No Texting Past Midnight

They set up a skype date so they could discuss their next move. With the time change and opposite schedules getting an actual conversation happening was more convoluted than string theory. So ridiculously complicated. By the time Alistair is home from work Zara is fast asleep. On days when Z is up at the crack of dawn, it's 3 am Al's time but he's either a few glasses into his wine and poring over a script or exhausted and too stressed to sleep. God forbid he's entertaining company.  It took a while but Z knows nothing good comes from late night-early morning texting or phone calls. If he's up and sees her online he can call her, thank you very much. The last thing she needs is to skype him and see some other woman tangled up in his sheets over his shoulder. Sheets she bought and broke in with him on Easter weekend last spring. What a difference four months makes. His contract got picked up and the work is pouring in. It's biblical in scope. Work begets work begets more work begets so much work he has the luxury of being on every screen in every house in every theatre all at once. Share the wealth, Z thinks. Meanwhile in Z's universe, she's running between three joe jobs, occasional auditions and separately sick aging parents who somehow, although divorced over 18 years, managed to coordinate their demise's simultaneously. Her siblings are no help. Greg is wrapped up in his own marital woes and Beth is incommunicado on the side of a mountain in southern central America exploring ancient grains and roots and seeds or something, determined to prove to the world Peruvians are genius once and for all. Zara is on her own for now. There's no hope in a visit and she knows Al's not interested in making the effort to come east. Unless there's a gig or someone else is picking up the tab. She shouldn't bother making an effort but with the rest of her world bottoming out she's fooling herself into believing that this thing with Al actually has legs. She's lying to herself and no one around her cares enough to intervene. They're all so self involved, sending out bursts of good intention with no ability or compunction to follow through, no desire to reach out and touch each other. Her phone honks. It's Al, at 3 am, begging off their date. Z picks up her phone and without responding powers it down. Good night, Al. Good morning, Z.