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Page 16.

Chapter 6

A telephone waited by a couch. Once a week, a duster held in long, slender fingers descended to brush away the effluvium of time, that weightless dust of motes, some of them raining to earth out of the sum and essence of spent meteorites, others rasped off mountain tops by the wind and after airborne months seeking shelter behind white and remodeled walls; some, more prosaic, raised out of the pores of the sun-baked sidewalks of New Haven, pressed through the old walls after a brief flight to tumble microscopically over the fields of wood and rug and couch. Sometimes the stereo glowed in dusty warmth with throbbing music. More usually it was quiet, a silence filled with the rustle of cellulose crackling in growing house plants, the rustle of a stray breeze in yellow curtains, the padding of bare feet on sticky wood floors, the sigh of a comb through long blonde hair, and once in a great while, the murmur of a voice speaking alone. From the gardens below, ghostly children’s voices rose when sunlight flooded the room, echoing generation after timeless generation in their playful conflicts and conspiracies.

It had been a hot, sunny day and now night steeped the room with inky-blue-black promise. The telephone slept, cut off by the weight of its receiver from the million-fold electronic babble washing the city in conversations. A fan hummed, oscillating under a rubber palm on a teak table. A gadzillion of crispy leaves crinkled directly outside. It was the earliest summer heat. That rare, brief moment of year was at hand when one would be comfortable with the temperature of evening, when inside and outside falsely promised never again to be irreconcilable, when moths brushed blindly against window screens, when a lemon ice could pierce the palate with citric relief, when streetlights outside were yellow and friendly.

A distant and electric urge startled the sleeping telephone, but did not yet cause it to ring.

The apartment was bathed in a cool blue light. The dry, warm voice of a TV announcer, the rustle of thousands of baseball fans, the stirring march of a razor blade manufacturer made the dim apartment come alive. A pair of long, slender pale legs were draped carelessly over the armrests of an easy chair. Long fingers crunched in a bag of popcorn. The air smelled of salt and butter. Ice tinkled in a cola glass. A taxi tooted outside. The phone rang. A jet whistled high up in the night sky amid thinly banked clouds under some constellation. The phone burred under the rubber palm. The taxi tooted impatiently. The phone burred. A car passed in the night. A door slammed in the rambling, turreted house.

“Hello?”

“Merile?”

“Yes?”

“Jon Harney.” A car door closed, a taxi radio crackled, a motor revved, tires rustled on the dry street speeding away.

“How are you?”

“I’m okay,” he said.

“How are you?” she repeated senselessly, feeling an unexpected surge in her stomach.

“Okay, how are you?” he insisted.

She dropped an uneaten handful of popcorn into its bag and settled on the couch, her long bare legs shimmering in the TV light as the million fans shouted, a bat cracked, and the leaves crinkled outside, bringing in a fresh and sweet-smelling breeze. “I didn’t think I’d hear from you again,” she said.

“Maybe you were right,” he said.

“Where are you?” She heard the unmistakable sound of a tractor-trailer rig passing on a busy street, and realized not quite immediately that it wasn’t outside but on his end. How close they were, so far yet in one head together like a pair of earphones, a left and a right, a male and a female.

He sounded bored. “Oh, one of these bars. A regular meat rack. I want to leave.”

“It’s ten o’clock,” she told him.

“I hope I’m not calling too late.”

She rolled over on her stomach. “It’s not too late.” Her breath somehow was short.

It’s never too late. I’m always open for you.

“Just thought I’d call,” he said.

“It’s been a while,” she said. She added teasingly, “What about your date?”

“No date,” he protested.

“It’s Friday night,” she said. “A date night.”

“It’s springtime too,” he reminded her.

“I know!” she agreed, accentuating the “know.” Her fingers were somehow aflutter around the receiver.

Fig night. Fog night, she thought. Come over here.

His voice sounded abashed and sweaty. “I’d made up my mind not to call you.”

She laughed incriminatingly. “I thought I saw you staring at the telephone when you were here.”

“You don’t miss much.”

“You were standing too close. You must learn to be discreet.”

“I thought I was discreet.”

“Not discreet enough.” Her heart was pounding and the pulse in her throat threatened to cut off her voice. Indeed, her throat tightened, so she involuntarily emitted a faint cry of desire. Embarrassed, she hoped he didn’t notice.

“Instead I’m concrete,” he said.

She pressed her elbows together, as her nipples tingled just hearing his voice. “I thought you’d be off mowing other lawns.”

“I was,” he said truthfully.

“Don’t sound so enthused,” she said.

“The grass is greener on the other side.”

“That’s original.”

“I miss you.”

“I know,” she said full of sorrow and hope, yearning and soap. “Stop some time.”

Come now. Please, I need you so much.

Crack! another home run. The fans rustled in Shea Stadium, and the announcer said, “With the bases loaded, Sammy Krakow drives a second home run for the Mets in this spring evening home game…”

“Someone there?” Jon Harney asked.

“Not a soul,” she said brightly. “I got a card from Bill today. They found some bones.”

“Over in Australia?”

“Where else?”

“Upskate.”

“You remembered. Yeah, Downskate.”

“I hope I’m not bothering you.”

“I was hoping you’d call. Don’t drop the receiver in shock now.”

“You are so saucy.”

“You could talk too long on the telephone.”

“I can hang up.”

“No don’t.”

“Shall I drop by?”

“What about your commitment?”

“What commitment?”

“To remain uncommitted.”

He paused amid grass and crickets and exhaust fumes. Feigning casualness, he said, “You’re on my way home.”

“Do you like popcorn? Do you follow baseball?”

“How are the Mets doing?”

“Six aught,” she said, feeling a warmth creeping into her stomach as she ran a toying fingernail over the crushed velvet material of the couch’s arm rest.

“Sounds like an interesting game.”

“If you like I’ll make some more popcorn.”

He said, “I’m crossing the Rubicon as we speak.”

She hung up and went into the bedroom. In the stillness and darkness there, she found some silk briefs into which she slipped her long legs. After a brief deliberation, she decided to leave her breasts bare, and pulled on a mid-thigh summer dress. In the mingled light of moon and street lights, she turned slowly before the bedroom mirror and regarded herself. She would act nonchalant at the door.

Or, anyway, I’ll try my best not to seem eager.

In the mild cross-lights, the puckering of her nipples in the flimsy flowered cotton shift did not show at all, but it made a magic glowing lantern to entice him with her figure.

The telephone glowered righteously under its palm tree. She stepped into high-heeled open pumps which accentuated the length of her legs.

“The die is cast,” she said to the telephone, breezing past the TV to make some more popcorn.

“The bases are loaded again and this looks like a take-away game, folks,” said the TV.

“De dice is trone,” she intimated airily to the mute black telephone.

Minutes later, as popping sounds ensued from the kitchen, she stood behind the window overlooking Everitt Street. She’d had curtains installed—like a fig leaf, a sort of an expulsion from Eden theme—and pulled them apart for a peek. Any moment now a dusty Pontiac would come careening around the corner. She heard the sound of a car engine revving not far away. She raised her eyes, gripping the window sill with sweaty hands.

What am I doing?

His sleek Pontiac, top down, crawled around the corner. With fluttering hands, she let the curtain fall shut.