Call Waiting

conclusion

by Bob Sorensen

Tim got phantom calls from Vicki three times that day. On the first one, he heard flushing water mixed with the staccato echo of high heels on a tile floor. A bathroom, he guessed. On the next two, he heard Vicki talking — not to him, but to other people. On one, she was chatting with one of her girlfriends who worked in the office building across from Vicki’s. Judging from the sounds — clinking glasses, forks scraping on plates, muted conversations — Tim figured that they were in a restaurant or a bar. He may have heard his name mentioned once or twice, but wasn’t sure.

On the next call, he overheard Vicki asking one of her clients if their firm was hiring. There was very little noise, hushed voices and some far away traffic sounds. Tim guessed that they were in someone’s office, probably with the door shut. Tim hadn’t known that Vicki was thinking of changing jobs again. Maybe she had said something about it the other night at dinner, but he wasn’t sure. He didn’t call Vicki to tell her about the calls.

That night, Tim had still not heard from Beth and even though it was out of his way, he drove past her house. Without the rain, he got a better look at her neighborhood. It was one of the larger bedroom communities that had sprung up outside D. C. right after the Second World War. Older brick homes on crowded lots, with garages in the back. Not exactly run down, but not far from it either.

Beth’s house was lit up. Through the window he thought he saw her moving around the kitchen. He imagined that the boy was in the living room, maybe on the floor doing his homework or playing with his dog. Tim slowed his car, but he had to speed away when a car behind him impatiently flashed its headlights.

Tim was only a few minutes late meeting up with Vicki for dinner at a little family-owned Italian restaurant in a strip mall a few miles from their townhouse. Carlo, their favorite waiter, suggested they try the special, a veal dish. Tim ordered a bottle of wine and drank most of it himself.

Over dinner, Tim told Vicki about the woman crying in the meeting. Vicki was shocked that no one had stopped the meeting or had even checked to see if the woman was okay.

“I know, it’s easy to say now,” Tim said. “But at the time, it seemed like she probably just wanted to be left alone. Besides, what the hell was I supposed to say? I would just end up saying exactly the wrong thing.”

Vicki gave him one of her looks: the one that said I’m too tired to explain this to you again. “All I’m saying is that you could have tried to do something.” Vicky paused, then bit her lower lip. “Well, have your given any thought to what we were talking about over the weekend. You know, about starting a family...”

Tim looked away, flushed. “C’mon, honey. Let’s not start this tonight. I’m too tired. But I promise, we can discuss this real soon. Okay? Maybe when things calm down with work.”

Vicky nodded, forced a smile. “Great,” said Tim. “Now let’s see what they have for dessert.”

After dinner, Tim and Vicki stood up to leave when Tim’s cell phone rang. “Who the hell’s calling this late?” He pulled the phone from his belt clip and checked the display. It was Vicki’s number. “All right, what’s going on?” He stuck out the phone so Vicki could see the incoming number.

Vicki reached into her purse and pulled out her phone. It was on. Tim grabbed it from her, punched his receive button, and put a phone up to each ear.

“Hello.” He heard his voice in one ear, then echo an instant later in the other.

He turned to Vicki. “It’s you again. You called me.”

Vicki frowned. “You were right here. You saw I didn’t dial.”

Tim looked at the two phone in his hands. “I got it. You have me on your speed dial, don’t you?” Vicki said, “You know I do. You were the one who programmed the damn thing.”

“I think you somehow pressed the speed dial button when you stood up.” Vicki took the phone, powered it down, and crammed it back into her purse. “You’re right. It’s kind of a tight squeeze in there. The phone presses up against my wallet.”

Tim smiled. “That’s one problem solved.” He turned off his phone. They drove home in separate cars, Tim following Vicki.

Driving to meet a client the next morning, Tim couldn’t stop thinking about Vicki’s phone calls. He wouldn’t be eavesdropping on her anymore. Right after getting home from the restaurant, Vicki had moved her stuff, including the phone, into a larger purse. And she had asked Tim to disable the speed dial. It’s not like I’m going to catch her at something, he thought. But he knew he was going to miss getting the calls.

Traffic was heavy, more so than usual. The early winter sun was just coming up, drilling directly into the eyes of the morning commuters. The glare was causing a slowdown. Tim fiddled with the buttons on the radio, but nothing interesting was on. Looking around, he noticed that almost all of the cars around him had only one person in it. Stuck alone in a crowd, he thought.

Movement in the car on his left caught his eye. He looked over and saw that the driver, a guy with a sharp haircut, black suit, and a way too nice tan for this time of year, was gesturing wildly into his cell phone. Tim tried to guess what he was saying. I wonder if it’s as interesting as it looks, he thought. In his rearview mirror, he saw a young woman with dyed black hair and a pierced eyebrow talking calmly into a head set. In between sentences, she took sips of coffee from an insulated silver mug.

By the time Tim got to his first morning client, he already had a plan. He grabbed the first person he saw with a cell phone and asked to borrow it. Pretending to make a call, he instead programmed the speed dial function to call his cell number. He figured that most phones would never be bumped in the exact right way to call him, but that if he did enough of them, something would happen.

He was nervous at first that someone would figure out what he was doing, but after a few close calls, he could reprogram the phone almost as fast as if he were dialing a number. By the end of the day, he had programmed over thirty phones. He barely knew any of the people.

That night Tim stopped off at the community center to play some pickup basketball. It was something he tried to do at least once a week. The gym drew a good crowd, mostly aging jocks. Tim wasn’t the oldest guy there, but in a few years he would be. The games were casual, teams made up of whoever showed. Tim teamed up with the handful of younger guys he had seen around the gym before but had never played with. They all knew each other. Probably worked together, he figured.

After twenty minutes, Tim had worked himself into a good sweat. His teammates were strong players: physical, fast, and aggressive. Tim was relieved to be holding his own with them, although in reality he was faring only a little better than his opponents, who were losing badly.

About halfway into the second period, a guy on the other team, wearing a yellow shirt from Disney World, intercepted a pass from Tim and made a fast break for his end of the court. He was overweight, and panting hard. He had been struggling to keep up all night. But he took off down court, sprinting for the basket, anxious, Tim figured, to redeem himself. From behind Tim, one of his teammates flashed by and effortlessly caught up to Disney World as he was about to put away an easy lay-up. The kid elbowed Disney when his feet left the ground. The guy went down hard, crashing to the wood floor. Tim’s teammate ran back up the court, smirking, getting high fives from his friends. “My bad. Looks like they get to take two.”

Disney got up slowly, holding his side, a trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth. No one from his team approached him; they stood looking at the floor as he limped over to the side of the court and sat down hard on the bottom row of bleachers.

Tim’s teammates started rolling their eyes and giving each other looks. “Hey, if he’s going to sit out, get somebody else out here,” one guy shouted.

Tim wanted to go over and see if the guy was okay, but didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of his teammates. Besides, he thought, they could turn on me.

Another player, who had just walked in, stripped off his sweats, and ran out onto the court. The game resumed. A few minutes later, Tim looked over at the bleachers. Disney was gone. After the game Tim snagged eight more phones, including three of his young teammates.

The next morning Tim waited until Vicki was in the shower to power up his cell phone and dial information. When the automated voice asked for a town, Tim carefully said, “Falls Church.” Then “Rodgers, Beth.”

He reached across the bed and grabbed one of Vicki’s nature magazines off the night stand. He got the number from the automated operator and carefully wrote it down on a scrap of paper he tore off the front of the magazine. When the computer asked if he would like to be connected directly, Tim hung up. He put the paper in his wallet and returned the magazine to Vicki’s night stand, cover down. Maybe I’ll call her from the car, he thought.

On the way to a client that morning, Tim’s cell phone rang. He looked at the caller id. It was a name and number he didn’t recognize. A stranger. He punched the receive button and listened. No voices, just music. And road noises. Lots of stop and go. The guy — why do I know it’s a guy, Tim thought — was revving his engine, but not going anywhere. The caller turned off the radio. Silence for ten seconds. He turned it back on. Then the call faded. He must have gone under a bridge, Tim figured. Tim put the cell down on the seat next to him. This is going to work, he thought.

A couple weeks later, while Tim was paying for lunch, he noticed the small slip of paper with Beth’s number in his wallet. The feeling he had standing in her living room came back to him like a treasured childhood memory. It wasn’t that he was particularly attracted to Beth, just that the whole setup had made him feel safe, like when he was a kid, and there was always someone around to make things right: a time when he didn’t have to be the grown-up with all the answers.

He grabbed his cell phone and dialed the number. Beth picked up on this first ring. “Hello?”

Tim hesitated for a second. He really hadn’t expected her to be home in the middle of the day.

“Hi. It’s Tim.” Silence.

“I’m the guy who hit your dog. I probably should have called you sooner. I just wanted to see if everything turned out okay. You promised you’d send me the bill.” The words came rushing out. Very cool, he thought.

“Oh yeah, Tim, was it? Yeah, well, no big problem. It turned out that Pepper just had a sprained knee. The vet said it was a minor miracle,” Beth answered.

“Well, good. I’m glad to hear that. I hope it wasn’t too expensive. If you want, I could drop by with a check after work tonight.”

“No. Thanks. That won’t be necessary.” Silence again.

Tim tried to think of a way to keep the conversation going. “Actually, I’m surprised you’re home now. I figured you’d be at work.”

Beth hesitated. Finally, she said, “I work at home. I edit a newsletter for an art gallery downtown. We communicate mostly by e-mail. It pays okay, and I get to be here when Ethan comes home from school.”

“That’s great. Sounds like my job. I don’t get to see the people I work for very much either. It has good points and bad.”

“Tell me about it,” Beth answered, the tension easing from her voice. “Working in sweatpants is fun for about the first week. But after that you start to miss dressing like a grown-up. Do you work out of your dining room too?”

“Sometimes, yes,” he said, laughing. “But sometimes I have to meet people face to face. That’s the worst because I don’t see them enough to feel comfortable.”

“I don’t know,” Beth said. “There are days when I would kill for any adult conversation. Ever since my husband...”

She let the unfinished sentence hang in the air. The phone started clicking. “That’s my call waiting,” Beth said. “I’d better get it. It’s either business or Ethan’s school. Well, it’s been nice talking to you. I mean that.”

“Why don’t I give you my number again? Just in case you ever need to talk to a grown-up.” Tim said it before he even thought it.

Beth paused, then said, “Thanks, I just might do that.” He gave her the number, and they hung up. What was that about, he thought.

Tim continued to borrow and program cell phones. He approached strangers on the street, people he ran into at the supermarket, couples from his investment club, women from Vicki’s volunteer group. One Saturday he went down to the local library and spent the afternoon walking around looking for people with phones. He never got caught.

Now the calls were coming two or three a day. Every time the cell rang, Tim snatched it up, whether he was in a meeting, with Vicki, whatever. Sometimes he knew the caller, most times he didn’t. Once every couple of weeks, Tim got something that was worth his attention: whole chunks of people’s conversation laid bare for Tim, who was hidden in the safety of his car or his basement office of his townhouse or even sitting in a room full of people.

Tim bought a composition book, one hundred pages, college-ruled with a mottled green and black cover, and he wrote down the words that stuck in his head.

Vicky asked him a few times why he was suddenly getting so many calls, especially late at night. He lied and told her work was crazy but it wouldn’t go on much longer. He started sleeping in the spare bedroom so he could get calls without Vicky knowing.

Tim was working at home one afternoon, when his cell rang. He looked at the number. It was Beth. He stared at the phone for a second, then answered. “Hello,” he said.

“Tim. Hi. It’s me, Beth. Remember. The dog.”

Tim pushed back from his desk, leaned back in the chair, propped his feet up. “Beth. Sure I remember you. Glad you could call.”

Beth paused. “Is this a good time for you. I mean... are you busy?”

Ben laughed. “No. This is fine. I was just sitting here staring at the ceiling. Trying to figure out which client I can bill for daydreaming.”

“Good, I don’t want to bother you. It’s just that the last time we talked, you know, you said I could call.”

“It’s fine. What’s up.”

“Oh. I know it’s silly, but I have to talk to someone. I just got off the phone with my boss. He was upset about some work I was supposed to do. He swears he told me it needed to be done this Friday. But I’m sure he said the end of next week.”

Ben rolled his chair back so he could see out the window.

“Sounds like a simple mix-up. Is he giving you grief?” “Not exactly, but I hate making mistakes with him. He’s always looking for an excuse for me to stop working from home.”

“Yeah, sounds rough,” Ben said. “I bet it blows over.”

“Well, I hope it does. I was going to ask him if I could take on other clients... you know... make a little extra money... but now with this...” Ben’s call waiting started to click.

He checked the incoming number. It was one that had been particularly interesting the last few weeks. Some guy who sounded like he worked in a video store.

“Uh, Beth,” he interrupted. The clicking seemed to Ben to get louder. “I’m really sorry. But I’ve got another call coming in. Business. You know how that goes. But please, like I said call me anytime. I’m sure that thing with your boss will work out for you. Bye.”

Before Beth had a chance to answer, he disconnected her call and switched to the video guy.

Tim had to go out to the West Coast for a few weeks to attend a technical conference. He had left his cell home because he didn’t want to attract any attention by running up long-distance charges on people’s phones. He was surprised to find that with each passing day he missed the calls more. He felt like he was out of touch with his family and wanted to hear from them all. A few people mentioned that he seemed distracted, but he told them that he was having trouble adjusting to the time change. He called Vicki once or twice, during the day, leaving messages on her machine.

The first thing he did after the taxi brought him home from the airport was dig out his cell. Vicki was out, working late at her new job. She had been putting in long hours ever since Tim had told her he wanted to wait a couple of years before they started having kids. The note on the refrigerator said he shouldn’t wait up and that he should call out for pizza.

He kicked off his shoes, poured himself a drink, and stretched out on the living room couch. The cell was nestled on his chest. He picked it up and pushed the green button that powered up the device. It quickly reached out across the ether, establishing electronic contact with the nearest cell transmitter, located a few streets over on the top of the medical building where Tim and Vicki had their teeth cleaned twice a year. Tim only had to wait about twenty minutes before it rang. Welcome home, he thought.

The next Tuesday Tim was back sitting in his usual Tuesday meeting. Crying Mary must have left the company. He didn’t ask what had happened, but there was a younger version sitting in her place, taking notes and action items with cool efficiency. Tim figured that she would do just fine.

About halfway through the agenda, Tim’s cell rang. He removed the phone from his belt and looked down at the number. It was Beth’s. His finger waved over the receive button for a second as he chewed on the inside of his cheek. I wonder what she wants, he thought to himself. Probably to harp on about her little problems. What an I going to say to her?

He punched the button to disconnect the call. Besides, he knew there would be a better one coming along any time now.