“Sure thing. Glad to.”
I have my keys out and leave the cab, unlock the lobby door, go in, look around, let the door close, ring for the elevator, and when it comes, look at the convex mirror on its wall to make sure no one’s hiding inside. I wave to the driver, who beeps once, and take the elevator to my floor.
Sammy is speaking to me from behind the door second I step off the elevator. Sue had to be put to sleep because the pain from her terminal cancer was getting too great. I didn’t tell Peter because he knew how close I was to my cats and how close they were to each other and by that time I didn’t want his sympathy, genuine or false. “Okay, Sams, I’m coming — don’t fly out the door.” Elevator closes, so even if he does run past me he can’t get into the elevator, which he did once and it took me a while to find what floor he ended up on. I open the door, he’s scratching the floor that he wants to jump up. I put down the bags, wiggle my fingers for him to come and he stares at my stomach while he hums and then jumps at the spot he stared at and making squealing sounds runs up my chest till he’s lying across my shoulder, purring, head against my cheek. I walk into the kitchen with him, set him down, he’s finished his food and is pushing the plate with his forehead for more. I open a jar of strained-veal baby food and spoon two globs of it onto his plate, leave the spoon on the plate because he likes to lick it, drink a glass of seltzer, undress, shower, take two aspirins, brush my teeth and floss them and massage the gums with the brush’s rubber tip and get into bed. That’s it with parties for me, at least for a month, even if it is the season. Write that down. I jump out of bed — Sammy, sleeping next to me, gets startled and jumps off the bed and runs out of the room — get my appointment calendar and write on December’s four pages a letter a day with “onth” on the 31st: “No more parties for me at least for a month.” And at the bottom of the last page: “Meet people instead for breakfast or lunch, read for and outline spring term, finish 30pp of the book, just finish the book! try not to even see a man after 5 except maybe new year’s eve, and even there, but who’ll that be? — Oh, no woes if you stay home alone that night and on great wine and black forest ham and poached salmon fillets get high.”
I’m reading a student’s paper on “Postconstructionism and Morphology in the Postmodern American Novel”—I’m sure he has the first term wrong, if he’s not sending up that critical school, and even if he is, the entire department by now, students and teachers both, has to know how I hate those words and themes, even parodies of them, since there’s rarely anything in them for me except material and writing to help put me to sleep when I can’t sleep — when the phone rings. Answering service closed more than two hours ago. I don’t like answering it, as at this hour there’s a good chance it’s a crank. “Yes?”
“Then you got home okay. Good. I was worrying.”
“Who is this?”
“Excuse me, because why should I have thought you’d recognize my voice? Arthur Rosenthal. And excuse me too for calling so late.”
“Thanks for your concern, Arthur, but it’s too late to even talk about it being too late.”
“Now I’m very sorry I called. I didn’t think it’d be that late — late italicized I mean. Because I called only fifteen minutes ago—”
“You couldn’t have. I’ve been home more than half an hour.”
“I did. And a half-hour before that, and a half-hour before that too. Maybe I just missed you the second half-hour ago and you were someplace else the last half-hour — in another room, am I wrong?”
“It’s possible I was in the shower then and didn’t hear it, so all right. Still—”
“Anyway, I certainly called, but that’s not to say I couldn’t have dialed the wrong number and that number didn’t answer. But I don’t often dial the wrong number no matter how late at night. Maybe five hundred to one. I can’t even recall the last time. A year ago — two.”
“But you do often call late at night.”
“No. I only called you to see if you got home okay, and when you didn’t answer, half-hour after that and then this call. When you didn’t answer the first two times I called, I assumed you weren’t home yet and that it’d be safe to call now.”
“Did you ever assume I might not have answered deliberately and that each time you rang you were disturbing me more and more, waking me up each time?”
“I should have assumed that. But it wasn’t what happened, was it? Because you said that a half-hour ago—”
“No, it wasn’t, but still. To me any call after eleven at night and before seven A.M., and maybe even eight, except between very close people — forget the early morning calls, let’s concentrate on the late. But people very close to one another — lovers if you may. And even there the caller should think ‘Do I know, if I know this person is up, if he or she would be disturbed by my rings or is too tired to answer the phone?’—should be for emergencies only — for physical or emotional help or something like that. And after midnight even lovers should hold off their calls unless it’s an extreme personal emergency, between them or very deeply affecting them and where the caller is sure the called lover would at least tolerate the call. I didn’t put that well — and I didn’t mean to exclude calls from immediate family, since my thoughts about those calls are about the same for nonfamily — but it’s one of my rules.”
“You put it well. And I’m sorry I didn’t know your rules, even if I suppose every intelligent person should have the same rule. And no question it was wrong of me to call. Even if I was only concerned about you, and more concerned each time you didn’t answer, which was presumptuous of me. But also because — what the heck; I’ve come this far I might as well say the rest — I didn’t especially like this fellow Peter — may I speak openly?”
“I don’t want to hear about him now. And Peter is or was a friend of mine, so it’s not right, at any time of the day or night, for you to—”
“I disliked him thoroughly. I’ve never seen anyone so caught-up with himself — so, so…who gave the impression of — he’s a born bastard and good-for-naught, that’s what. I was almost afraid for you with him, and that if he were there with you when I called, which would be your own affair, but if someone called he’d know that someone else knew he was there and that if he was planning any harm—”
“You don’t know how wrong you are. You’re going on like this only because of some resentment you must have towards him because of me. But you’re blowing this thing way—”
“I know, but that was my fear. Not out of jealousy. He looked capable of doing anything heinous. I don’t care what kind of sophisticated work he does and how brilliant and dynamic everyone says he is, he’s a goddamn snob and peacock and I bet even a chiseler and heel of the highest order — not a chiseler, I’ve no basis for that — but that’s what I believe. I’ve never believed anything so much and so fast as that without utterly knowing that person or the facts, but you just tell me he’s not. Of course you’ll say he’s not, and why shouldn’t you? That would be the loyal and right thing to do.”
“Please stop about him.”
“Of course. But if you can believe it, except for that I wanted to make sure you got home safe, all that’s not even why I called. I won’t keep you another minute. I only wanted to say that tomorrow’s Saturday, neither of us has to go to work, so how about lunch, say one o’clock at The Library, which is on Broadway and Ninety-second, halfway between your apartment and mine. It’s even less than halfway for you, and no splitting the check. After opening my trap the way I did, I should stand you to two straight lunches and at a place a lot better than The Library, which for what it is is very good of its kind.”