Long Made Short (3 page)

She calls several people she’s met, and through them friends and colleagues of theirs,
but the one person who’s heard of Svetlana doesn’t even know her phone number. The
first scholar she spoke to calls back and says nobody he contacted knows where she
lives or how to find out. “I give up for now,” she says. “Maybe she’s okay and off
doing something we haven’t thought of yet, but I seriously doubt it.” “I hope we’re
wrong,” I say. “You mean you think it’s no good too?” “Looks it. But as you said,
we’ve only just met her so there’s lots we don’t know.”

Little past midnight, we just got into our beds and shut the night table lights, the
phone rings. A woman says “Abel, yes? Hello, I’m Katya Sergeyeva, very good friend
of Svetlana. Pardon me for upsetting you if this is nothing, but I’m extremely worried
for her. Was she with you all of today?” “Let me put my wife on please. This is very
important so if there’s any language problem, she can speak Russian.” She tells Marguerite
she and Svetlana have spoken every day with each other since Svetlana’s stroke. Yesterday
she thought Svetlana went with us someplace outside of Moscow and got back late or
stayed overnight at a hotel with us there. Now that she knows we haven’t seen her
for two days she’s sure something’s wrong. She’s going to go over to her apartment
now with a friend. If Svetlana doesn’t answer she’ll get the police to break down
the door. Marguerite tells her we’ll do whatever we can to help so please count on
us and call anytime tonight, no matter how late. We read for a few minutes, then she
yawns and hearing it I yawn right after and we agree we should try to nap. I wake
up once thinking maybe Katya called but we didn’t hear it in our sleep, though the
phone only rings loudly, and cover Marguerite up and turn off the lights.

Katya calls just when Marguerite’s about to dial her. She didn’t get back to us last
night because it was very late and things were still so unresolved. They got to the
apartment, knocked, nobody answered and they didn’t hear anything behind the door
so they called the police who said they couldn’t get there till ten this morning.
“They couldn’t get there?” I say when Marguerite translates it for me while still
on the phone. “What if she still has some breath this minute but dies a few seconds
before they get there?” “Shh,” she says, signaling she can’t hear what Katya’s saying.
Katya says she and several friends are going to meet the police now at Svetlana’s
and she’ll call soon as she has some news, but she’s convinced now Svetlana’s dead.
She also told Marguerite that after they knocked and called through the door last
night they went to about twenty apartments in the building and nobody had seen Svetlana
for two days. “They went around asking at one and two in the morning?” “I told you,
people here do that. Not the police, as you heard, but you can call on your friends
and most of your neighbors anytime.” “So why didn’t they all get together last night
and knock down the door? Police wouldn’t come, hell with them, or is it it’s really
maybe some highly penalizable crime?” “Possibly. Probably.”

Phone rings two hours later. Marguerite stayed around long as she could but then had
to leave for an important appointment that couldn’t be rescheduled. “Abel, yes? Katya
here, most unexpected news,” and then her voice cracks and she speaks excitably in
Russian. “Speak English, please, I understand very little Russian.
Nye govoryu po russki
,
nye govoryu po russki
,” and she says
“Nyet
,
nyet
, not okay, can’t. Wait.” A woman gets on and says “Hello, I am Bella, good friend
of Katya and Svetlana. It is terrible to speak to you, sir, only this once with only
this terrible news for you. I speak English not good but try. Svetlana is dead. She
has stroke Wednesday, your day, she must have, we and police today believe, that made
her that way, killed her. Great pity. Much sorrow. Wonderful woman. Intelligent and
kind and so nice to this building and people and everywhere she goes. It is very very
sad.” “Very. I’m terribly sorry. Please tell Katya that. And what is her phone—telephone
number, please, even though I think my wife took it. But what is it if she didn’t
take it so she can phone Katya later,” and she gives me it.

For a couple of days after I think how I would have liked it to turn out. I wouldn’t
show any signs I disliked her, was annoyed or irritated by her. If I did and it was
evident to her I’d quickly apologize, saying it was something in me, personal, being
away from my work maybe, maybe worried about my kids, too much of that good lemon
vodka last night or bad sturgeon, other excuses, but nothing she’d done. If she apologized
for being such a chatterbox, as she said of herself once, covering her mouth with
her hand, I’d say “Great, chatter away, don’t hold back for my sake, because most
of what you’re saying is interesting and new to me, and better someone who talks and
makes sense than keeps sullen and still.” We’d go here, there, lunch, dinner with
Marguerite, stop for coffee, tea for her,
bulki
,
torte
or whatever the plural for them, which I’d ask her for, I’d suggest she take me inside
the Kremlin, the Tolstoi and Chekhov museums, whatever church and monastery she wants
me to see in the city and outside it. At lunch I’d give her some of the plastic sandwich
bags I brought from New York and would say “Butter all the bread you want and stick
them in the bags and the bags into your pocketbook. Less messy, and the food’s only
going to go to waste or be taken home by the kitchen staff. I’d take some myself but
we do all that kind of buttering and cheese-taking and other secret hoarding at the
hotel’s breakfast buffet every day.” Children’s toy store, Pushkin museum again, where
I might say maybe she has a point about the Van Goghs and I’ve been duped as much
as the next guy about his work, since I’m no art expert, exhibition hall of contemporary
Russian painting she spoke about and I’d wanted to see but begged off because I didn’t
want her lecturing me. I’d take her up on teaching me ten Russian words and a couple
of phrases and one complete sentence a day and testing me occasionally on the Russian
alphabet till I could read or at least sound out all the stores’ names and street
signs. We’d talk about books and stories we’ve read, plays we’ve seen, she here, I
in the States. Farewell dinner at a Czech restaurant Marguerite and I had talked weeks
ago about ending our trip with. We’d toast to one another, to good literature, to
Tolstoi and Chekhov and Babel, Ahkmatova and Tsvetaieva and the endurance of all great
art, to the success of Marguerite’s project, to my work at home, to Svetlana and everything
she does and for being such a fine interpreter and companion and friend and showing
and teaching me things I never would have seen or known, to our two girls and all
our families and friends, to returning to Moscow soon, to her visiting America and
our being her sponsors and me her guide for a day or two, to continuing good relations
between our countries, democracy in hers, to eternal peace between them, peace and
disarmament everywhere and good health and happiness and cooperation everywhere too
and more dinners for the three of us like this one, future toasts. Then we’d ask the
restaurant to order a taxi and we’d drop her off at a metro station, kiss each other’s
cheeks, give her her five days’ salary and a twenty-dollar tip and some kind of present—one
of the scarves Marguerite brought as presents from America, cologne from America or
probably both if she hasn’t given them away yet. Or I’d get out of the cab and help
her out and then kiss her, or we’d drive her home no matter how far out of the way
and wait in the cab till she got in her building. Or I’d walk her to her first-floor
hallway and stay there till she was upstairs and in her apartment or had enough time
to get inside. Or we’d cab straight to our hotel and give our presents and enough
extra fare in dollars for the cab to take her home.

Back in New York Marguerite says “It’s so strange to think the last day you see some
person, very active and energetic and seemingly healthy, is the last day of that person’s
life, or the last night.” “Very odd,” I say, “very.” “And I forgot to tell you. That
Katya—you remember her, Svetlana’s friend who went over there with the police? Well
she said Svetlana was planning to give us a little party at her place after her last
workday, or really not so little. After dinner, that she would invite some of her
friends-interpreters and people in teaching and editing—and ask me for names of people
I’d seen who might want to come, or anyone I wanted. I doubt many of them would have
come, unless they lived close by. And I would have done what I could, without hurting
her in any way, to dissuade her. But that’s something for her to want to do, since
she was short of money and you’d think she’d be too tired that day to give it. I’m
thinking now though. I’m having this very bad thought, without wanting to sound as
if I don’t appreciate what she wanted to do, but that her stroke saved us from it.
It would have been the last thing I wanted, at her place or any place but, to be honest,
less at her place. Her friends were probably bright and nice but a bit dull. Or maybe
not, but you know, I just wouldn’t see the reason for the party. I don’t know how
we could have refused it though, do you?” “Too tired and busy. We were leaving in
a day and a half and you needed to see some more people or do research or go over
your notes or something. And we also had to pack and were almost too tired for even
that.”

My wife answers and says “It’s for you,” and hands me the cordless and I go into the
kitchen with it because she’s working in the living room and shut the door and say
hello and a woman says “Jack, hi, it’s Ramona Bauer,” and I shout “What, Ramona Bauer?—not
my old friend Ramona,” and she says “That’s right, and my old friend Jack, how are
you?” and I say “God, how are you, I’m fine, but how are you and what have you been
doing?” and she says she’s still in New Haven, different house though, and has two
children, girl in college, boy graduating high school, girl has been a delight her
entire life and at the very top of her class since kindergarten and is already a fantastic
scientist, boy has some emotional problems but nothing that won’t be solved, she and
her husband are divorcing after being married close to nineteen years and together
for twenty-two, and I say “Sorry to hear that, it must be a very difficult thing to
go through, especially for the children,” and she says “Not as much as it’s been for
everyone enduring the two of us living together the last five years, and if you’re
saying part of my son’s problem is because of the breakup, that’s true but a small
part of it and will also be worked out,” and I say “Well good, I’m glad. I remember
your husband. He has an unusual Slavic name I could never pronounce or spell,” and
she says “Kaczmarek,” and I say “Kaczmarek, I still wouldn’t know how to spell it
without seeing it, but he liked to climb mountains and jump from airplanes, and was
a radio producer or assistant to one last time I saw you, which was when I drove to
New Haven when you were living together,” and she says “Now he’s a TV and movie producer—documentaries
mostly,” and I say “Good for him. I also read the obituary of your mother and sent
you a note about it through their old address,” and she says “You did? I never got
it though my father was still living there till about five years ago,” and I say “He’s
all right, I hope,” and she says “Ninety-one and still, last I heard, never a health
problem and barely a checkup, knock wood,” and she raps something twice, and I say
“Anyway, I sent the note,” though now I remember I wanted to and maybe even wrote
it but never sent it out, and she says “If he got it he never told me—did you address
it directly to me?” and I say “Yes, with probably something about my condolences to
your whole family,” and she says “That was sweet of you—believe me, if I’d received
it I would have replied,” and I say “That’s okay, it happens. How is your brother,
by the way—still in films? Because I haven’t seen his name on one for it must be fifteen
years, but then there’s few American films I go to though I think I would have caught
his name in the ads if he had any billing,” and she says “Listen, less we say about
him or any of my family, the better. I’ve sort of cut myself off from all of them,
even my father—imagine,” and she laughs, “their little pip-squeak Ramona, the one
who could always be bossed around and whom they treated as if she never and could
never grow up. Well, they still treat me that way and I’m fifty-three, so I just said—this
was in relation to my divorce when I told them—‘Fuck you, gang,’ and I don’t hear
from them anymore, not even my oldest and closest sister and certainly not my wacko
brother,” and I say “She—but you don’t want to talk about it,” and she says “No, what?”
and I say “The oldest one, Denise or Diana, lived in Mount Kisco, didn’t she?” and
she says “What a memory you have about things I like to forget. Dina still does—Ms.
Stability—hasn’t moved or been upset by anything in forty years,” and I say “On Elderberry
Street, number one-o-four or six,” and she says “Eight, but still, that’s fantastic
and you even got the berries right this time,” and I say “I didn’t use to?” and she
says “I don’t know, didn’t you? For I was only kidding, but what about your family—your
mother?” and I say “She’s old and ailing and not altogether there sometimes—her memory
of what you just tell her goes pretty quickly but she’s still good with the distant
past—she’s living in the same apartment where you first knew me, though with a full-time
companion,” and she says “What a dear woman—I’m sorry she’s not well—please mention
we spoke and give her an extra big hug from me next time you see her,” and I say “Will
do,” and she says “I’m serious—tell her I still think of her fondly and give her that
hug,” and I say “I’ll probably see her later today—I do almost every day for at least
an hour, so I’ll do what you say,” and I will tell her though more likely tomorrow
but won’t give the hug—it would seem too silly: “Here’s a hug from Ramona Bauer, woman
I was engaged to almost thirty years ago, remember her?” and passing on kisses and
hugs even to my own children isn’t something I like to do, and she says “What about
the rest of your family—your brothers and sisters, they all well?” and I tell her
one died in a bicycle accident twelve years ago last week, one’s a fully recovered
alcoholic now a social worker in alcohol abuse, another moved to Texas to open a macrobiotic
restaurant and we hardly hear from her anymore, the fourth has been married four times
in the last twelve years and has seven children and now seems to have taken up with
the future number five—“I don’t know what she’s got but it’s something that hasn’t
slackened,” and she says “Wow, some rundown and such woe, and your father?—because
you didn’t mention him,” and I say “Yes, seventeen—no, eighteen years ago this January,”
and she says “I’m sorry, but I’m glad your mom’s still around—she was a doll, treated
me wonderfully, comfortably, one of the family.” “And my father didn’t, I know—well,
mixed marriage and all, which we almost had with almost mixed children. Not that it
meant anything to us but he sure wasn’t keen on it—he was from a very religious family
and was observant himself till just a year before I was born when both his parents
died,” and she says “I understand, I’m not saying that—anyway, all in the past,” and
I say “Right, in the past, but you have to know that much as he protested, you won
him over without even trying,” and she says “Oh, I tried all right—that guy was tough
to crack.” “What I meant was your high spirits, brains, good looks and humor and stuff
and that you were an acting success so fast,” and she says “Oh yeah, a big big success,”
and she laughs and I say “What’s funny?” and she says “Nothing, or success—just nothing,”
and I say “Okay…and how’s Leonard What’s-his-name—Stimmell, because I’ve a funny story
about him,” and she says “Good ole Lenny, one of my other dearest old friends—I see
him whenever I come to town, practically—he’s such a gas, and talk about spirit? Nothing’s
gonna stop him but everything will,” and I say “You mean he’s still plugging away
at acting without much success?” and she says “Thirty-plus years of the best bit roles
in TV commercials and walk-ons in soaps and occasionally small to fairly good roles
in hole-in-the-wall theaters and summer stock, and same wife, no kids—they’d interfere
with his constant auditions and he said they also couldn’t afford them, Laurie still
doing temporary office work while pursuing her opera career,” and I say “My story
about him touches on that—his commercials,” and she says “You saw him in a waiter’s
uniform at a restaurant and asked him for a menu when he was actually performing in
a commercial?” and I say “It was at the Belvedere Fountain Café in Central Park—eight
years and a few months ago, and he was resting between shoots; I remember it distinctly.
My oldest boy was still in that little carrying sack over my chest—a Snugli—and probably
snoozing,” and she says “Oh, that’s lovely, precious, and I can just see it, and we
never even talked about your own family—are there any others?” and I say “My wife,
a younger boy,” and she says “Two—you got your hands full,” and I say “Not so far,
and yours turned out okay, or will—but Leonard…he told you he saw me with my baby?”
and she says “Someone else I know had the same experience with him in a Soho restaurant—it’s
hilarious how he’s typecast,” and she laughs. “But he’s such a sweetie—they should
have had children when they could.” “And Myron Rock?” and she says “Three kids, two
divorces, slew of groupies.” “I meant—but anyway, so you see him,” and she says “When
I come in sometimes—he in fact said he got a nice letter from you regarding his last
book,” and I say “I saw it advertised and wrote him care of his publisher something
like ‘Glad you hung in there, I couldn’t.’” “So you haven’t?” and I say “Gave it up
for good some fifteen years ago, though I’m always reading it.” “Any success?” and
I say “A few times at reading it.” “Ho-ho, but the one you wrote him about was his
best, didn’t you think?” and I say “Flat, forced, fake and familiar and with a stupid
commercial title—
In Bed With Clark Gable
or something.” “It was
Hollywood Here I Come
—his experiences screenwriting there, and a double meaning which you, the teacher,
got, if not even a triple, but why’d you write him if you thought it so bad?” and
I say “Just what I told you: because he stuck with it—crummy book but a book every
three years or so and apparently able to live fairly well off his work, which I would
have loved but didn’t have whatever it is to do it.” “So you never had a book published?”
“One little measly one—I’ve plenty of copies I bought for a dollar each so I’ll send
you one if you like.” “That’d be nice, thanks, and your friend Henry?” “Henry Greenfield?”
“Yes.” “How’s he doing?” “That’s right,” and I say “I see him about once every eighteen
months—he’s completely changed: skinny instead of stocky, shaved his skull, big beard,
wears an earring and kiddy clothes and has become a visual artist—he made enough in
antiques to retire—and he and Gilda split up after twenty-five years,” and she says
“I liked her, lots of spunk and smarts, even if she didn’t care for me—remember?”
and I say “Even where and when she said it—they and I were subbing together at a Bronx
junior high school and it was on the train to work and she said ‘What do you think
Ramona has against me?’” “I never had anything against her.” “I know, which I told
her then—I think it was all out of envy—your profession, personableness, income and
that you didn’t have to hack it out as a sub every day. Anyway, I see her now even
more than I do Henry—he’s become a bit too odd, the new face and costume each time
and hip talk and woman after woman after woman and each five years younger than the
previous one till they’re now younger than his daughter, who’s first-year med school,
by the way.” “How could it be—shy little Phoebe?” “Little Phoebe who’s about ten feet
tall.” “In size?” “Both…but how’s your old acting-school friend Thalia?” and she says
“Thelma—it was at her party, in fact, where we met, wasn’t it?” and I say “It was
a friend of my brother Peter’s, which is how I came to it, and you came with Thelma,
so maybe she knew the host or someone who knew him—that was some night, Christmas
Eve, snowing, and you and I talked awhile and then left for midnight services at Saint
Patrick’s because you wouldn’t mind praying and I’d always wanted to be on the line
there outside with someone like you who’d cuddle into me because of the cold, and
it happened—well, I’ve told you this before, nothing like fantasies realized,” and
she says “I think you told me it that very night,” and I say “It was the same with
my wife, almost same circumstances, but a New Year’s Eve party I met her at.” “Your
brother invited you?” “No, he was dead by then—I was actually invited by the hosts
and saw her, my future wife—” “What’s her name?” “Carolyn.” “And your boys’?” “Andrei
and Daniel, two writers she’s written about and admires and even knew, I think—and
fell in love at first sight there—I did—In other words, at the party I was immensely
attracted to her and introduced myself or had someone introduce us—” “Surely you remember,”
and I say “I introduced myself and asked whom she knew—something dumb like that—woman
or boy friend giving the party and found out she came with a woman friend, as you
had twenty years before, and was single.” “What would you have done if she wasn’t?”
“Probably made a pass at her, which I think I was still doing then—I know I was: if
I couldn’t get the whole works then maybe just a quick fling. Though looking back
at it it’s not something I’ve liked in myself and don’t especially care for when men
do it to Carolyn at parties and gatherings of various sorts.” “It’s happened that
often with her?” “Four or five times I know of—she’s very pretty with an attractive
figure besides whatever else she gives off.” “What do you do when it happens?” and
I say “Well, she tells me it after, but once I overheard it. ‘You’re married?’ the
guy said, ‘well that’s too bad’—something like that—a sort of wry disappointment,
which I think is what I used to use, since it doesn’t completely cut you off, but
with her, you see—this confusion the men have I mean—it’s also because she doesn’t
wear a wedding band.” “Why not?” and I say “She lost it doing the laundry in our building’s
laundry room.” “How long ago?” “Three years,” and she says “She should get one because
then maybe fewer men would make passes and you’d be less agitated by it,” and I say
“I’m not really agitated by it and I’ve made a couple of passes or approaches or whatever
you call it to women with wedding bands—before I was married, of course—though truth
is when I made them I didn’t look at their wedding fingers for a band, and besides,
some married women wear it on the right hand Russian-style—I just looked at my own
hands to see which one the band’s normally on—and some unmarried women wear the band
as a precaution of some sort, a safety device—I’m not getting the right word, but
some strategy.” “Certainly not a strategy to attract men.” “Well, some men might be
more attracted to married women, less of a threat.” “The husband could be a threat
if he’s there,” and I say “True, true, anyway, she wasn’t married, so didn’t have
a ring and doesn’t now.” “But you seem happily married.” “Very much so,” and she says
“That’s wonderful—Josh and I were too for a few years but then we should have split
up ten years ago but didn’t because of the children.” “Must be difficult living with
someone you don’t want to live with,” and she says “Oh, despite what I might have
said we remained compatible, we’re still compatible, he’s a dear, fair very decent
sweet guy—no arguments or complaints, never yells—just he was always uninteresting
and invariable, if I can speak openly. If you don’t like this, please say so,” and
I say “No, it’s all right, what?” and she says “No spark is what I mean and little
to no curiosity outside of his own work and the one thing we were interested and involved
in together, the well-being of our kids—maybe the first couple of years before we
married he was interesting or living with him was or seemed to be, but after that,
well… I just couldn’t see myself going through ten to twenty more years of a totally
dull compatible marriage with a boring lifeless man and most of those years without
the distractions of kids—I in fact thought it’d make me nuts—I know, I know, I’ve
made my point all too clear and probably contradicted myself several times and sound
to you repellently faddish, so excuse me.” “It’s not that,” and she says “Not what?”
“Everything you said, and I’m sorry for what you both have gone through,” and she
says “Don’t worry about that, Josh finally realized with me our marriage was a tremendous
mistake and is much happier with the situation now, but can you—I mean, you can be
sure, to get back to what we were originally saying—in fact I still wear it, left
hand, but not anymore the engagement ring, to feel safer on the street as you said—but
that gives away what I was about to say, which is that I always wore my wedding band,
no matter what I thought of my marriage, and I also once lost it but bought a new
one in days,” and I say “So you think it odd my wife doesn’t replace hers?” “Not odd
or no odder than that you don’t encourage her to or get her a new one—after all, yours
sounds like a wonderful marriage,” and I say “It is, with minor problems of course.”
“Like what?” “Like what everybody must go through when they don’t go through real
marital problems—minor, too normal to describe—but if I just went out and got her
a wedding band it would have to match mine like the original.” “Not really; mine didn’t—though
if you insisted, then just as easy: you show yours and they match it.” “I don’t have
her size.” “Ask her—eliminates the surprise, but you forfeit that,” and I say “Who
knows his or her finger size? For it wasn’t that simple when we got our fingers measured
by the man we ordered them from.” “Then you go back to him and he probably has a record
of her size, so you can still pull off the surprise.” “Fingers don’t expand?” “If
you get a lot heavier perhaps, but the way you spoke about her, she hasn’t.” “She’s
actually lost weight, and she was never heavy, since we married.” “Then if she hasn’t
lost a lot there should be no problem, or who knows, because maybe she likes not wearing
one.” “What do you mean?” and she says “Some people don’t like wearing anything on
their fingers or around their necks and wrists and so on.” “That’s what you meant?
It didn’t seem so,” and she says “Then maybe I don’t know what I meant—really, what’s
the difference? Because there was nothing to it,” and I say “Of course, that’s not
what I was saying—by the way, how’d you get my number?” and she says “Well, it’s a
story—I called your school—” “How’d you know I worked there?” “I bumped into Ronnie
Salter a few years ago—that’s what I should have started with—” “Ronnie, how’s he
doing?” and she says “Oh, gosh, I forget—driving a cab, maybe not that—a fire fighter,
did he say? I really forget, but I asked him, or he just came out and told me where
you taught, but the school always rang your office and nobody was in, till I finally
got wise and asked for your department and called it and they said you had exactly
two office hours a week and they couldn’t give out your home phone number, but it
was listed in Manhattan Information under your wife’s maiden name, and they gave me
it. I thought it’d be nice renewing contact with you—I hate losing touch with people
I truly considered close friends—how many are there of those? And we go back nearly
thirty years.” “More I bet, and that’s very nice of you.” “And so I thought we could
get together again. I’d love hearing about you, your wife and what she does, and children
and things,” and I say “No, it’s good and I want you to meet her and if we could get
the timing right, the kids.” “I’d love it.” “You still get to New York regularly then?”
and she says “From time to time, mostly on business.” “And what’s that?—but this must
be costing you,” and she says “Don’t worry about it—think of all I’ve saved these
years without calling you. I own a pottery shop where we sell and teach—I’ve a couple
of women in with me,” and I say “You were interested in pottery, that’s right, almost
as much as acting.” “Not only interested. For many years after I gave up acting it
was all I did—study, dug my own mud. I even showed, not that anything came of it—so
we both, you could say, went through the same thing, but I stuck with it though mostly
now running the shop and teaching it, not something I especially enjoy anymore but
I can’t for the rest of my life rely on Josh even if he wanted me to,” and I say “I
can understand, you want to be independent.” “I have to be.” “Right, you have no choice—so,
would you like to have lunch here?” and she says “Sure, it’s why I called, to see
you and talk.” “What I mean is you’d have to come here, if you’re going to meet Carolyn
and the kids, since we have no car and I never get up there.” “I know—I can’t plan
anything for a couple of weeks but some time after that—let me give you my number
and I’ve got yours and your office hours and one of us will phone the other,” and
I take down her number and in case I lose it, I say, her address and she says “Well,
I’ve really loved this, and when you see your mother please don’t forget that special
hug from me,” and I say “I’m sure she’ll remember you, thanks, and I’ll be talking
to you,” and she says “Same here, good-by,” and we hang up.