Arliss Gets a Phone Call

So the stories go, the Silverettes reconvened to relive the night that never was at a Blue Silver concert, and it turned into the night they'd never forget. Not that they forgot the FIRST night--they just didn't have what you'd call fond memories! To make the night happen, first somebody (aka Cassie) had to talk the band into starting the tour in Harrisburg, and then somebody (aka Georgie) had to call all the Silverettes and beg them to come to the concert. Somebody had to get the old gang together. Here's a little sample of Arliss's first phone call from Georgie. Beware of cussing -- Arliss is a bag o' profanity:

*****
The phone rang, startling Arliss's attempt to open the damn jar of peanut butter. The screwdriver slipped off the edge of the lid and jabbed her thigh.

"Shit!" She threw it onto the floor, along with the plastic container of peanut butter, which bounced and rolled under the table, and hobbled over to the telephone. No blood, but there'd be a bruise. She was as pale as milk and she bruised easy.

"This better not be a telemarketer," she snarled into the mouthpiece because she figured it would and she liked to scare them off as soon as possible. After all, nobody else ever called her. Mother wasn't allowed to make calls after the last incident.

"I'm looking for Arliss Edgeworth," said a soft female voice. "I think it's still Edgeworth. She might have gotten married."

"Fat chance. Who's this?" Arliss asked. She almost recognized the voice but couldn't be sure. If it was another mistress of Dad's from before he was in prison, she hoped the woman wasn't expecting a handout. The one with the kid, Arliss's supposed half-sister, had been the most recent to track Arliss down.

At least she'd tracked Arliss down and not Arliss's poor mother.

"This is Georgie. Georgie Davis. From high school. Is this Arliss?"

"Holy crap, I mean, wow! Really?" Georgie had been one of the four reasons Arliss had made it through high school without murdering anybody. Also one of the four reasons she had a head full of Blue Silver trivia and no French, but you could forgive people some sins.

"Really," Georgie said. "It's me. How are you?"

"Well, I'm..."

Arliss paused for a moment before finishing. She stood straighter, almost unconsciously, and tried to calm the butterflies in her stomach. She and her high school pals had drifted apart after the fiasco with her Dad's company. If Arliss were honest with herself, a nasty habit her therapist encouraged, she could admit the parting was her fault as well, for not trying harder.

Trying harder, of course, was synonymous with trying at all. She'd been so humiliated at that point in her life she hadn't wanted to face anybody or anything. The fiasco with her Dad wound up with him in jail, her mom in a mental institution, and Arliss in foster care. That was preceded, only slightly, by the tragedy of the missed Blue Silver concert, a tragedy Arliss figured the other girls in the Silverettes fan club blamed her for.

But still, to have one of those girls, once her favorite people in the world, reaching out to her...

"I'm good," she said finally. "It's been so long. How are you?"

*****

Ellie M.
www.elliemarvel.com
www.bluesilverpax.com