Five Phone Calls

It all starts with the friend from Former Town, who emails out of the blue. Big news, she says. No one will get this joke but you. I reach her at work, and her crisp, professional voice gives way to delicious, salt-caramel irony.

(I am walking toward my desk. Oh yes, the writing starts now.)

But, wait, there's a voicemail. Long distance friend's voice is a blurred photo of a dancing child. She is abruptly in motion, moving to Grand City for an academic job. Delighted, I call her up, to give congrats and get the details.

(Now there are emails to send, to put long-distance friend in touch with Grand City friend who will show her around. But, after that...)

Oops — I have to take this call. I have opened a box of childhood, and, draped inside, is the honey-wise voice of my old neighbor. She wants to talk about the pregnancy, so we do. We chat about her children and the difficulties of being twenty-three.

(Vet visit. Pre-natal yoga. And now there's the cat sitter at the door. Will she mind giving Geezer Cat his meds?)

Phone again: grad school friend, whose divorce is getting ugly. Yesterday, her voice was a three-legged turtle. Today, it is fragile sun-lit glass.

(I will write today. I will write. But how much are plane tickets to grad school friend's city?)

O telephone, the day is over. Wicked, witty sister-in-law calling. We haven't spoken since April.

(These things matter. Also matter. They do.)

I pull my feet to the couch and know that this will be the night.