The Special One. James Griffin

Rhetta, what are you doing tonight? After all, it is Friday. Have you any plans?”

      “Of course I have. That’s why… I had to make sure my tank was full. Yes, it’s a full weekend of plans lined up. You?”

      “I had to, well, to be honest, on Friday nights I go to my parents’ house on Orchard to do my laundry for the week. We have dinner, talk, you know. I have an apartment with two other guys in Boston, and, well, it’s nice to get a home cooked dinner now and then. I’m not such a great cook. Can you?”

      “Can I what?”

      “Cook?”

      “How did we go from the weekend plans to cooking?”

      “Ha! I don’t know! But… can you? Cook?”

      “Uh, yes; I can, Mike. Why do you ask?”

      “I, uh, thought maybe you’d like to some time.”

      “Like to cook?”

      “Dinner?”

      “Mike, are you asking me out on a date?”

      “I’m tryin’ here, but it isn’t coming out the way I’d wanted it to.”

      “You’d like me to cook you dinner some time? Is that it?”

      “If that doesn’t sound too bold, Rhetta. Yes.”

      “I see. Hmmm….”

      “Never mind. It was a bad idea. Silly me. I should have just asked if you’d like to go to the movies, like other guys probably do.”

      “So why didn’t you?”

      “Well, I didn’t really have it planned, to be honest. I didn’t know you’d pull in next to me here, Rhetta. But when the words came to me they felt right, like, like, I didn’t want to take you to a movie and just sit next to you. I wanted to look at you, not a movie screen… and talk. You aren’t supposed to talk in the movies.”

      “I’m aware of that.”

      Suddenly I’m torn between driving away quickly from this stumbling boy and saying yes to his lovely offer…

      “Yes.”

      “Yes?”

      “Yes. I’ll make you… us… dinner some time. If you still want that.”

      “Really?”

      “Sure.”

      “Swell!”

      “When?”

      “Boy, Rhetta… you’re catching me off guard here. I wasn’t expecting…”

      “It’s alright, Mike. Just tell me when it’d be a good night for you.”

      Pay the boy, Mike. He’s just standing there with his hand out. Hello?

      “I’m sorry, kiddo. What’s the damage? $3.85? Wow. She really was almost empty!”

      “Well?”

      “Boy, I wish I ran into you like this earlier in the week, Rhetta, ‘cause tonight would have been perfect. My parents aren’t even home and my mom left some chicken leftovers for me. They went to their bridge tournament… it’s once a month. But you already have plans for tonight, so…”

      “I could break them. They weren’t too exciting.”

      “Really?”

      “You really like to use the word ‘really’, huh, Mike?”

      “Umm… I’ll stop.”

      “Just teasin’ you. Tonight would be great. But could you pick me up? I live on McAllister, right across from the…”

      “Elementary school.”

      “How’d you know?”

      “I… dunno. I think I must have heard it somewhere.”

      “Oh.”

      “What time?”

      “How’s about right now?”

      “Really?”

      “Mike?”

      “I’m sorry! It slipped!”

      “Follow me. Come on.”

      “Roger!”

      “Daddy? Mom? I’m going out for a while. Yes. The keys are on the hook, yes. Mike. Strathmore. You remember… the piano guy? Yea, him. Because he asked me, is why! No. No! Bye bye!”

      “This is quite the car you have here, Mike.”

      “Chevy Sport Coupe, 1937.”

      “It’s a convertible?”

      “Not just… also has a rumble seat!”

      “Could we put the roof down? I’ve never been in a convertible before.”

      “Sure thing!”

      “This is so nice, the wind in my hair… Mike, you better keep your attention on the road…”

      “Oh yea. Sorry. You looked like a picture there for a minute, Rhetta.”

      “A picture?”

      “Yes. You know… with the wind blowing your hair back and all… like, like Hollywood or something.”

      “Oh, Mike. Don’t be silly.”

      “No, I mean it, Rhetta. You really are beautiful, you know.”

      “Oh my…”

      “And I even have a confession.”

      “A confession?”

      “Yes. I wasn’t exactly honest with you back there. I feel awful about it, too, so I need to clear it up. I knew where you lived because I looked you up, even drove by your house a few times looking to see if you were around.”

      “No!”

      “I swear. Crazy, huh?”

      “Crazy!”

      “I kept thinkin’ about you when you played that Bach piece. Your expression was so fierce, so strong, yet you also seem so soft. It, well, I dunno…”

      “It what, Mike?”

      “It made me want to see you again some time. I’ve actually thought about you all week, Rhetta.”

      “Really?”

      7

      Sounds of footsteps and packages, zippers, rustling clothes…

      “Ooh look, Robbie, someone brought roses. Nice ones, too. There’s a tag… uh, hmmm, oh yea, figures. Billy and Joanna. Mr. and Mrs. Perrrfect. Oh yea. They would be the ones to bring them roses. Probably just look healthy, like roses can do sometimes, but they’re really dried out. Hmmpft. Watered. Somebody watered them.”

      “Ma must of.”

      “I don’t think so. I think Mom’s been getting’ watered herself.”

      “Speakin’ of getting’ watered, I sure hope that scumbag that hit Ma doesn’t get away with hosin’ her insurance. I mean, everyone knows Ma’s a shitty driver—“

      “You mean was a shitty driver.”

      “Whatever, Annie, whatever. She could drive again one day; we don’t know that.”

      “Yea, whatever yourself. Eggplants don’t drive, Robbie, one legged or two.”

      “That lying bitch is sayin’ Ma ran the light. No fuckin’ way, man. Ma was slow on the uptick, but if anything, she was overly cautious. To run right through a red light?