Fall and Rise (30 page)

“No, it wasn't, but still. To me any call after eleven at night and before seven
A.M
., and maybe even eight, except between very close people—forget the early morning calls, let's concentrate on the late. But people very close to one another—lovers if you may. And even there the caller should think ‘Do I know, if I know this person is up, if he or she would be disturbed by my rings or is too tired to answer the phone?'—should be for emergencies only—for physical or emotional help or something like that. And after midnight even lovers should hold off their calls unless it's an extreme personal emergency, between them or very deeply affecting them and where the caller is sure the called lover would at least tolerate the call. I didn't put that well—and I didn't mean to exclude calls from immediate family, since my thoughts about those calls are about the same for nonfamily—but it's one of my rules.”

“You put it well. And I'm sorry I didn't know your rules, even if I suppose every intelligent person should have the same rule. And no question it was wrong of me to call. Even if I was only concerned about you, and more concerned each time you didn't answer, which was presumptuous of me. But also because—what the heck; I've come this far I might as well say the rest—I didn't especially like this fellow Peter—may I speak openly?”

“I don't want to hear about him now. And Peter is or was a friend of mine, so it's not right, at any time of the day or night, for you to—”

“I disliked him thoroughly. I've never seen anyone so caught-up with himself—so, so…who gave the impression of—he's a born bastard and good-for-naught, that's what. I was almost afraid for you with him, and that if he were there with you when I called, which would be your own affair, but if someone called he'd know that someone else knew he was there and that if he was planning any harm—”

“You don't know how wrong you are. You're going on like this only because of some resentment you must have towards him because of me. But you're blowing this thing way—”

“I know, but that was my fear. Not out of jealousy. He looked capable of doing anything heinous. I don't care what kind of sophisticated work he does and how brilliant and dynamic everyone says he is, he's a goddamn snob and peacock and I bet even a chiseler and heel of the highest order—not a chiseler, I've no basis for that—but that's what I believe. I've never believed anything so much and so fast as that without utterly knowing that person or the facts, but you just tell me he's not. Of course you'll say he's not, and why shouldn't you? That would be the loyal and right thing to do.”

“Please stop about him.”

“Of course. But if you can believe it, except for that I wanted to make sure you got home safe, all that's not even why I called. I won't keep you another minute. I only wanted to say that tomorrow's Saturday, neither of us has to go to work, so how about lunch, say one o'clock at The Library, which is on Broadway and Ninety-second, halfway between your apartment and mine. It's even less than halfway for you, and no splitting the check. After opening my trap the way I did, I should stand you to two straight lunches and at a place a lot better than The Library, which for what it is is very good of its kind.”

“Thanks, Arthur, but I just made a vow—”

“Is it because of what I said about him? Even if I shouldn't have said anything, I wasn't too far off in my assessment of him, was I? Excuse me, but what about your vow? It can be broken for an hour or two, can't it?”

“You're not taking me seriously. What I vowed was not to see anyone for an outing for the next month, since what I have to do first is crank away at finishing something and also prepare for the spring term. I'm carrying two lit courses and a composition, which can't sound arduous to anyone not in university teaching—”

“It does, I know what it is. But the next month you said, which is December. It's still November. Five whole days left. So you've five more days to have lunch with someone, so how about it? Lunch—an hour or less—no more.”

“Tomorrow at one? No, I can't.”

“Yes you can. I'm sorry, I know how valuable your time is—but an hour, sixty minutes to the dot. And The Balcony, not The Library, which is a five-minute walk for you—you must know where it is. Next door to the Olympia, which is a lot less than less than halfway down and sometimes live chamber music there and always a decent lunch. I'll even pick you up by cab—you can be waiting downstairs at twelve fifty-five.”

“Don't pick me up, and can we make it at two? That way I might be able to get some work done, since I know I'll sleep late tomorrow and maybe even wake up with a slight hangover.”

“What's sleeping-late for you?”

“Just answer; I have to go.”

“Two it is, you kidding? Anything, even two-fifteen. And I'm glad you got home safe—you did, didn't you? You're not going to tell me tomorrow about any of tonight's hand-to-hand skirmishes and battle wounds?”

“I'm safe. Don't pry. Goodnight.”

Didn't want to but how else? Not true, because—Damn, just should have said “Listen to me, it's not only audacious of you to”—Not “audacious,” but—Oh, no big deal, and he's looking out for me, isn't that a laugh? No, it was stupid of me. Should have said “Call me another time, I'm bushed, goodnight,” and hung up. But it's just lunch, falls in with my new directives, and though nosy and a bit nutty he's a sweet enough guy and was he ever on-target about Peter. But I'll establish right off with him—Already have a dozen more friends than I can hardly see even now and then—But come December—Clever—five days left in November—he caught me on that one—guy's fast. Wait, do I have a luncheon date tomorrow? I look at my appointment book. No, and it's only tomorrow, so I should be able to remember without writing it down. But I don't know how groggy I'll be in the morning or how much drink makes you forget overnight, so I write “Arthur Rosenthal, 2, The Balcony,” in tomorrow's box. But come December I'm putting the kibosh to any frivolous social-going. Get a special phone-gadget installed so when I press a button it'll keep the phone from ringing when I'm busy or sleeping and the service is closed. Heard of those.

I pick up the student's paper. Why not put it off? Because I want to get all of them corrected so I can get to things I really want to do. “Morphology” again means what? It means morphine. It means latrine. I write on the paper with an arrow aimed at the word “Leonard, no more big words for me like this—I'm too lazy to look em up. And what's with this postdeconunstru—? What about supercacographicexhibitionism? (Did I spel it rite?)” Phone rings. Now he's blown it. Much too late to call twice the same night even if the last call was ten seconds ago and he was my husband-to-be and most loved lover. Whatever he has to say can hold till the morning and late into it. Stop on your own accord. Doesn't. Shameless schmuck. I pick up the receiver. “Arthur, this better be good.”

“It isn't Arthur, and I know it's extremely late, but it's Dan from tonight—Daniel Krin—is this Miss Winiker?”

“Who? Oh, I'm not going to pretend—I know who. Are you out of your mind? What could you want when it's after two?”

“I'm sorry, but the clock, and this is no excuse, I'm looking at says it's one—few minutes past—but it's a bank clock, on a seedy street corner, and since I haven't a watch or another clock to compare it with, it could well be wrong.”

“Whether it's two or one—”

“You're right—by all means—please believe I'm not disputing it. And you can't know how sorry I am to call. Nor how I tried everything under the sun—sun's hardly the word to use at this hour. Everything under the street light, perhaps, to resolve—and I shouldn't make light of it—neither of those lights—beforehand the reason why I did call. But I couldn't and it was an emergency which—”

“What kind of emergency, Mr. Krin? And let's make this quick. So tell me, what kind? Because at this hour I don't take emergency calls from people I've just met.”

“Please hear me out. You're just about my last chance on this. The timing of my call's all wrong but I don't think the reason I called is. And by ‘last chance' I meant, to help me out of a bad situation. And for the last fifteen minutes—you're still there?”

“Make it quick.”

“For the last fifteen, because it was so late—and at the time I thought it was ten to one, so for a Friday not the latest of lates to call but still much too late—I debated with myself and thought ‘No, don't call, too late, much too, I don't know her, just met, etcet, spoke fifty words to her, hundred, tops, and maybe a hundred-fifty between us.' But then, when I didn't see any alternative, which I'll get into, and I decided to call, but even then undecidedly, your phone was busy—a few minutes ago. So I thought ‘At least she's up and at home, so if I call a minute from now and the line's free, I won't be waking her.' Of course you'd be home if you were up.”

“Not necessarily. If someone dials a number the same time that phone's ringing because someone else dialed it first—”

“That'd produce a busy signal for the person dialing a little behind? Didn't think of that in relation to this. And ‘dialing a little behind.' That could be misinterpreted, but please don't. Should've kept it to myself. It was unintentional, but repeating it wasn't. Though the repeat was just my surprise at my unintentional line, not said to be suggestive. And now I guess whenever I dial someone late—which I don't normally do; I don't like getting calls myself after eleven.”

“Same here.”

“Even after ten. I occasionally go to bed early just to get an early start the next day.”

“Between ten and eleven's all right, even from someone I just met, but never a call around two. Or if your clock's right and it wasn't that it stopped—”

“It hasn't.”

“—then five to ten minutes past one. Never. But where's my watch? I'm looking at the alarm clock right now—hold on.” I go into the bathroom, get my watch off the shelf under the medicine chest, put one of the pearl ear-studs back into the cockleshell on the shelf from which it must have rolled out of but got stopped by my toothbrush, put the toothbrush back into the wall holder, go back. “Your bank clock runs slow or is still suffering from an outage of an hour and a quarter some time ago, because both my watch and clock says it's twenty after two. And earlier tonight I set my watch by my clock and then checked my watch against the wall clock at that reception I told you I was going to.”

“If I'd known it was past two I probably still would've called you. It's that important.”

“I can imagine. You want to come up.”

“Not for the reason your tone says. Please, give me a little credit. You see, I'm locked out of my apartment. If I started to tell you the scenes that led up to it—and I'm sorry, by the way, for my calls to your service, which happened way before I got locked out. I was a little drunk then. Now I'm not. I'm stoned sober—stark sober—very stark but what's—”

“What calls to my service?”

“They didn't tell you?”

“I didn't call it.”

“You're the first person I know of with one who doesn't call it every three hours. I'm not saying there's anything wrong in calling it that—”

“I got home after it closed. Even if I got home before that I wouldn't have called it till tomorrow. I really only need it on school days. I'm a teacher—”

“I know. I spoke to a couple of people about you at the party. Casual. I didn't probe. Oh, so I probed. I was interested in you after you left—you must have known before you left how interested I was in you. In fact we both spoke about it—our mutual interest—so of course I'd be just as or more interested in you after I left, which caused that brainless yelling to you from the window, for instance, or helped cause it. All the drink I drank at Diana's didn't hinder it, not that I'm not responsible for how much and then how I act under it. Nor do I want all this drink talk to downplay the interest I felt without drink before or after the window incident.”

“Less said about that window—”

“Thank you. The very least would be the best, but it's good it's out and that you know it's also not something I normally do. But I was interested so I asked a couple of people, Diana, mostly, ‘Who is she? What does she do?' Nothing detailed, not
personal life
—but that has nothing to do with why I called now and my emergency.”

“Excuse me, but since you knew I had a service—and I hope you didn't insult anyone there. It's a good service, nice hardworking people work there—”

“I didn't. I forget what I said but I know, because I was still a little drunk—and I also hardly ever drink that much or get the way I'll describe—that I must've sounded drunk and perhaps unrefined to them the two or three times I called—I hope not. So next time you speak to them I wonder if you could apologize for me. But you were saying?”

“The service is called Lip Sinc, with an I-n-c. Why don't you look up the number tomorrow and call it to apologize?”

“I will. Lip Sinc. I'll remember it since I don't have a pen. Now can I tell you about the spot I'm in and why your reasons for thinking why I want to come up aren't the ones why I do, or should I just forget it and quietly hang up? And I would very quietly hang up. For I know I'm disturbing you—I just hope I didn't get you going to sleep.”

“You didn't. But let's say your reason is you've been locked out. So what's that got to do with me?”

“Maybe I should say the rest quickly before you hang up or we get cut off, and you won't, will you? You've every reason to, but this was my last dime. I even had to borrow it—or beg for it, really—but I suppose I could always borrow or beg another one. It's probably not that mortifying to do after the first time, though later it gets, fewer people to borrow or beg from and less inclined they are to stop. So before we do get cut off, and my tried-and-true mental timeclock says we're long overdue, maybe I could give you my number here and you could call back. It's kind of a long story why I'm asking to come by and, just for a few hours till daybreak when my landlady gets up and I can get my duplicate keys, sleep on your floor.”