Whenever You Call by Anna King

single woman would do when she was alone on a Saturday night. I checked my e-mail. I had no real expectations, except, perhaps, something from one of my kids, sent in a fit of confused Mommy-love. I hadn’t heard from my youngest, Noah, in more than ten days, which was right on the edge of causing me worry, especially since he was the most gentle and sensitive of the three. He’d graduated from college the previous spring and was trying to become a literary writer, unlike the more commercial bent of his mother and older brother, Elliot. Trevor, his father, had agreed to partially support him for one year. His deadline loomed. That’s when it hit me: I hadn’t heard from him since I’d announced my decision to quit writing. Maybe I’d upset him in some way.
    I sat down at the computer, already composing an e-mail to him in my mind, but first checking on what mail might have arrived for me.
    Rabbitfish!
    I gasped with surprise. On Saturday night? He was revealing his alone status on a Saturday night? I clicked so fast that for a second the e-mail seemed to disappear. I was afraid I’d actually deleted it, but then it exploded onto the screen.
    Whatcha doing?
    Those words moaned with sexual suggestion. To me, anyway, in my present celibate-induced coma state. I clicked Reply and began to type, my fingers flying. It took twenty minutes, even at a rip-roaring speed of 85 wpm. No braking, no turns, and my foot heavy on the accelerator. I wrote him all about my evening with Isaac. Everything. Then, with a careful proofreading but few revisions, I sent it to Rabbitfish. Or, actually, Mr. Rabbitfish, as I’d begun calling him in my mind.
    In another fit of possibly excess energy, I wrote Noah a brief e-mail. I tried to keep it light by describing Isaac’s monkish plans, but I finally approached the subject of his own writing. Usually, I didn’t ask how it was going since I wasn’t sure whether he appreciated his mother’s, who happened to be a writer , curiosity. But, I figured, now I wasn’t a writer, so it would be all right. If I didn’t hear back from him within 48 hours, I’d call his house, which he shared with innumerable others, in the Adams Morgan section of Washington, D.C.
    The phone rang, making me jump. For some reason, I thought it might be Mr. Rabbitfish, even though my number was unlisted, not to mention that it was ludicrous to imagine he’d actually call me when he hadn’t even given me his real name.
    “Hi!” Jen’s voice was nearly unrecognizable. She often sounded happy, but never maniacally happy.
    “That you?” I said.
    “Yeah!”
    “Are you drunk?”
    “Of course not,” she said. “Don’t you want to hear about how it went?”
    “You sound really, really drunk. ”
    She giggled. “Drunk with love, maybe.”
    I stood up and sat down. Then I did it again, up and down. I’d never heard her like this. “ Tell me.”
    She started to talk, and she didn’t stop until an hour later. My right ear felt permanently folded and stapled against the side of my head. Apparently, after waiting forty-eight years, Jen had found her soul mate, that elusive dream of every woman. At various moments during her recital, tears filled my eyes and I had to blow my nose. I kept imagining the unknown Tom Callahan carrying her in his arms, down the aisle.
    Thanks , I mouthed to Isaac’s Buddhist-deity-entity-whatever. Had to thank someone. No one else came readily to mind.

6
    F IVE ODD HUMAN BEINGS gathered on Monday morning, in a sleazy unkempt room with a bar running along one wall. We each sat at a separate table, clutching our little notebooks. Here we were on the first day of first grade, except that we lacked that fresh dewey look of most first-graders, and instead of first grade this was a school to learn how to serve alcohol. Put that way, the sleazy room became uncomfortably suitable. There was something equally out of sync about each of us, myself included. I’m not sure why I’d felt compelled