Not Exactly a Love Story (6 page)

Two.

I squashed the urge to hang up.

Don’t think.

Three.

Someone picked up, there was a rustling noise. My breath caught.

“Hello?” She sounded sleepy.

Air scraped through my throat.

“Who is this?” she asked. Answering her own question, she added, “A breather.”

One panicked instant passed before I slammed the receiver down.

Breather?!

I was the kind of guy who calls and gets too nervous to say anything, so he hangs up! That was humiliating enough, even if I was the only one who knew. I had to be able to look myself in the eye, didn’t I? But, a breather?

So. Do it again. This time, know what to say.

I could apologize right off the bat, say I’m sorry I woke her up, I suddenly realized I was calling way too late. I went crazy and hung up. And did she want to go to a movie with me?

Maybe it was an opener we could laugh about later. I picked up the phone again. My heart hammered wildly in my chest. Hadn’t really stopped hammering. It was not a proud moment.

But also, I was absorbing how quick she was to accuse me before I had a chance to say a single word. Okay, I’d had the chance—I choked. But I thought she’d be nice. Now I wondered if calling back was a good idea.

I decided I’d give her another chance to be nice. I dialed, ignoring the way the receiver slipped in my sweaty hand.

Ringing.

It still bothered me, though. Maybe she wasn’t the kind of girl I was looking for after all.

Two. I was tempted to hang up, I really was.

“You’re a jerk, you know that?” Not sleepy now.

I hung up.

Okay, okay, maybe that was kind of jerky. But now—not once, but twice—I felt really stupid.

I also got mad. Some girls would’ve laughed it off or something. She could have been kind about it, that’s all. I wanted to call back and tell her so.

Why not? It wasn’t like she even knew who she was talking to. What if I was really just a confused caller dialing a wrong number? Only I already knew that wasn’t why I was going to call back.

I tried to tell myself this call wouldn’t be much different than calls I’d made when I was a whole lot younger. Rainy Saturday afternoons, two or three kids in a mood for mischief—“Have you got Olive Oyl in a bottle?”

The spirit of this call was entirely different.

“Boy, would I love to—” The sound of my voice hauled me back from the edge. There are names for those kind of prank calls. Callers. Okay, okay, I wouldn’t do it. I could think about it, though. Thinking isn’t doing. Except …

I knew what to say. I tried it out loud. “I just want to know, do blondes have more fun?” Yes! Ambiguous and obnoxious, a double threat. No tricky twists to trip up the tongue.

I grabbed the phone and dialed again.

She didn’t pick up right after the first ring like I hoped she would. She didn’t pick up on the second ring either. I stared at the clock radio, saw it blink from 11:59 to 12:00.

She picked up before the end of the third ring with an exaggerated “Hellooooh?”

“Wanna fuck?”
What?!

“What?!” she said, echoing the word etched in my mind.

She didn’t hang up right away. We had a moment of silence while I saw I’d gone wrong. Very wrong.

Then she hung up.

I had stopped breathing, and now I started to pant. I hung up the phone hard and started to bang my fist against my forehead. I felt like I was out of my mind.

Hold on, I said to myself. Maybe I wasn’t so wrong. She’d been rude from the first awkward call, when she might have been halfway understanding. I couldn’t have been the first idiot to throw myself, gasping, at the beachhead of her sneakers. This way she didn’t feel entirely fawned over.

My breathing slowed to nearly normal. I mentally clapped myself on the back. Good going, Vinnie. The scared feeling of calling faded, leaving nothing in its place. Nothing, as in empty.

Which, when I thought about it, was scary in a different way.

Monday was declared a snow day.

I followed Mr. B out to the garage, worrying I’d have to face Patsy, or worse, her dad. Mr. B and I shoveled our driveway, a guy with a plow on the front of his Jeep plowed theirs. I could swear no one opened a door over there all day.

It was just as well. I couldn’t say anything to her, not after making that call. My intentions had been good, at least in the beginning. But things had gone badly. Very badly. It would have been nice to see her looking like she’d already forgotten it.

That evening, I called Dad to tell him I had a problem. I stuck to the story I’d prepared. “I got tongue-tied. Didn’t say a word. And then I hung up. I did that three times. I feel really stupid.”

“Not stupid. Just new to this,” Dad said. “Rehearse. Until it’s second nature, you know?”

Good advice.

At twenty minutes to midnight, I sat on the bed studying my face in the mirror. Still the basic stuff, reasonably well put together. A shadier cast to the eyes, eyes that hid a guilty secret. But I had a serious conversation in mind. I had written out what I needed to say so I wouldn’t mess up. I wasn’t feeling quite as nervous as the night before. I practiced my lines.

11:50. Ten minutes to go. I had a sudden picture of Patsy waking in the darkness and, after my phone call, seeing my light. I played the movie in my head to an unfortunate ending. I switched the light off and sat in the green glow of the alarm clock. 11:54.

A minute later, I got under the blanket and lay there, watching the clock. Maybe calling back right at 12:00 was stupid. She’d guess it was the same caller. Why answer?

On the other hand, everybody answers their phone at 12:00. It could be an emergency.

Or—She’d know who was calling. It was sort of an introduction. I’d apologize right off so I could get it in before she hung up. Maybe she wouldn’t hang up. Maybe she’d be so impressed that I’d called back to apologize that she’d want to reciprocate in some way. Be forgiving, for instance.

11:59. In the darkness, the receiver was warm and damp in my hand and smelled slightly of new plastic.

12:00. I dialed. Leaned against the headboard.

Ringing.

Twice.

“Hello?” Voice sleepy but suspicious.

“I called to apologize for saying that to you last night.”

“Is this a joke?”

“I never made that kind of call before. I swear. I’m really sorry.”

“You’re really nuts.”

“I made a mistake, that’s all.”

“Tell it to the judge.” Click.

I sat up in the darkness, my mouth dry. I’d heard the phone company had ways to track calls for the police department. Somewhere, somebody already knew who I was. I was breathing hard.

I started to pace my room.

She was just trying to scare me. “Tell it to the judge.” A figure of speech, that’s what it was. All it was. I sat down on my bed again.

My heart was still beating too fast.

In the cold light of morning, the phone call seemed like a really stupid thing to have done. Even more stupid than the others.

I wondered if she might recognize my voice. Not likely. She’d have to have noticed my voice to know it anywhere, especially over the phone.

Patsy wasn’t standing ankle-deep in slush at the bus stop
with everybody else. Her friends were there, complaining that their boots were too fashionable, water was seeping in around their toes. One of these was an earnest-looking stick of a girl named Melanie. And another girl whose name I still hadn’t caught, she had the velvety brown bunny look of an Italian film star.

This had looked to me like an uneasy alliance of two beauties and a hanger-on, but over weeks I’d come to the conclusion that Melanie was brainy and sensitive. Still a mismatch, but not a hanger-on.

“She said she wasn’t feeling so good last night.” Melanie was always informed.

Brown Bunny said, “I wouldn’t want to be sick today.”

“I don’t think she’s desperately ill or anything,” Melanie said.

“She didn’t stay for the last practice, either” was the un-bunny-like warning. “This week we’re supposed to be running plays with the other team.”

Ah. The powder-puff game. It was a girls’ football game, juniors against seniors, played to raise money for a dance. However seriously this game might be played elsewhere, at this school it was played for laughs. Mr. B told Mom and me that last year’s plays had been done in ballet steps.

“Maybe she doesn’t really want to play,” Melanie said. “You guys get pretty rough.”

“Yeah, she found out it takes more than being blond.”

“I’m not always sure I like you,” Melanie said.

Brown Bunny didn’t flinch. “Ditto.”

I hoped Melanie was right about the reason Patsy stayed home. Because it just that moment hit me, Patsy might never have gotten an obscene phone call before. It was an unlisted number and all.

I’ve seen in movies how some women take it personally. Like the caller might show up at their front door. Of course, in the movies, he usually does.

Later that morning, I got in line behind Patsy in the cafeteria, so
she clearly hadn’t missed the whole day. She was with her friends and took no notice of me.

“You didn’t tell us,” Brown Bunny said, “about this party you went to Saturday night.”

“My best friend from elementary school still lives in Bayside. She called up all the kids who’ve moved away from the neighborhood. Had them come back for a kind of reunion.”

The trick to listening in on a conversation is to look like you’re so lost in thought, you’re unaware of anyone around you. Spaced-out. In a cafeteria line, you can stare at the unappetizing offerings.

“Everybody came. Even this kid whose parents always dressed him up for school? Those matching jeans-and-jacket
things somebody puts out for little kids. Teachers put him up front.”

“So?” Brown Bunny prodded.

“He picked his nose. Whenever the teacher turned to write on the board, he picked his nose, and because he sat up front, everybody had to watch.”

Melanie said, “So forgive him! He was a kid.”

“He still picks his nose.”

I sort of knew that was coming. But I also knew from a couple of Dad’s friends, comedians, how hard it could be to tell a story the right way. I appreciated the way she led the story with the dressed-up kid and left the nose-picking for a punch line.

“He stands around like he’s inspecting the drapes or something, with his back to the room. He thinks no one will notice.”

“Pathetic,” Brown Bunny said, disgusted.

“Maybe he has a medical problem,” Melanie offered. I liked Melanie. I wasn’t falling in love with her or anything, but she had heart.

“He didn’t recognize me.” Patsy’s eyes flicked in my direction. I stared, glassy-eyed, off into the distance. “Isn’t that weird?”

“You must’ve changed a lot,” Melanie said.

“I got so bored,” Patsy said. “Those kids are still wrapped up in the silly stuff that occupied their pea brains in second grade.”

Melanie was on sure ground now. “You are awfully mature. Probably it’s because your dad’s a psychologist.”

“Psychiatrist,” Patsy said.

I wondered if she’d already told them about the call she got at midnight, if she’d overslept because she stayed awake afterward. But then it occurred to me that, compared to some poor guy who couldn’t resist picking his nose in public, an obscene call might not be interesting enough to report.

I was still thinking things over at dinner that evening.

Mom said, “You’re awfully quiet, Vinnie.”

“I’m not very hungry.”

“Do you feel like you’re coming down with something?”

“I’m just not hungry.”

“Make sure you dress warmly enough,” she said, and paused before adding, “You were up late last night. Studying?”

“Mm-hmmmm.” I began to eat.

Mr. B stared at his meal of knackwurst, box-mix potato casserole, and deli coleslaw. Being concerned for my health, Mom didn’t notice that Mr. B had lost his appetite. I wished Dad was doing the cooking.

Mom said, “Don’t get compulsive on me.”

I finished chewing, then said, “Any average under ninety and you’ll tell me I’m not working up to my full potential. So what’s compulsive? Ninety-eight? Ninety-five?”