On the Line

by Donna Hill

  “WHOT, the Joy Newhouse show,” Macy said. “You’re up next, hold tight and be sure your radio is turned down low so there’s no feedback. Your name and age?”

  “Uh…I’m thirty-nine, but, uhmmm…”

  “Cool, anonymous. No problem. What’s your issue?”

  “I, uh, just lost my husband and have a new lover and…well…it’s complicated.”

  “Good—a sex question,” Macy said, as though talking to someone else in the studio. “Joy can work that to the bone. You’ve been celibate or need to know when it’s cool to start doing it again—somethin’ like that?”

  “Yeah,” Sidney said. “And, uh, I think I might have caught something from him after the first time. Although, it could be genetic.”

  “Oh, this is gonna be great. Hold on, baby—Joy is gonna be on the line in a few after the break.”

  “So, we’ve got Anonymous on the line, a sister about thirty-nine years old, my good studio sister says…and from what I understand, hon, your husband died, you got your freak on, and some rat bastard gave you something you can’t shake—that’s messed up, y’all. Talk to me, sis. What happened? How can Joy bring it to you real?”

  Sidney took a deep breath. “It didn’t happen like that. My husband was the rat bastard.”

  “Oh, okay, so my bad—my producer got it wrong,” Joy said, her voice soothing. “Macy, next time—”

  “I know, I know.” Macy fussed in the background, causing the typical studio banter that boosted ratings.

  “All right, now let me get this straight, your husband gave you a—”

  “No,” Sidney interrupted. “He’s dead. And I may have been the cause, sort of. We had a fight, after he pulled a nine on me. It wasn’t the first time he did something like that—the first time he sent some guys to beat me up. So, isn’t that self-defense?”

  “Whooooo!” Joy exclaimed with a practiced whistle. “So you were the one carrying the plague, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Sidney said, with a tinge of reluctance. “Sort of, but not really.”

  “Is that why he pulled a nine? I mean, I’m just saying, sis—not that it makes it right but—”

  “No, no, no. He never caught anything from me, and it’s hard to explain. My ex and I hadn’t been together in two years. Separate bedrooms, the marriage was a sham.”

  “Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. This so-called husband leaves you high and dry, no booty, no intimacy for two years. Then you met a man…” Joy said, allowing her words to trail off with emphasis.

  “He’s the most fantastic, sexy, incredibly wonderful man…”

  “Ain’t they all, girl—but he ain’t worth your life!” Joy shouted, and the smack of a high five echoed through the studio along with her producer’s background comments.

  “Yes he is, Joy,” Sidney said. “This one was worth it. But that’s not why I called.”

  “This sister is straight crazy if she has what I think she does,” Joy Newhouse exclaimed. “I have got to keep your insane ass on the line to hear this one. You are gonna have to break it all the way down to the nub for me, girl. How do you let some man give you the plague and—just help me understand? You sound like a fairly educated woman, make me understand this.”

  “Okay…here’s the deal,” Sidney said with a surge of confidence, evading the question about the virus. “My husband was an ass. He died and I want to know if, by some chance, if a person got mauled by a wolf—an animal that was clearly provoked into attack mode by threatening behavior—do you personally feel that—”

  “Hold it, stop playing on my phone!” Joy said, hollering and laughing. “Oh my gawd. No, she did not say wolf, like a werewolf! A pit bull, all right, messed up as that may be. A Rot, I can deal with—but are you saying you sicced a wolf dog on the man, or are you leaning to some supernatural conspiracy theory thing tonight?”

  “No, I didn’t sic the animal—it attacked because he attacked me.” Sidney hesitated. “That’s the…”

  The studio was in an uproar, and laughter echoed from the speakers into the house as the show crew argued what constituted a werewolf and made references to several rap artists that could pass as one.

  “I just needed to know from a disinterested party…if I was going crazy,” Sidney murmured.

  “You’re asking us about werewolves and you need me to tell you if you’re crazy?” Joy said, laughing. “Don’t be shy. Caller, you’re awfully quiet—are you still on the line?” Joy continued to laugh with Macy and her engineer. “It takes all kinds to make a world. What happened, girl?”

  “Okay, here’s what happened,” Sidney said. “He tried to attack me, my wolf came out and went for him—which evened out the strength differential—then got himself beat up so badly by both of us that it looked like he’d been mauled, is what I was saying.”

  “That’s craaaazy,” Joy said. “Dayum! I call it self-defense if some deranged man attacks you and your dog rescues you, girl. Shoulda mauled his sorry ass—brothers need to keep their hands off women.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. Sho’ you right,” Macy agreed, gaining a rumble of agreement from the engineer.

  “He got his ass beat down,” Brick said.

  “Is that the boyfriend? Who’s the bass in the background?” Joy shouted. “This is too wild. Yo, boyfriend,” she teased. “So, you got in the mix, too, and kicked the husband’s ass? What’d y’all do, roll up on him like a Nia Long type of thing? That sounds too ghetto, you know that, right?”

  “No. Wasn’t me, would love to take the credit. The sick bastard was messing with my lady, didn’t know she could go straight gulley on him, and, hey…he got his ass kicked. I was just the referee.”

  “Whooo!” Joy said, making the studio erupt again with comments from the peanut gallery as she and Macy verbally sparred and even got the engineer involved.

  “Gangsta, daaaayum,” Macy hollered. “Right, Tyrone?”

  “You know it,” the engineer said, laughing. “I like a sister who can hold her own, but she can’t be looking like no knife-fighter.”

  “Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, no doubt—she gotta be fine,” the producer agreed.

  “Naw, man, fionne,” Tyrone corrected.

  “This one, my lady,” Brick said with pride in his voice, “is fine as—bleep—”

  “We feel you, man,” the engineer said.

  “Anonymous, we said we feel you,” Joy repeated. “But how did you feel when you were kicking your husband’s ass with your lover standing there?”

  “I really hadn’t thought about it that way. He’d dogged me for a l-long time,” she managed to stammer. “Tried to take everything I’d worked hard for all my life, and had affair after affair, did everything you could imagine. Set me up. Even tried to kill me.”

  “So, this was pent-up, had been brewing?” Joy said, her voice filled with empathy. “That’s enough to drive somebody over the edge, to seriously try to hurt the person who was doing all of this—not that I advocate violence, but you can see how it could get ridiculous.”

  “Yeah,” Sidney said.

  “Wait, we gotta hear this,” Joy said. “I want you to hold on while we break for commercial and come back.

  “All right,” Joy said, “now that we’ve handled our business to keep the lights on in here, we’re back with an anonymous, fine—from her own lover’s description—thirty-nine-year-old female caller, who says she kicked her husband’s ass, he subsequently died…I don’t know, that’s murder, right? Unless he died from something else, or was it self-defense?”

  “It was self-defense,” Brick rumbled.

  “That’s what they all say,” Joy scoffed.

  “The sister didn’t go to jail, and was obviously vindicated,” Brick said calmly. “So, hey.”

  “All right,” Joy said, sounding unconvinced but willing to move forward. “I’m not po po or a lawyer, so we’re not going there for the sake of time. But the boyfriend says he didn’t do the husband, we know your dog got in it…st
ill, the part I wanna get back to is this STD y’all was passing between you. Tell me about that.”

  “Told you purebred humans were judgmental,” Brick crooned to Sidney.

  “It’s not an STD,” Sidney said.

  “What, like a nervous tic? A blood condition? C’mon, we need to be honest and address issues that are wrecking havoc in the community.”

  “Oh, God, it’s something that only one in several million people contract—-like West Nile, or Bird Flu…or…Joy, I can’t really think what it’s like, but it’s…oh, just like that.”

  “Oh, okay, now we’re getting somewhere,” Joy replied, after a round of comments from her crew. “But how did you get it?”

  “It’s something so rare that…” Sidney’s voice trailed off as she choked back a gasp. “If you were already a carrier—I had it in my system already as a child. Like a recessive gene that’s dormant.”

  “So this would sort of be like one of those crazy, never-heard-of type of diseases, is what you’re telling us? What’s it called?”

  “Tell her,” Sidney breathed.

  “I’m…I’m not sure what the true technical name is,” Brick said, desire bottoming out his voice.

  “This is some deep mess you all are trying to get me to buy into,” Joy said. “We need to get a doctor on the line or something to verify some of these wild-ass allegations. I’ve never heard of something that can just make you flip, that’s a blood disease—have you, Ty? Macy, what about you?”

  “It’s like schizophrenia, makes you act bipolar,” Brick said quickly.

  “So, this mental, blood thing that you don’t know the technical name for, this made your woman flip on her ex after years of abuse, who subsequently died in some way we have yet to fully hear about—anybody go to jail?”

  “Uh-uh,” Brick said through his teeth.

  “All right, in the interest of responsibility here, tell me you didn’t kill the man? I’m just being real.”

  “Naw, that didn’t happen,” Brick said fast, then paused to take a deep breath. “Not like that.”

  “Oh, all right, glad to hear that,” Joy said, relief washing through her voice. “Dude died later?”

  The sound of heavy breathing could be heard on the other end before the line dropped.

  “You’re not big on details, I see,” Joy teased. “Strong silent type? Man! I am so sorry that call dropped off the hotline, though, y’all. I really wanted to ask that wild couple a bazillion more questions on the werewolf comment. Like, how do you train a wolf and where the hell do you keep it in the city? Isn’t that illegal, against all kinds of codes, and whatnot? I know a man had a tiger in a New York apartment, and you hear about these huge snakes crazy people keep, so who knows? I still think they did her husband and there’s more to the story, but I don’t know. That wolf comment seemed like it came out of nowhere. But they sounded real sexy together, the two of them…Like her voice and his, they just sounded in tune—both crazy, mind you, but synced. What do y’all say?”

  “I say it was getting real quiet on the phone, ya mean?” the engineer said.

  “Oh, get out—your mind is in the gutter. They werenot getting busy while they were on the phone on the radio!” Joy laughed.

  “I don’t know,” Macy said. “It sounded like the convo on their side was drifting. I’m not a phone-sex expert—but, hey, I’m just saying.”

  “You two are incorrigible. You see what I have to deal with on the air, late night’s folks, and the crew I have to work with in here? I just hope our callers were satisfied with what they got from the call.”

  I hit the stop button. “Now that was some wild shit.” I shake my head and look across at Macy, who’s hugging herself as if she’s freezing.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “What if that Sidney chick was telling the truth?”

  “Say what?”

  “What if she is some kind of werewolf and she was getting it on with him during that call?”

  I make a face at Macy. “Chile, please.” A chill suddenly runs through me. “No way.” But to tell you the truth, I remember that call like it was yesterday. It scared the hell outta me then just like it did now. Who am I to say what’s real and what’s not? All I know is, if some hairy-looking man runs up on me, he’s getting shot! I blow out a breath. “Let’s keep digging.”

  “You want that in the yes, no or maybe pile?” Macy asks.

  “Definitely yes. It’s classic.”

  We spend the next couple of hours on the floor tossing and laughing, the years of our time together at WHOT piling up at our feet. Finally I get up to stretch my legs. “Hungry?”

  “Starved.”

  “I’ll fix us something to eat.”

  “Cool, I’ll keep digging.”

  I leave Macy to the task at hand and head out to the kitchen. While I’m grilling some turkey burgers and fixing a salad, a letter that I’d dubbed Desperate Housewife, from about a year ago, pops into my head. I smile at the memory. Naughty girl….

  CHAPTER 19

  Twenty-one meals a week. Twenty-one damn meals a week. That’s what I’m responsible for. Twenty-one times that I stand in front of that mammoth refrigerator and wonder what the hell I’m going to make. I wonder how the hell I got into this, when the hell the refrigerator began to feel like Goliath to me, why the hell my whole life revolves around food. I have a graduate degree, damn it. I’m smart, talented, and obviously beautiful enough to have gotten trapped in this marriage. And now, here I stand, looking at the empty space between the soy milk and the bottles of lime-flavored Perrier on the top shelf.

  “Mommy, I want to eat,” a tiny voice said, breaking into my lamentations. It was my daughter, Tatiana. At two and a half, she spoke more clearly than most of the three-and four-year-olds in her playgroups. She was the reason I took a step away from my job, a very lucrative job, mind you, in advertising. I hadn’t regretted my decision. But when one year at home, away from my career, turned into two, which unfortunately, despite the politically correct reports flooding the media, is professional suicide in corporate America. I hunkered down, preparing myself to reenter the game years later, once Tat was old enough to enter school full-time.

  But being solely responsible for a child twenty-four hours a day was taking its toll. I needed adult conversation and companionship, and I thought that if I had some help with her, I could have some free time to reconnect with old friends and reclaim me. So I broached the subject one night when Clay, my husband, got home early at nine o’clock.

  “Honey, I was thinking about looking for some help,” I began gently. I was holding his drink in my hand, a tumbler containing two fingers of Scotch.

  With his cigar clinched between his teeth and his gaze turned upward at the stars as we stood on the deck of our Bucks County, Pennsylvania, home, he looked like he was in a decent mood. Removing his cigar from his mouth and taking the drink from me with a nod of acknowledgment, he said, “We already have a housekeeper. You can’t have her every day while you’re sitting at home playing with Tat.”

  I took a deep breath. Conversations with Clay were more like cross-examinations than exchanges of ideas. I often wondered why I was ever drawn to him in the first place. But then I remembered that his drive and ambition were key in my initial attraction to him. His status came in second, and placing in third were the numerous zeros in his financial portfolio. He was twenty-five years my senior and bad habits had settled into him, working their way into the grooves so now they were cemented into unsightly stains. It was no wonder his first and second wives left him, the latter refusing alimony, saying she just wanted to get away from him with no ties at all.

  “Chelsea, you sound lazy and selfish. What do you want to do? Be her mother or abandon her? Take your pick, dear,” he said, quaffing down the Scotch before turning to look at me.

  I stared at him, wishing that I’d poisoned his drink. Truthfully, as little as he was at home, I could have hired someone without consulting him, but
as he was my husband and Tatiana’s father, I wanted to include him in any decisions that I made concerning her. I wouldn’t be so considerate, polite, or partner-like next time.

  “Good night, Clay,” I’d said, walking away from the interrogation. I’d blown out a defeated sigh as I’d headed back into the house, through the foyer and up the staircase to my bedroom. Clay, a creature of habit, would finish his drink and cigar, retire to his room and be out of the house by eight in the morning.

  That had been a year ago. To ease some of the loneliness I’d felt, I’d joined a few moms’ clubs and signed up for a few playdates. If needed, one of the other members would babysit Tatiana while I ran a few quick errands or desperately needed a couple of hours of hands-free time. For longer periods like doctor’s visits or hair appointments, I leaned on my mother for support.

  Selecting the day-care center behind Clay’s back had been relatively easy. Some members of the moms’ club had given me suggestions, and I had called three of them right away, scheduling tours for the next day. Tatiana had accompanied me to all three, and I’d gone through a checklist that I’d found online of things to look for in a day-care center. I’d added my own criteria, and from there, the choice had been simple. I took a few more days for observation and transition for Tat, and by the second week in October, Tatiana was officially enrolled in school.

  Tatiana had been in school for four days, and for the fourth day in a row, I found myself sitting in the library enjoying the quiet while I reread one of the old classics I had enjoyed as an undergrad. The librarian smiled with recognition at me, and I waved in response. I read nonstop for three hours, finishing the book and setting back with a sigh and a smile as I reflected on it.

  “I guess you enjoyed it,” the librarian whispered as she walked past me.

  “Not nearly as much as I enjoyed having the opportunity to read.”

  Her face wore a smile, but her eyebrows wore a question mark. “My daughter just started day care, so now I have a little free time.”

  “Well, you’ve been spending it in a great place.”