"A short story. It was going to be his next project."
"All right. Do me a favor: Hang up and go plug the tape back in. See if there's anything else on it."
"Okay." She didn't ask even why – hung up and called back a few minutes later. "There's nothing else. Just me pregnant in a hospital with cancer. Are you coming out?"
"Yes. I'll be there sometime tomorrow."
"I called his parents. You know what his father said? 'All right. When is the funeral?' Only that, completely calm. 'When is the funeral?'"
"Did you call his sister, Jackie?"
"The father said she can't be reached. Off studying bugs in Nigeria or something. They'll send her a telegram. I can't get over that. 'All right. When is the funeral?' That's it. Only that. 'Hey, mister, your son's dead!' 'All right. When is the funeral?'"
An hour later I'd packed a bag and was sitting by the window thinking about everything that had happened.
When Sasha asked what was on the tapes Phil had sent me, I said only a short goodbye from him and some goof-around silliness we'd filmed with a video camera when I was last there.
After getting off the phone I put the first casette in the machine again, but there was nothing new to see. Nothing on the other two either.
I'd turned off the lights in the room because I wanted to think in the dark. After a while I realized I'd been looking across at the naked woman's unlit place without being aware of it. When both my eyes and mind came back into focus, I realized someone was sitting near the window of her dark apartment too. Was she looking over without being aware of me? I smiled. That would have made a nice scene in a movie.
The phone rang. I picked it up but kept looking at my dark neighbor.
"Weber? It's Cullen."
"Hi."
"That's all you have to say? 'Hi'? What was on the tapes?"
After I explained it to her in a very quiet voice, almost a whisper, there was a long silence. Then she said, "You poor man. Home movies of the apocalypse, huh? I can't imagine what it would be like to watch that. But you know something? It reminds me of what Phil said once when I asked him about a new Midnight film that was about to come out. I wanted to know if it was as gross as the others. Know what he said? 'I behaved very well in it. You'll be utterly ashamed of me.'"
The next morning the doorbell rang at seven: a postman with an express letter from California, mailed the day before. Signing for it, I looked at the red, white, and blue envelope addressed to me in Strayhorn's handwriting.
Inside was the short story Sasha had mentioned earlier, "Mr. Fiddlehead." Neatly typed. Nothing else – no note from Phil or notations on the story itself. There was no author's name anywhere, so I assumed it had been written by Phil.
On my fortieth birthday Lenna Rhodes invited me over for lunch. That's the tradition – when one of us has a birthday there's lunch, a nice present, and a good laughing afternoon to cover the fact we've moved one more step down the staircase.
We met years ago when we happened to marry into the same family. Six months after I said yes to Eric Rhodes, she said it to his brother Michael.
Lenna got the better end of that wishbone: She and Michael are still delighted with each other, while Eric and I fought about everything and nothing and then got divorced.
But to my surprise and relief, they were a great help to me during the divorce, even though there were obvious difficulties climbing over some of the thornbushes of family and blood allegiance.
They live in a big apartment up on 100th Street with long halls and not much light. But the gloom of the place is offset by their kids' toys everywhere, colorful jackets stacked on top of one another, coffee cups with WORLD'S GREATEST MOM and DARTMOUTH written on the side. Theirs is a home full of love and hurry, children's drawings on the fridge alongside reminders to buy La Stampa. Michael owns an elegant vintage fountain pen store, while Lenna freelances for Newsweek. Their apartment is like their life: high-ceilinged, thought-out, overflowing with interesting combinations and possibilities. It's always nice to go there and share it awhile.
I felt pretty good about forty years old. Finally there was some money in the bank and someone I liked talking about a trip together to Egypt in the spring. Forty was a milestone, but one that didn't mean much at the moment. I already thought of myself as being slightly middle-aged anyway, but I was healthy and had good prospects, so – So what! to the beginning of my fifth decade.
"You cut your hair!"
"Do you like it?"
"You look very French."
"Yes, but do you like it?"
"I think so. I have to get used to it. Come on in."
We sat in the living room and ate. Elbow, their bull terrier, rested his head on my knee and never took his eye off the table. After the meal was over, we cleared the plates and then she handed me a small red box.
"I hope you like it. I made them myself."
Inside the box were a pair of the most beautiful gold earrings I have ever seen.
"My God, Lenna, they're exquisite! You made these? I didn't know you made jewelry."
She looked happily embarrassed. "You like them? They're real gold, believe it or not."
"I believe it. They're art! You made them, Lenna? I can't get over it. They're really works of art: They look like something by Klimt." I took them carefully out of the box and put them on.
She clapped her hands like a girl. "Oh, Juliet, they really do look good!"
Our friendship is important and goes back a long way, but this was a lifetime present – one you gave a spouse or someone who saved your life.
Before I could say that (or anything else), the lights went out. Her two young sons brought in the birthday cake, forty candles strong.
A few days later I was walking down Madison Avenue, proudly wearing my new present, when, caught by something there, looked in a jewelry store window. There they were – my birthday earrings. The exact ones. Looking closer, open-mouthed, I saw the price tag: five thousand dollars! I stood and gaped for what must have been minutes. Either way, it was shocking. Had she lied about making them? Spent five thousand dollars for my birthday present? Lenna wasn't a liar and she wasn't rich. All right, so had she copied them in brass or something and just said they were gold to make me feel good? That wasn't her way either. What the hell was going on?
The confusion emboldened me to walk right into the store. Or rather, walk right up and press the buzzer. After a short wait, someone rang me in. The saleswoman who appeared from behind a curtain looked like a Radcliffe graduate with a degree in bluestocking. Maybe you had to to work in this place.
"May I help you?"
"Yes. I'd like to see the pair of these earrings you have in the window."
She looked at my ears as I touched them, and it was as if a curtain rose from in front of her regard. When I first entered I was only another nobody in a plaid skirt asking for a moment's sniff of their palace air. But realizing I had a familiar five grand hanging on my lobes changed everything: She would be my slave – or friend – for life, I only had to say which.
"Of course, the Dixies."
"The what?"
She smiled, as if to say I was being very funny. It quickly dawned on me that she must have thought I knew very well what "Dixies" were since I was wearing some.
She took them out of the window and put them carefully down in front of me on a black velvet card. They were beautiful; admiring them, I entirely forgot I was wearing some.
"I'm so surprised you have a pair. They only came into the store a week ago."