Where I'm Calling From (8 page)

The telephone rang while he was running the vacuum cleaner. He had worked his way through the apartment and was doing the living room, using the nozzle attachment to get at the cat hairs between the cushions. He stopped and listened and then switched off the vacuum. He went to answer the telephone.

“Hello,” he said. “Myers here.”

“Myers,” she said. “How are you? What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Hello, Paula.”

“There’s an office party this afternoon,” she said. “You’re invited. Dick invited you.”

“I don’t think I can come,” Myers said.

“Dick just this minute said get that old man of yours on the phone. Get him down here for a drink. Get him out of his ivory tower and back into the real world for a while. Dick’s funny when he’s drinking.

Myers?”

“I heard you,” Myers said.

Myers used to work for Dick. Dick always talked of going to Paris to write a novel, and when Myers had quit to write a novel, Dick had said he would watch for Myers’ name on the best-seller list.

“I can’t come now,” Myers said.

“We found out some horrible news this morning,” Paula continued, as if she had not heard him. “You remember Larry Gudinas. He was still here when you came to work. He helped out on science books for a while, and then they put him in the field, and then they canned him? We heard this morning he committed suicide. He shot himself in the mouth. Can you imagine? Myers?”

“I heard you,” Myers said. He tried to remember Larry Gudinas and recalled a tall, stooped man with wire-frame glasses, bright ties, and a receding hairline. He could imagine the jolt, the head snapping back. “Jesus,” Myers said. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Come down to the office, honey, all right?” Paula said. “Everybody is just talking and having some drinks and listening to Christmas music. Come down,” she said.

Myers could hear it all at the other end of the line. “I don’t want to come down,” he said. “Paula?” A few snowflakes drifted past the window as he watched. He rubbed his fingers across the glass and then began to write his name on the glass as he waited.

“What? I heard,” she said. “All right,” Paula said. “Well, then, why don’t we meet at Voyles for a drink?

Myers?”

“Okay,” he said. “Voyles. All right.”

“Everybody here will be disappointed you didn’t come,” she said. “Dick especially. Dick admires you, you know. He does. He’s told me so. He admires your nerve. He said if he had your nerve he would have quit years ago. Dick said it takes nerve to do what you did. Myers?”

“I’m right here,” Myers said. “I think I can get my car started. If I can’t start it, I’ll call you back.”

“All right,” she said. “I’ll see you at Voyles. I’ll leave here in five minutes if I don’t hear from you.”

“Say hello to Dick for me,” Myers said.

“I will,” Paula said. “He’s talking about you.”

Myers put the vacuum cleaner away. He walked down the two flights and went to his car, which was in the last stall and covered with snow. He got in, worked the pedal a number of times, and tried the starter.

It turned over. He kept the pedal down.

As he drove, he looked at the people who hurried along the sidewalks with shopping bags. He glanced at the gray sky, filled with flakes, and at the tall buildings with snow in the crevices and on the window ledges. He tried to see everything, save it for later. He was between stories, and he felt despicable. He found Voyles, a small bar on a corner next to a men’s clothing store. He parked in back and went inside. He sat at the bar for a time and then carried a drink over to a little table near the door.

When Paula came in she said, “Merry Christmas,” and he got up and gave her a kiss on the cheek. He held a chair for her.

He said, “Scotch?”

“Scotch,” she said, then “Scotch over ice” to the girl who came for her order.

Paula picked up his drink and drained the glass.

“I’ll have another one, too,” Myers said to the girl. “I don’t like this place,” he said after the girl had moved away.

“What’s wrong with this place?” Paula said. “We always come here,”

“I just don’t like it,” he said. “Let’s have a drink and then go someplace else.”

“Whatever you want,” she said.

The girl arrived with the drinks. Myers paid her, and he and Paula touched glasses.

Myers stared at her.

“Dick says hello,” she said.

Myers nodded.

Paula sipped her drink. “How was your day today?”

Myers shrugged.

“What’d you do?” she said.

“Nothing,” he said. “I vacuumed.”

She touched his hand. “Everybody said to tell you hi.”

They finished their drinks.

“I have an idea,” she said. “Why don’t we stop and visit the Morgans for a few minutes. We’ve never met them, for God’s sake, and they’ve been back for months. We could just drop by and say hello, we’re the Myerses. Besides, they sent us a card. They asked us to stop by during the holidays. They invited us. I don’t want to go home,” she finally said and fished in her purse for a cigarette.

Myers recalled setting the furnace and turning out all the lights before he had left. And then he thought of the snow drifting past the window.

“What about that insulting letter they sent telling us they heard we were keeping a cat in the house?” he said.

“They’ve forgotten about that by now,” she said. “That wasn’t anything serious, anyway. Oh, let’s do it, Myers! Let’s go by.”

“We should call first if we’re going to do anything like that,” he said.

“No,” she said. “That’s part of it. Let’s not call. Let’s just go knock on the door and say hello, we used to live here. All right? Myers?”

“I think we should call first,” he said.

“It’s the holidays,” she said, getting up from her chair. “Come on, baby.”

She took his arm and they went out into the snow. She suggested they take her car and pick up his car later. He opened the door for her and then went around to the passenger’s side.

Something took him when he saw the lighted windows, saw snow on the roof, saw the station wagon in the driveway. The curtains were open and Christmas-tree lights blinked at them from the window.

They got out of the car. He held her elbow as they stepped over a pile of snow and started up the walk to the front porch. They had gone a few steps when a large bushy dog hurtled around the corner of the garage and headed straight for Myers.

“Oh, God,” he said, hunching, stepping back, bringing his hands up. He slipped on the walk, his coat flapped, and he fell onto the frozen grass with the dread certainty that the dog would go for his throat.

The dog growled once and then began to sniff Myers’ coat.

Paula picked up a handful of snow and threw it at the dog. The porch light came on, the door opened, and a man called, “Buzzy!” Myers got to his feet and brushed himself off. “What’s going on?” the man in the doorway said. “Who is it? Buzzy, come here, fellow. Come here!”

“We’re the Myerses,” Paula said. “We came to wish you a Merry Christmas.”

“The Myerses?” the man in the doorway said. “Get out! Get in the garage, Buzzy. Get, get! It’s the Myerses,” the man said to the woman who stood behind him trying to look past his shoulder.

“The Myerses,” she said. “Well, ask them in, ask them in, for heaven’s sake.” She stepped onto the porch and said, “Come in, please, it’s freezing. I’m Hilda Morgan and this is Edgar. We’re happy to meet you.

Please come in.”

They all shook hands quickly on the front porch. Myers and Paula stepped inside and Edgar Morgan shut the door.

“Let me have your coats. Take off your coats,” Edgar Morgan said. “You’re all right?” he said to Myers, observing him closely, and Myers nodded. “I knew that dog was crazy, but he’s never pulled anything like this. I saw it. I was looking out the window when it happened.”

This remark seemed odd to Myers, and he looked at the man. Edgar

Morgan was in his forties, nearly bald, and was dressed in slacks and a sweater and was wearing leather slippers.

“His name is Buzzy,” Hilda Morgan announced and made a face. “It’s Edgar’s dog. I can’t have an animal in the house myself, but Edgar bought this dog and promised to keep him outside.”

“He sleeps in the garage,” Edgar Morgan said. “He begs to come in the house, but we can’t allow it, you know.” Morgan chuckled. “But sit down, sit down, if you can find a place with this clutter. Hilda, dear, move some of those things off the couch so Mr. and Mrs Myers can sit down.” Hilda Morgan cleared the couch of packages, wrapping paper, scissors, a box of ribbons, bows. She put everything on the floor.

Myers noticed Morgan staring at him again, not smiling now.

Paula said, “Myers, there’s something in your hair, dearest.”

Myers put a hand up to the back of his head and found a twig and put it in his pocket.

“That dog,” Morgan said and chuckled again. “We were just having a hot drink and wrapping some lastminute gifts. Will you join us in a cup of holiday cheer? What would you like?”

“Anything is fine,” Paula said.

“Anything,” Myers said. “We wouldn’t have interrupted.”

“Nonsense,” Morgan said. “We’ve been… very curious about the Myerses. You’ll have a hot drink, sir?”

“That’s fine,” Myers said.

“Mrs Myers?” Morgan said.

Paula nodded.

“Two hot drinks coming up,” Morgan said. “Dear, I think we’re ready too, aren’t we?” he said to his wife. “This is certainly an occasion.”

He took her cup and went out to the kitchen. Myers heard the cupboard door bang and heard a muffled word that sounded like a curse. Myers blinked. He looked at Hilda Morgan, who was settling herself into a chair at the end of the couch.

“Sit down over here, you two,” Hilda Morgan said. She patted the arm of the couch. “Over here, by the fire. We’ll have Mr. Morgan build it up again when he returns.” They sat. Hilda Morgan clasped her hands in her lap and leaned forward slightly, examining Myers’ face. The living room was as he remembered it, except that on the wall behind Hilda Morgan’s chair he saw three small framed prints. In one print a man in a vest and frock coat was tipping his hat to two ladies who held parasols. All this was happening on a broad concourse with horses and carriages.

“How was Germany?” Paula said. She sat on the edge of the cushion and held her purse on her knees.

“We loved Germany,” Edgar Morgan said, coming in from the kitchen with a tray and four large cups.

Myers recognized the cups.

“Have you been to Germany, Mrs Myers?” Morgan asked.

“We want to go,” Paula said. “Don’t we, Myers? Maybe next year, next summer. Or else the year after.

As soon as we can afford it. Maybe as soon as Myers sells something. Myers writes.”

“I should think a trip to Europe would be very beneficial to a writer,” Edgar Morgan said. He put the cups into coasters. “Please help yourselves.” He sat down in a chair across from his wife and gazed at Myers. “You said in your letter you were taking off work to write.”

“That’s true,” Myers said and sipped his drink.

“He writes something almost every day,” Paula said.

“Is that a fact?” Morgan said. “That’s impressive. What did you write today, may I ask?”

“Nothing,” Myers said.

“It’s the holidays,” Paula said.

“You must be proud of him, Mrs Myers,” Hilda Morgan said.

“I am,” Paula said.

“I’m happy for you,” Hilda Morgan said.

“I heard something the other day that might interest you,” Edgar Morgan said. He took out some tobacco and began to fill a pipe. Myers lighted a cigarette and looked around for an ashtray, then dropped the match behind the couch.

“It’s a horrible story, really. But maybe you could use it, Mr. Myers.” Morgan struck a flame and drew on the pipe. “Grist for the mill, you know, and all that,” Morgan said and laughed and shook the match.

“This fellow was about my age or so. He was a colleague for a couple of years. We knew each other a little, and we had good friends in common. Then he moved out, accepted a position at the university down the way. Well, you know how these things go sometimes—the fellow had an affair with one of his students.”

Mrs Morgan made a disapproving noise with her tongue. She reached down for a small package that was wrapped in green paper and began to affix a red bow to the paper.

“According to all accounts, it was a torrid affair that lasted for some months,” Morgan continued. “Right up until a short time ago, in fact. A week ago, to be exact. On that day—it was in the evening—he announced to his wife—they’d been married for twenty years—he announced to his wife that he wanted a divorce. You can imagine how the fool woman took it, coming out of the blue like that, so to speak.

There was quite a row. The whole family got into it. She ordered him out of the house then and there.

But just as the fellow was leaving, his son threw a can of tomato soup at him and hit him in the forehead.

It caused a concussion that sent the man to the hospital. His condition is quite serious.”

Morgan drew on his pipe and gazed at Myers.

I’ve never heard such a story,” Mrs

Morgan said. “Edgar, that’s disgusting.”

“Horrible,” Paula said.

Myers grinned.

“Now there’s a tale for you, Mr. Myers,” Morgan said, catching the grin and narrowing his eyes. “Think of the story you’d have if you could get inside that man’s head.”

“Or her head,” Mrs Morgan said. “The wife’s. Think of her story. To be betrayed in such fashion after twenty years. Think how she must feel.”

“But imagine what the poor boy must be going through,” Paula said. “Imagine, having almost killed his father.”

“Yes, that’s all true,” Morgan said. “But here’s something I don’t think any of you has thought about.

Think about this for a moment. Mr. Myers, are you listening? Tell me what you think of this. Put yourself in the shoes of that eighteen-year-old coed who fell in love with a married man. Think about her for a moment, and then you see the possibilities for your story.”

Morgan nodded and leaned back in the chair with a satisfied expression.