Delia Ephron - Hanging Up

“Thanks.”

“No problem. He’s not my father.” Joe turns over to sleep some more. The phone rings again. He groans and picks it up. “Yes. I’ll accept.… You’re not in jail and Jesse isn’t mad at you.” Blunt this time. He hangs up. “Shit. What a way to get up in the morning.”

This is something Alexander Graham Bell never anticipated. I believe I read somewhere that he grew to hate his own invention, but I don’t think it was because he had a senile parent phoning him ten times a day. I’m sure he didn’t know that people who couldn’t recognize their own pants would remember their children’s phone numbers—could actually recall a seven-digit number plus an area code. I hate Alexander Graham Bell. Of course, right now I hate everyone.

“I think we should buy telephone stock,” I say later, at breakfast, while I am pacing back and forth, eating granola. “Not now, but when we baby boomers hit eighty.”

Joe doesn’t look up. He’s reading his newspapers from all over the country—the San Jose Mercury News , the Waco Tribune , the Boulder Daily Camera —to find stories for his radio show.

“Jesse, when I’m eighty, be sure to buy telephone stock.”

Jesse doesn’t look up either. He’s reading the back of the milk carton.

“Do I have to visit him today?” I wonder aloud.

Joe does not ask who “him” is. “No,” he says.

“But I haven’t seen him since I checked him in. Jesse, you’ll be happy to know that this morning your grandfather remembered your name. It was a miracle.”

“That could not be considered a miracle, Mom. That is simply a scientific inevitability.” Jesse’s mouth develops a little sneer. “When the brain deteriorates—and your dad is like wacko—the frontal lobe damage causes a person to remember things they forgot and forget things they know.”

I don’t respond, and I deem this an extraordinary feat. “That reminds me, I have to phone that man you had the car accident with. I’ve already tried him twice, and he hasn’t called back.”

“So forget about it.”

“You should probably do this yourself. You know, I really am busy.”

“If you think you’re busy, you should try high school.” Jesse continues to eat as he carries his cereal bowl to the sink. “I’ll be back late. Ifer and I are going to a séance. You know, Mom, all doors are entrances. Think about it.” He puts his bowl in the sink. “Bye.”

I pour another cup of coffee, even though after two cups my whole body rattles from the caffeine. I allow myself to sit. For a moment it’s completely quiet. Not even a breeze; nothing to ruffle anything. Stop, right now. Stop, with this feeling in this room: Joe at the table reading his papers, the smell of coffee, the warm cup in my hands, two sips before the jitters.

“Joe, when are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow. I’ll be home in about a week.”

“I wish you weren’t going.”

Joe pays no attention to this, which I resent and admire. “Aren’t you late?” he asks pointedly.

I start my general pre-departure routine. Finding my purse, going through my briefcase, checking for pens, Filofax, a legal pad. “Have you seen my sunglasses?” I run upstairs. Search the night table, the bureau, the bathroom, stop at the mirror. Oh God, is that my face?

This is not the first time this has happened. Not the first time, since I turned forty, that I have passed a mirror and stopped short, startled by my own reflection.

These sideways unexpected encounters are the most jarring, these candid glimpses when I have not taken time to prepare my face to be seen and my brain to see it. All I notice are the lines around my eyes. Are these new? The creases running south from the edge of my nose. Definitely deeper. My mouth, of which I am extremely fond, have been ever since a girl in my bunkhouse at Camp Tocaloma told me it was rosebud-shaped, my mouth is starting to turn down. I need a vacation. No. This is just me. Me at forty-four.

I look the way I always have, but the face of the future is threatening to take over. I have two faces in one, a nonreturnable bargain.

One day, when Joe and I passed an old couple walking arm in arm, I warned him, “Soon we’ll be them.” “I hope so,” he replied. He was admiring their coziness, but that’s not what I meant.

The first time I “got” death, I was eight years old and standing in my elementary school playground, waiting in line for my turn at handball. “When you’re dead, you don’t know it.” The kid in front turned to me, announced this, and then rubbed his fist around in his eye. “When you’re dead, you don’t know it.” Every time I went to sleep I would count frantically, lie in my bed going from one to a hundred as fast as I could, so I wouldn’t think about it, and eventually I succeeded. I didn’t think about it for years. But when I started being surprised by my reflection, the thought came back, and lately every morning I wake up with that little boy’s face staring into mine: “When you’re dead, you don’t know it.” Also, for the past year I have changed my hairstyle every two months. Somehow this seems connected.

Why am I here? “Joe,” I yell, “do you know why I came upstairs?”

“No,” he shouts back.

“Oh, I remember. My sunglasses.” I find them on my desk, next to Dr. Omar Kunundar’s phone number. Good grief, I almost left without taking care of this. I sit down at my desk and dial. I hear the voice of a very businesslike woman.

“Hello, this is the office of Dr. Kunundar. If you are having an emergency, please press one and leave a message. If this is a nonemergency medical call, press two and leave a message. For other business, press three. Thank you.”

I press three. “Hello, this is Eve Mozell again. A week ago, my son Jesse opened his car door into Dr. Kunundar’s car. I would like to discuss the accident as soon as possible and would really appreciate it if the doctor could give me a call at 555–4603.”

These words don’t convey how charming I am on an answering machine. I am sincere and warm, polite but inviting. It’s all in my voice, and it’s one reason I’m good at my job: I do special events. People hire me to throw fund-raisers or convention parties. I am a great planner, great at anticipating what might go wrong so it doesn’t. No Surprises is the name of my company. I do most of the planning on the phone, so I end up leaving many messages for people, like about whether we want a pasta station or a roast beef station, or about this adorable mariachi band I have located. I have “phone talent.” I easily become buddies with people over the phone.

So why haven’t I heard from the doctor after I’ve left several messages, even if he’s out of town? I assume it’s because he hasn’t heard my voice. Because this nasty nurse, obviously she’s nasty, has been screening his calls.

I phone my assistant.

“Hi, Kim, I’m running a little late. Any messages?”

She gives me the number for Madge Turner, who is on the board of several medical associations in southern California and who hires me frequently to do their special events. I am planning one for her now. “Hello, Madge, this is Eve Mozell.”

“Hello, Eve, how are you?”

I consider answering truthfully, spilling out my general state of anxiety. “Fine, I’m fine, thank you. How was the cruise?”

“It was very relaxing.”

I like talking to Madge because she always says the most obvious thing. If she were on Family Feud —“One hundred people surveyed, top five answers on the board”—Madge’s answer would always be the top one. (Why do people take cruises? Number-one response: To relax.)

“That’s nice, I’m glad to hear it.”