Ashley shrugged. "Tiring."
"Oh," Mrs. Phillips replied. "Your dad's already gone to bed. I was wondering if you'd like to watch a movie with me."
"What is it?" Ashley asked.
"While You Were Sleeping," Mrs. Phillips told her. "You wanna?"
Ashley smiled. That had been one of her favorite movies in junior high school. She remembered how hard it had been to convince Taylor to watch it with her. She smiled in spite of herself. "Sure."
"Good," Mrs. Phillips said in a bubbly voice. Ashley came and sat on the couch next to her. "I remember how much you used to love this movie."
"Seems like a long time ago, doesn't it?" Ashley asked. Mrs. Phillips gave her a funny look.
"No," she replied in a strange voice. "No, it really doesn't. It seems like only yesterday I was watching you pack up your bag to leave. You were still wearing that dress…" She trailed off, her eyes overcome for a minute by pain, and then blinking back into reality. "Anyhow. It doesn't seem so long ago to me."
"Oh," Ashley said. She looked at the coffee table, and saw the video sitting there. "I'll put it in," she said, and walked to the VCR and pushed the video into it. She had to smile as she did so, thinking that she had a sort of dinosaur piece of equipment that still worked. Antique. Like the 8-track her mother had kept from HER days in junior high school. Again, memories of Taylor floated into her head; one where they were 'jitterbugging' together to Mom's 8-track version of Chattanooga Choo-Choo. She pressed play, and then went back to her spot on the couch.
The movie rolled along, bringing back several memories. The ending of the movie came and went. Instead of the weepy happiness she'd once felt watching it, she instead felt that the movie was too fictitious even for her. She rewound the tape and told her mother she was going to bed then. It had been a very long day.
She took a hot shower and shimmied into her pajamas. Then, she crawled into bed. It was late by then, approaching midnight. She'd just about drowsed off when the phone rang. Clumsily, she reached for the telephone receiver, which was on the nightstand by her bed. She picked it up and mumbled, "Hello?"
"Ashley?" a voice whispered.
"Who is this?" she asked groggily, turning on her light and looking at the alarm clock.
"Ashley, it's me," he said softly. "Meet me on your front porch."
