.

  His hand clenched at my back, his fingers digging through the thin material of my gown, while the other slowly stroked up my spine to rest between my bare shoulder blades. "God help me, I don't want to, Savannah."

  "Can we get out of here?" I begged.

  Indecision flickered over his face for a moment before he nodded and took my hand. In a moment of weakness as he pulled me away from the dance floor, I looked over at Daniel and Mary Anne. Daniel was watching me with narrowed eyes, and I smiled sweetly at him before turning away.

  As we walked toward the exit, I grabbed a bottle of champagne that was sitting in a bucket of ice in the corner of the room. Spencer shook his head and chuckled, taking the bottle from me and taking a quick swig before handing it back. We left the club through a back entrance that came out closer to the parking lot. Spencer intertwined our fingers and we walked quietly to his little black sports car, hand in hand. After a few long pulls of bubbly from the bottle, my frantic nerves began to calm.

  When we reached the passenger door, Spencer took the bottle from me again and stared into it. It was empty.

  "Sorry I didn't leave you any," I admitted as I leaned against his sleek car.

  "No drinking and driving allowed anyway. So, what about your parents? Won't they be looking for you?"

  "Psh, they were well on their way to being drunk an hour ago, Spencer. I doubt they remember why they’re even at a party."

  "So where to, party girl?" he teased. He swung the passenger door open and bowed to me playfully.

  "To the manor, Jeeves!" I giggled as I slipped down into the soft leather seat.

  Dashing around the front of the car, Spencer jumped in and cranked the engine. Music blared and he quickly turned it down. "Sorry," he mumbled.

  When we reached the main road leading out of the club property, he slowed and turned to me. "Savannah, I can take you home if you want." His eyes looked me over and he rubbed the back of his neck with one hand while we sat there.

  My voice was barely a whisper when I responded, "Do you w
ant to take me home?"

  Spencer was breathtakingly gorgeous, and his beautiful eyes closed for a moment while his face scrunched like he was in deep thought. I knew that he was debating what to do, and right when I was about to give him the out, he spoke. "No."

  It was a quiet but firm 'No', and my lips pulled up into a smile when he opened his eyes and leveled them on me. He reached out and plucked my hand from my lap; intertwining our fingers. "You should smile more often - it's dazzling."

  "So take me somewhere and make me smile, Spencer," I dared him. I knew there was a definite innuendo in my words, but I didn't bother to correct myself. The two glasses of champagne I’d drunk earlier at the party, along with the half a bottle we snuck out was going a long way towards loosening me up. Without a word he turned to the front and put his foot on the gas. The club and the disaster that was Daniel and Mary Anne became a dim reflection in the rear view mirror.

  As he drove, Spencer's thumb rubbed along my hand; caressing it tenderly. I opened my fingers, holding my palm face up so he could continue to trace the outline of my hand. I kept my head facing forward, but my eyes kept dipping to watch his hand. He would run his fingers around and then stop, his hand hesitating and then starting again. After watching him do it a few times I realized that every time he stopped, his hand actually drifted a few inches away from my hand, almost like he wanted to place it on my thigh. Then, as if he thought better of it, he would return to my hand and the cycle would begin again.

  After watching this pattern for the fourth time, I decided to take matters into my own hands. When he lifted his fingers away for a moment I removed my hand. Thinking and feeling all sorts of dirty girl thoughts, I stretched my arm across the seats. I was about to stroke the back of his head but chickened out at the last second; placing my hand on the back of his headrest instead. It worked though, because after a moment of hovering there his large, warm palm moved to my lower thigh.