Time

"What the hell happened to us?"

Laura was stretched out in her favorite chair, her neatly pedicured feet resting on the ottoman.  Her face was washed, her contacts in their usual resting place next to the sink, and I knew from experience that she would be drifting off soon after I started the movie.

"What are you yammering about?"  I sat on the couch, my own face devoid of makeup, trying to use the remote on an uncooperative blu ray player.

"We used to be out every Friday and Saturday, dressed up, partying all the time," Laura took a sip of her wine.  "We used to come home at dawn.  We used to wake up in strange places.  Now look at us--home on a Saturday, and at least one of us will be asleep within the hour.  It's not even nine!"

I nodded. I'd heard this song before. I finally got up to press the 'start' button on the blu ray player, since the remote wasn't cooperating. 

Laura sat up.

"Let's go out," she said.  "Let's go to a club and dance until they close. Let's drink and just have fun for a change."

"Laura," I sat down and picked up my glass of wine. "It takes you at least an hour to do your hair just the way you like it. We wouldn't get out of here before ten."

"I'll just leave my hair up.  Come on, you know that you want to go out!"

"You can't tolerate cigarette smoke in the bars," I counted on my fingers. "It gives you the sniffles, and people think you've been doing coke. The clubs will be packed, and there won't be any place to park close by.  We'll have to walk at least a mile, and you hate that."  I waited for a response, but Laura just leaned back in her chair and picked up her own wine glass.

"Yeah, you're right. Too much trouble."

We sat, sipping our wine in companionable silence.  

"Remember that time we started a fire in the ash tray at that dance club?"

We smiled at the memory.

"You know how we got when we were bored,"  I laughed.  We'd been quite rowdy in our twenties, always looking for a good time.  And finding it.  In our forties, Saturday night was a different chapter, in another book entirely. 



I know what sort of mood I was trying to convey, but I'm not sure that I actually accomplished it.  Concrit is welcome.

“Time is the longest distance between two places.”
~Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie