“Oh, yes, of course. I will,” Carol lied as she edged into the kitchen with Mimi. She picked up the phone and dialed the emergency number. She heard a busy signal. She was very surprised, but realized that all the lines could be tied up at once. She pushed the hang-up switch and dialed again. Still busy. She hung the phone up.
The old woman had stopped paying any attention to her and had gone back to watching her game show. Carol called 911 again. And again. And again. She hung up and waited some more. She tried again.
At last she went into the living room and sat down. Mimi curled up at her feet. “So, how long have you known Ellen?” she asked.
“What’s that?”
“I said, how long have you known Ellen?”
“Oh, I been coming here a long time. How long you been coming here?”
“A couple of years.” The mustard ad on TV was much louder than the show had been. Sandwiches were screaming and cringing.
Carol was not sure exactly what information she had just received or given.
“How long will you be staying, do you think?” Babies of all races modeled disposable diapers.
“Oh, I got to go by four today. The boy, he got basketball practice, but the girl, she be home on time.”
“Oh.” Carol paused, not sure what to say next. “Well, do you think you’ll be back soon?”
“Oh yeah, I be back tomorrow eight o’clock. That’s right. Tomorrow Friday, I be back.”
“Ah. I think I’ll try the phone again.” She got up and dialed 911. Still busy. She dialed her own house. It rang twelve times before she hung up. She wondered if it had really rung, or if the lines were still messed up. She dialed the store where she worked. That was busy, too, but it was no surprise. They got a lot of telephone calls at the store. She dialed the time service. It was ten fifty-three A.M. She tried 911 again. Busy. She tried work again. Busy. She dialed Mimi’s vet. A recording told her she had dialed a number not in service and to please check the number and try again. Nine eleven was still busy.
They must have designed a busy signal to sound as infuriating as possible, Carol decided. Her teeth were on edge with frustration. She told herself to be patient and sat back down in the living room to wait for people to hang up. She watched another game show with the old woman.
A few shows later Carol felt as if she was waking from a trance. She wondered what time it was. A lawyer was telling her that she should hire him to sue somebody, anybody, if she had been in an accident. Mimi was asleep at her feet. The old woman was getting up and hobbling down the hall toward the bathroom.
Carol still had Ellen’s door key in her hand. She stuffed it in the pocket of her jeans and tried the phone again. No matter where she called, she could not reach a live human being. She could only get recorded messages, unanswered rings, or busy signals.
When the old woman got back, Carol asked her about the phone.
“That’s right, sometimes when you on the time share, they don’t let you tell nobody, you know. You’re new at this, huh?”
“I don’t even know what’s going on. This strange man came into my house this morning and he wouldn’t leave, and then he chased me out and I came here and now I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, now you know. That’s what you get when you stay home and it ain’t your turn. Now you got to take your turn, too, long wi’ the rest of us.” The old woman ran water into an electric coffeepot, then opened a canister. “I’m Agnes. You want coffee?”
“No,” said Carol. “No, thank you.”
She went to the front door and looked across the street. There was something on her porch. She called Mimi and went out.
They found two things on the porch. The smaller was a yellow note on the front door handle saying that the phone company repairman had found no one at home and that she should call for another appointment. The larger was a pile of her clothes. There was a suitcase on top of the pile, and as Carol stuffed her clothes into it, she realized that the man had selected well for her. There were four pairs of heavy socks, some longsleeved shirts, an extra pair of jeans, a knit cap and gloves, and her winter jacket. There was her toothbrush, deodorant, all her prescriptions. He even sent out the car keys, although the house keys were missing. And no I.D., either.
Carol tried the front door. It was locked, of course. She always left the front door locked. She went around to the carport and tried the kitchen door. It was locked, too. She knocked. Mimi wagged her tail and pressed her nose to the crack.
The man answered promptly. He had the security chain on.
“I need the dog brush,” Carol said. “It’s in the bathroom drawer. If I don’t brush her every day, she gets mats.”
The man didn’t say anything, but closed the door. Mimi was caught off guard and nearly got her nose smashed. Carol shifted her weight from one foot to another while they waited. In a minute the man came back and handed the metal brush through the small opening the chain allowed. He waited silently.
Carol didn’t know what he expected from her. “Thank you,” she said, and turned away.
“You bet.”
Carol took her bag back across to Ellen’s house. She made sure the door was still unlocked, then she put the key back into the fake rock and carefully replaced it in the flowerbed. She went inside and put her bag on the kitchen floor. Mimi went exploring down the hall.
During the news, Carol and Agnes shared three scrambled eggs, an orange, and some toast. Carol had a small glass of milk and the old woman drank more coffee. Mimi had an egg and toast chopped up in a bowl with milk on it. She whined eagerly while it was being fixed, as if she knew it was a special treat. Agnes assured Carol that Ellen would never question the missing food, not with teenagers in the house.
Carol washed the dishes and the old woman dried, since she knew where to put everything away. Agnes took the orange peels and eggshells out of the empty wastebasket and warned Carol to be more careful. She washed them down the garbage disposal.
That afternoon they watched an old black and white movie in which Cary Grant married an American servicewoman in Europe and had to wear a wig made of horsehair to pass as a WAC nurse to get free navy transportation home. They didn’t get to see the end because Carol had to vacuum before they left.
Passing for Love
by Bill Crenshaw
“Read it,” she snapped.
Scott looked at the letter drooping in his hand. It started the way they all had started. “ ‘Dear Lovebirds,’ ” he began.
Lucinda cut him off in a voice angry, weary. “How much? Another ten thousand each?”
Scott read on to himself a second before looking up slowly. He cleared his throat. “Fifty thousand. Midnight Friday.”
She went white. “They’re crazy. Four days. I can’t...” Her fist went to her mouth. “My God, Scott, what will I do?”
Scott laid the letter on the back of the couch and wiped his hands on his pants. “Marry me,” he said.
She turned away and crossed the room to the window, her shoulders hunched, head bowed as she stared down at the traffic below, at the long fall between her and the street. The window leapt from floor to ceiling, and she stood framed, the sun splitting and dancing on auburn hair sweeping down past her shoulders, falling by her face like curtains.
“Lucie,” he began, but her right hand came up. It hung in the air above her shoulder, then drifted back to her mouth. He waited. She stood motionless, glowing in the afternoon light, her shadow stretching behind her nearly to his feet. She would stand like that for a long time. He tensed and relaxed and tensed his calves. He tried to watch her shadow move with the sun. Finally she shuddered and sighed and pulled a thick cascade of hair behind her ear.