Odd Jobs by John Updike

the hedge at the bottom of their own yard, he turned, she seemed a distant stranger, a woman walking alone.
    1982

YOUR LOVER JUST CALLED
A Playlet
    Adapted from the Short Story of the Same Name for an Evening of Fifteen-Minute Plays at the Blackburn Theatre, in Gloucester, Massachusetts, on April 10, 1989
    DRAMATIS PERSONAE:
Richard and Joan Maple, in their thirties
    SCENE 1:
An upstairs hall, Friday morning, ten o’clock
    SCENE 2:
Same place, next day, same time
    (Stage set: A table with a telephone on it. Chair. Door left leads to bedroom.)
    PHONE:
(Rings. Rings twice. Thrice.)
    RICHARD
(sniffing, coughing, in pajamas, emerges from bedroom door):
Hello?
(Listens, then sings musically)
Hello hello?
(Hangs up. Stands there puzzled.)
    JOAN
(coming upstairs, carrying a blanket, a jar of vitamin C, a glass of apple juice, a book):
Richard, you
must
stay in bed if you want to get well enough to entertain Mack tonight.
    RICHARD: Your lover just called.
    JOAN: What did he say?
    RICHARD: Nothing. He hung up. He was amazed to find me home on a Friday.
    JOAN: Go back to bed. Here’s an extra blanket, some chewable vitamin C, a glass of apple juice, and that book you wanted from the library.It took me the
longest
time to find it. I didn’t know whether to look under “L” for “Laclos,” “d” for “de,” or “C” for “Choderlos.”
    RICHARD
(taking book):
Great.
(Reads title) Les Liaisons dangereuses
.
    JOAN: How do I know it wasn’t
your
lover?
    RICHARD: If it was my lover, why would she hang up, since I answered?
    JOAN: Maybe she heard me coming up the stairs. Maybe she doesn’t love you any more.
    RICHARD
(after blowing his nose):
This is a ridiculous conversation.
    JOAN: You started it.
    RICHARD: Well, what would
you
think, if you were me and answered the phone on a weekday and the person hung up? He clearly expected you to be home alone like you always are.
    JOAN: Well, if you’ll go back to bed and fall asleep I’ll call him back and explain what happened.
    RICHARD: You think
I’ll
think you’re kidding but I know that’s really what
would
happen.
    JOAN: Oh, come on, Dick. Who would it be? Freddy Vetter?
    RICHARD: Or Harry Saxon. Or somebody I don’t know at all. Some old college sweetheart who’s moved to West Gloucester. Or maybe the milkman. I can hear you and him talking while I’m shaving sometimes.
    JOAN: We’re surrounded by hungry children. He’s sixty years old and has hair coming out of his ears.
    RICHARD: Like your father. You
like
older men. There was that section man in Chaucer. You and he were always going out for coffee together after the lecture.
    JOAN: Yes, and he gave me a C for the course. C for coffee.
    RICHARD: Don’t try to change the subject. You’ve been acting awfully happy lately. There’s a little smile comes into your face when you think I’m not looking. See, there it is!
    JOAN: I’m smiling because you’re so ridiculous. I have no lover. I have nowhere to put him. My days are consumed by devotion to the needs of my husband and his numerous children.
    RICHARD: Oh, so I’m the one made you have the children? While you were hankering after a career in fashion or in the exciting world of business. You could have been the first woman to crack the wheat-futures cycle. Or maybe aeronautics: the first woman to design a nose cone. Joan Maple, girl agronomist. Joan Maple, lady geopolitician. But for that patriarchal brute she mistakenly married, this clear-eyed female citizen of our milder, gentler republic—
    JOAN: Dick, have you taken your temperature? I haven’t heard you rave like this for years.
    RICHARD: I haven’t been wounded like this for years. I hated that
click
. That nasty little I-know-your-wife-better-than-you-do
click
.
    JOAN: It was some child, playing with the phone. Really, if we’re going to have Mack for dinner tonight, you better convalesce now.
    RICHARD: It
is
Mack, isn’t it? That son of a bitch. His divorce isn’t even finalized and