“Thanks, Arthur, but I just made a vow—”
“Is it because of what I said about him? Even if I shouldn’t have said anything, I wasn’t too far off in my assessment of him, was I? Excuse me, but what about your vow? It can be broken for an hour or two, can’t it?”
“You’re not taking me seriously. What I vowed was not to see anyone for an outing for the next month, since what I have to do first is crank away at finishing something and also prepare for the spring term. I’m carrying two lit courses and a composition, which can’t sound arduous to anyone not in university teaching—”
“It does, I know what it is. But the next month you said, which is December. It’s still November. Five whole days left. So you’ve five more days to have lunch with someone, so how about it? Lunch — an hour or less — no more.”
“Tomorrow at one? No, I can’t.”
“Yes you can. I’m sorry, I know how valuable your time is — but an hour, sixty minutes to the dot. And The Balcony, not The Library, which is a five-minute walk for you — you must know where it is. Next door to the Olympia, which is a lot less than less than halfway down and sometimes live chamber music there and always a decent lunch. I’ll even pick you up by cab — you can be waiting downstairs at twelve fifty-five.”
“Don’t pick me up, and can we make it at two? That way I might be able to get some work done, since I know I’ll sleep late tomorrow and maybe even wake up with a slight hangover.”
“What’s sleeping-late for you?”
“Just answer; I have to go.”
“Two it is, you kidding? Anything, even two-fifteen. And I’m glad you got home safe — you did, didn’t you? You’re not going to tell me tomorrow about any of tonight’s hand-to-hand skirmishes and battle wounds?”
“I’m safe. Don’t pry. Goodnight.”
Didn’t want to but how else? Not true, because — Damn, just should have said “Listen to me, it’s not only audacious of you to”—Not “audacious,” but — Oh, no big deal, and he’s looking out for me, isn’t that a laugh? No, it was stupid of me. Should have said “Call me another time, I’m bushed, goodnight,” and hung up. But it’s just lunch, falls in with my new directives, and though nosy and a bit nutty he’s a sweet enough guy and was he ever on-target about Peter. But I’ll establish right off with him — Already have a dozen more friends than I can hardly see even now and then — But come December — Clever — five days left in November — he caught me on that one — guy’s fast. Wait, do I have a luncheon date tomorrow? I look at my appointment book. No, and it’s only tomorrow, so I should be able to remember without writing it down. But I don’t know how groggy I’ll be in the morning or how much drink makes you forget overnight, so I write “Arthur Rosenthal, 2, The Balcony,” in tomorrow’s box. But come December I’m putting the kibosh to any frivolous social-going. Get a special phone-gadget installed so when I press a button it’ll keep the phone from ringing when I’m busy or sleeping and the service is closed. Heard of those.
I pick up the student’s paper. Why not put it off? Because I want to get all of them corrected so I can get to things I really want to do. “Morphology” again means what? It means morphine. It means latrine. I write on the paper with an arrow aimed at the word “Leonard, no more big words for me like this — I’m too lazy to look em up. And what’s with this postdeconunstru—? What about supercacographicexhibitionism? (Did I spel it rite?)” Phone rings. Now he’s blown it. Much too late to call twice the same night even if the last call was ten seconds ago and he was my husband-to-be and most loved lover. Whatever he has to say can hold till the morning and late into it. Stop on your own accord. Doesn’t. Shameless schmuck. I pick up the receiver. “Arthur, this better be good.”
“It isn’t Arthur, and I know it’s extremely late, but it’s Dan from tonight — Daniel Krin — is this Miss Winiker?”
“Who? Oh, I’m not going to pretend — I know who. Are you out of your mind? What could you want when it’s after two?”
“I’m sorry, but the clock, and this is no excuse, I’m looking at says it’s one — few minutes past — but it’s a bank clock, on a seedy street corner, and since I haven’t a watch or another clock to compare it with, it could well be wrong.”
“Whether it’s two or one—”
“You’re right — by all means — please believe I’m not disputing it. And you can’t know how sorry I am to call. Nor how I tried everything under the sun — sun’s hardly the word to use at this hour. Everything under the street light, perhaps, to resolve — and I shouldn’t make light of it — neither of those lights — beforehand the reason why I did call. But I couldn’t and it was an emergency which—”
“What kind of emergency, Mr. Krin? And let’s make this quick. So tell me, what kind? Because at this hour I don’t take emergency calls from people I’ve just met.”
“Please hear me out. You’re just about my last chance on this. The timing of my call’s all wrong but I don’t think the reason I called is. And by ‘last chance’ I meant, to help me out of a bad situation. And for the last fifteen minutes — you’re still there?”
“Make it quick.”
“For the last fifteen, because it was so late — and at the time I thought it was ten to one, so for a Friday not the latest of lates to call but still much too late — I debated with myself and thought ‘No, don’t call, too late, much too, I don’t know her, just met, etcet, spoke fifty words to her, hundred, tops, and maybe a hundred-fifty between us.’ But then, when I didn’t see any alternative, which I’ll get into, and I decided to call, but even then undecidedly, your phone was busy — a few minutes ago. So I thought ‘At least she’s up and at home, so if I call a minute from now and the line’s free, I won’t be waking her.’ Of course you’d be home if you were up.”
“Not necessarily. If someone dials a number the same time that phone’s ringing because someone else dialed it first—”
“That’d produce a busy signal for the person dialing a little behind? Didn’t think of that in relation to this. And ‘dialing a little behind.’ That could be misinterpreted, but please don’t. Should’ve kept it to myself. It was unintentional, but repeating it wasn’t. Though the repeat was just my surprise at my unintentional line, not said to be suggestive. And now I guess whenever I dial someone late — which I don’t normally do; I don’t like getting calls myself after eleven.”
“Same here.”
“Even after ten. I occasionally go to bed early just to get an early start the next day.”
“Between ten and eleven’s all right, even from someone I just met, but never a call around two. Or if your clock’s right and it wasn’t that it stopped—”
“It hasn’t.”
“—then five to ten minutes past one. Never. But where’s my watch? I’m looking at the alarm clock right now — hold on.” I go into the bathroom, get my watch off the shelf under the medicine chest, put one of the pearl ear-studs back into the cockleshell on the shelf from which it must have rolled out of but got stopped by my toothbrush, put the toothbrush back into the wall holder, go back. “Your bank clock runs slow or is still suffering from an outage of an hour and a quarter some time ago, because both my watch and clock says it’s twenty after two. And earlier tonight I set my watch by my clock and then checked my watch against the wall clock at that reception I told you I was going to.”
“If I’d known it was past two I probably still would’ve called you. It’s that important.”