remember

I'm thinking about a sunset as I listen to her, one like on a postcard.
It really is a nice image in my mind.
Maybe that's why I can't stop smiling.
But what does she care. She's screaming into the receiver, slurring speech every other line. I've barely said two words. I'm in my bed, watching the fan overhead, laying on my back. I cock my head to check the time. The conversation just doesn't seem to be getting on track. She's so drunk, skipping around in conversation. For some reason I let it go, tell myself its fine.
Don't know why she called.
Maybe that's why I'm smiling.
A song comes echoing from the little speaker at my desk and I'm imagining her and the sight of her. Makes me remember.
Whatever.
All I know is I'm smiling and can't stop. A happy thought. Something, anyways.
Maybe the "Boos," I think out loud, and she says, "I've only had some."
How many times have I said that, lying of course?
She talks.
There's a picture of a beach that I can't stop thinking of lately. Its a sunset, the postcard kind. And there's a woman. Makes me think of her. Don't know why. I like that picture.
Underneath of it is a tag line that reads: 'Searching for....'
I'm fascinated by the dot, dot, dot.
She tells me to hold on because she needs to take another shot.
Then she's back. Night cap, she says. I laugh.
She stops screaming into the receiver and I start to tell a story of a man I know who told his girlfriend he slept in a park during a thunderstorm. Maybe he did. I doubt it, I tell her. Probably cheated on her, I say. "And with a very ugly slut too...."
I don't think she's listening.
Falling asleep on the phone. Just like it used to happen, I remember.
That makes me smile.
I turn the light off after I say goodbye.
She won't remember this.