2021 theme: RUPTURE

DINNER CONVERSATION Kathryn Durrant “Short of an H. G. Wells’ time machine, a Delorean, or Dr. Who’s blue police box, there’s no reason for me to answer.”

“Oh, come on,” he said, “It’s hypothetical. That’s the fun of it. What if you could go back to one day in your life?”

He leaned toward me, a wicked gleam in his eye. I braced myself to maintain a neutral expression.

“What day would it be? I know. That day you told me about. You know, seventh grade French. When your skirt fell of. I’d have liked to see that.”

I wrinkled my nose in disgust. “Seventh grade? You were a pervert that young?”

With a wolish grin, he said, “You can drop your skirt for me anytime” Shaking my head, I let out a moan. “At the rate, you’re going that won’t be soon.” I knew it was a lie. Even a hint he was serious about me and the skirt would drop. Since the beginning of our friendship, we teased like this. Back and forth, pretending to be crazy mad for each other. Except that it no longer felt much like pretending to me.

With a leer, he began again, “No, I got it. When that guy–” Before he could dredge up yet another of my embarrassing moment, I interrupted, almost shouting, “What about you? When the coach picked you to go into the game. Huh? You pulled your sweats down so fast your basketball shorts went with them.” I waggled my eyebrows up and down.

He shook his head, “Low blow, I expected better from you.”

I placed my hand on my chest as if ofended. “Me?” Lordy, how I wish I’d been at that high school game. But he couldn’t know that.

“I’ll have you know some scientists believe a rupture in the spacetime...” he snapped his ingers to help bring the word to memory.

“Continuum,” I deadpanned, knowing full well he knew the word.

Forgetting a word was his go-to trick to draw me back into his world of science iction.

He snapped again and pointed his inger at me. “Yes, continuum. For that lucky lady, you get a prize.” His wink suggested something sexy. My mind strayed to a lot of things I wished he’d do. His rush of words pulled me back.

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