Hanging Up

by Delia Ephron

  “Kool-Aid,” says Joe.

  “I didn’t remember Kool-Aid? My God.”

  “Kasmians drink only Coke. Four letters, get it?” says Jesse. “This guy owes us. He could have killed me.”

  I take a few breaths, just for punctuation. “Look, the important thing is that you’re fine. That your leg wasn’t outside the car or anything.” This is the important thing, and it’s not that I don’t know it, but I say it for only one reason: So I feel entitled to say the next thing, which I feel guilty about. “But it’s your fault.”

  Jesse slams the bottle down. “The guy came around a blind curve. I can’t see behind a blind curve, can I? I am really having a hard day. I don’t need this. It’s not my fault I can’t see a guy coming around a blind curve going eighty.”

  “Did he take the door off the car?” I ask. The phone rings. I pick it up. “Hello?”

  “Georgie Porgie won a Pulitzer.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Your sister’s something, isn’t she?”

  “Yeah, she’s great, Dad.”

  He hangs up. I hang up.

  “Georgia won the Pulitzer again. How can he call? I don’t think he has a phone in his room. The only phone I saw was a pay phone.”

  “Did you give him quarters?” asks Joe.

  “Are you kidding? Why would I do that? To torture myself?” I turn to Jesse. “I had a hard day too. I had to put your grandfather into the geriatric/psychiatric facility at UCLA.”

  “Oh yeah, how come?” Jesse collapses in a chair. His long legs stick straight out into the room; he’s waiting to trip someone so he can insist it’s not his fault.

  “He’s having memory problems.”

  “He’s always had memory problems. He doesn’t even know my name.”

  Joe laughs.

  “It’s not funny, Joe.” Now I’m angry with them both. “He’s having other problems too. He hit someone, he’s been screaming just out of the blue whenever he feels like it. He can’t walk—his balance is off. They think his medication’s out of whack. You could both be a little compassionate.”

  “I have no compassion for your father, and you know why,” says Joe.

  “Why?” Jesse asks.

  “None of your business,” I say. “So Jesse, did he take the door off the car?”

  “No.”

  “Well, if he didn’t take the door off the car, he couldn’t have been going eighty.”

  “Just ’cause your door stays on the car has nothing to do with speed. It has to do with the weight of the car that hits you.”

  Is this true? I have no idea. Even though, as far as I can tell, schools these days don’t even teach you what a pronoun is, Jesse claims to know everything. He knows whether dogs can be said to commit suicide, under what conditions planes can take off at LAX, whether astigmatism will one day be curable by laser. I give up trying to prove my point. “Did you get the guy’s insurance information? I hope you got his phone number too.”

  Jesse holds out his hand. A name and a number are written on his palm in black ink.

  “Jesse, that’s so careless. Suppose you got water on that? We’d never be able to reach him.”

  “He’d find us.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “He would find us. Unfortunately,” says Joe. “Do Kasmians have a place of worship?”

  “They light candles in their rooms,” Jesse tells him.

  “Can we talk about this accident, please?”

  Joe and Jesse both look at me—their heads swivel exactly the same way and stop at exactly the same tilt to the right. They look as if they have paused mid-beat in a song they perform in unison, like the Temptations. They are both vertical in the extreme, and whenever they walk or eat or just move around, their arms and legs go from straight lines to angles. Only, Joe wears glasses—round horn-rimmed glasses. With those comical circles on either side of his narrow nose and the rest of him hanger thin, he has the appearance of a very friendly figure painting reduced to its geometric essence. They both wait for me to talk, Joe tolerantly, Jesse with his familiar scowl.

  “It’s important to contact this guy before he contacts you so—”

  “So what, Mom?”

  “So you have a plan, so it doesn’t get out of hand.”

  “Do your mom a favor,” says Joe. “Copy that information off your palm onto a piece of paper and leave it on her desk.”

  Jesse gets up slowly, stretching, so we notice him ascend to his six-foot height. He saunters out.

  I wait until I hear Jesse on the stairs. I don’t want him to hear me. “What?” Joe says, knowing something’s coming.

  “You shouldn’t make fun of my father, especially now.”

  “Don’t expect me to have feelings you don’t have.” He shrugs. “Besides, this is just another round.”

  “It is not. For God’s sake, Joe, why don’t you clean up in here? Look at these tapes. And there are newspapers and telephone books all over the place.”

  “I like it messy. Then I know where everything is. Eve, stop worrying. Your father just phoned, so obviously he’s fine.”

  “Then why can’t he walk? And he kept calling Angie Claire. He knows Angie.”

  “You just couldn’t remember Kool-Aid.”

  “That’s hardly the same thing.” I start picking newspapers up off the floor, grabbing them two-fisted, each one a big deal. “Look, this place is a complete mess. Suppose we have a fire or something? This room would go off like a rocket. And then the house.”

  Joe takes the stack of papers from me and puts them back on the floor, carefully, even ceremoniously, as if they were not old newspapers but an elaborate silver service for tea.

  “Joe, he’s dying.”

  “You wish.”

  “Yes, I do. Is there anything wrong with that?”

  Three

  When I went home for Christmas after my parents had separated and Maddy had moved out, Maddy picked me up at the airport with her boyfriend, Isaac.

  Her hair, long and parted in the middle, left just a sliver of her face showing, and looked as if it should come with a cord so it could be drawn open like a curtain. When we hugged, her hair got in my mouth. “Where’s Dad?”

  “Probably playing tennis. Stay with Isaac and me. Only ten of us are living there.”

  “No, I’ll go home.”

  “Well, don’t expect me to go in. I’m not going in.”

  Maddy and Isaac were dressed identically, in jeans with silver studs running down them and jean jackets with American flags sewn on the back. She had a tank top underneath and he had his bare chest. Below each of their jacket collars was an embroidered red heart with embroidered tears falling from it. “We’re still in mourning,” she explained, reaching over and fluffing my hair.

  “Don’t.” I knocked her hand away.

  “It’s wilder than ever,” she said.

  “I know.” I squished my curls against my head.

  “Your hair’s the same color as Mom’s,” she said wistfully.

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “Why don’t you let it grow? Live a little, Eve.”

  I changed the subject. “Why are you in mourning? Who died?”

  “Jimi Hendrix, who else?” Maddy boomed this and did not seem to mind that half the airport turned to look. She called ahead to Isaac. “Eve’s really nice, she’s just ignorant.” Then she spoke only slightly lower: “Jimi was Isaac’s soul mate.”

  “Right on,” said Isaac.

  “I embroidered the hearts.”

  “Very pretty,” I said.

  “I’ll teach you,” said Maddy. “It’s really fun.”

  We walked through the airport, Maddy clumping along on thick platform shoes, Isaac’s head bobbing, as if there was music in it and he was keeping time. “Isaac’s a musical genius,” she said. “He’s like hot, I’m not kidding.” She tugged playfully on his ponytail.

  “Get lost,” said Isaac.

  “What
’s your instrument?” I asked him.

  “He can play everything, bass guitar, keyboard …” Maddy thought a second. “Bass guitar, keyboard.” She put a period at the end this time. “They’ve got this group—Isaac, Aaron, Kevin, Presto.” She ticked the names off on her fingers. “I’m going to be the lead singer, and we’re going to make a demo tape. Do you think Georgia would know anyone who could help us get, you know, arrested?”

  “Why Georgia? Madeline, don’t you think you should live at home?”

  She ignored that. “’Cause Georgia works at Mademoiselle. Even though they only do stories on dumbos like Karen Carpenter, I thought maybe …”

  “Are you going to school?”

  She laughed. “When I want. Listen, Eve, we’ve got this groovy song that Isaac wrote. ‘Born Too Late for Woodstock.’ We just missed it, you know.” Her voice was pained. “If Woodstock had been this year, we would have been there. Isaac’s got some dirt from it. He bought it at this head shop. You’ll see it—it’s on the dashboard.”

  “I don’t know, ask her.”

  “Ask who?”

  “Georgia, if she can help you. That’s mine.” I pointed at my suitcase rolling toward me on the conveyor belt. Isaac didn’t move so I pulled it off myself.

  “The car’s right over there.” Maddy indicated the lot directly across. Isaac preceded us, his head still bobbing. “Isn’t he cute?” she whispered. I nodded. She squeezed my arm. “Do you believe your little sister’s going to be a rock star?”

  We rode home in a car with a peace sign dangling from the rearview mirror over a mayonnaise jar filled with dirt. Isaac stayed in the car while Maddy helped me get my suitcase out of the trunk.

  “Don’t ask me to go in, okay, Eve? I can’t stand it.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s creepy. He’s creepy.” She pulled one foot up behind her and stood there like a flamingo.

  “Get going, Maddy. Don’t worry, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Peace,” she shouted as they took off.

  The house looked the same, except for the rosebushes. They hadn’t been cut back. The stalks were long, with the remains of dead blooms on the ends, pathetic yellow centers with a petal or two hanging off.

  I tried the door. It was unlocked. “Dad?”

  “Hey, Evie, I’m out back.”

  I left my suitcase in the entrance hall and walked through the living room to the garden behind. My father jumped up from the patio table. “Evie, baby.” He pulled a handkerchief out of the pocket of his tennis shorts and mopped his eyes. “I always cry,” he explained to the woman who was sitting with him.

  “It’s true,” I said. “He used to cry when I came home from Brownies.”

  “Or from camp,” he said. His mouth wiggled as he tried to get control, stiffen it up. He tucked his handkerchief back in his pocket and hugged me. “This is my Evie,” he said proudly.

  “Well, don’t I know it,” said the woman.

  “You do?” I said doubtfully.

  “I knew she wouldn’t recognize you. Want a hint?” my father crowed.

  “Sure, but what happened to your nose?”

  My father touched the bridge of his nose, where there was a big scab. “I hit myself serving.” He paused. “But at least I got it in.”

  “Well, that’s what matters, isn’t it?” I smiled at the woman.

  “Mouthwash,” said my father.

  “Oh my God, Esther.”

  She was the receptionist at our dentist’s. She’d been the receptionist forever. Her hair, an assortment of browns that would be very attractive on a puppy but was unlikely on a person, was piled on top of her head in large loopy curls, and she had frosted orange polish on very long nails. I had always viewed them with wonder while she filled in the card for my next appointment.

  “I’m so sorry about your mom. It’s tragic,” said Esther.

  “What hap—” I saw my father put his finger to his lips, shush. I corrected, “Oh, thank you, that’s very kind.”

  “Myself, I hate to fly.” She fixed some of her stray hair in place with a bobby pin. “I think it was so brave of you to get in that airplane to come home for Christmas. If that happened to someone in my family, I’d stick to cars.”

  I noticed a pitcher of iced tea on the table. With real lemons floating in it. That’s great. Mom left, and Dad finally learned to make something: iced tea. He even made it with loving care, which is more than Mom ever did.

  Esther poked around in her purse and pulled out a little round compact. She peered into the mirror, remade her lips, and snapped the compact shut. “I’m going to buzz off now and let you two gab. Would you like me to leave the tea and just take my pitcher home?”

  “You brought that over?”

  “I did.” Esther arranged the ruffles around her neckline.

  “Leave it here,” said my dad. “You know where the refrigerator is.”

  “I certainly do.”

  She was not anything like my mother. My mother was not coy, did not wear ruffles, and would never make the words “I certainly do” into a sexual innuendo. At least I didn’t think so. But every time Mom brought Tom Winston a beer—that’s what I imagined a large, meaty science teacher drank—maybe she sat in his lap and blew the foam off for him.

  My mother wasn’t here anymore. That was clear from the neglected roses. But her leaving made everything about her behavior when she was here mystifying. Not only didn’t I know who she was now, I didn’t know who she was then.

  Before disappearing into the house, Esther waved goodbye by holding her hand up next to her shoulder and flapping her fingers.

  “Great gal,” my dad whispered.

  “Are you dating her?”

  “Yeah, she’s a great lay.”

  “Dad, please, I don’t want to hear about that, all right?”

  “Sure, kid. Let’s go sit with the bullet.”

  On the mantel in the living room was a gold-colored bullet standing straight up like the Empire State Building. John Wayne had presented it to my father when he wrote a movie called Luck Runs Out, in which Wayne played a sheriff who had to track a killer named Lucky. The year was 1956. I was five years old, and I met John Wayne on the set. There was a fake saloon and five cancan girls. “Your father’s a great writer,” Big John had said, and he patted me on the head. I always insisted I had no memory of this, because my father had told the story so many times it made me perverse, actually made me perverse by age ten, but I did remember. I had looked up at this tall man. I remembered his red neckerchief and stubble—little black hairs sprouting like grass on his cheeks and chin. I remembered knowing that this was supposed to be a really important moment. I had said, “Howdy,” which had made him laugh three times, “Ha, ha, ha.”

  My father didn’t write movies anymore. After several westerns, he switched to television, and worked on a sitcom called Ghosttown, which sounded like a western but wasn’t. Supernatural shows were in, like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie, and his show was similar. It was about this town where a husband lived with the ghost of his dead wife, and you knew when she was around because you could see the couch cushions in their house getting punched and puffed, and a vacuum cleaner moving back and forth across the carpet.

  My father settled in on the living room couch and put his feet up on the coffee table. I couldn’t decide where to sit. The logical place, the chair directly across, was where Mom had always situated herself when we had company. I noticed one of my father’s tennis shoes was untied. “How’s school?” he asked.

  “Fine. What did you tell Esther about Mom?” A picture on the wall was lopsided. I straightened it.

  “Oh, nothing. I just said she went down in that crash over Denver.”

  “What crash over Denver?”

  “Kid, you heard it here first. People always think they remember plane crashes, even when they didn’t take place. Or maybe they did. You think we know about every plane crash?”

  “But Mom’
s not dead.”

  “She’s in Big Bear, it’s the same thing.”

  I laughed.

  “See, I can make you laugh, can’t I? Your old man’s still got it.”

  “Have you seen Maddy lately?” I asked, knowing the answer.

  “Your sister’s a bitch. I’m her father. I can say it.”

  “It doesn’t seem too horrible here.” I was in my room that night unpacking while I talked on the phone to Georgia. “The only thing in the refrigerator is iced tea, which he didn’t make, and packets of soy sauce, but I don’t see why Maddy had to move out. She probably wanted an excuse.” It was nine in L.A., midnight in New York. I could hear Georgia yawn. “Why don’t you and Richard come out for Christmas?”

  “What? Next week?” She sounded incredulous. “First of all, Richard works nonstop. Lawyers kill themselves. Besides, coming there could be a disaster for me. I’ve been assigned to Makeup. At Mademoiselle, Makeup is the fast track. Remember my friend Ursula? She went to the dentist, and when she came back, she’d been transferred to Health, a dead end.”

  I could hear Georgia moving around as we talked. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting out my clothes for tomorrow.”

  Georgia always made a “flat man” on the floor, putting her clothes in the shape of a body. She even placed earrings approximately where the earlobes would be. “Do you wear base?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “That’s good. I thought it was bad, but it turns out to be good. You want to show your natural skin color as much as possible even if it’s blotchy. Yellow covers red, did you know that?”

  “I had no idea. What does it mean?”

  “It means if you have a big red nose, you put yellow makeup on it. You know what your nose is like when you have a cold, Evie.”

  I checked my nose in the mirror. It was a nice pinkish white. When I was eleven and Georgia was fifteen, she had informed me that my skin was the color of a scallop—an insult with so much power I think about it every time I see my reflection. In truth, my skin is my best feature: clear, fair, delicate. “It’s like porcelain,” I had shouted back at her. This was a description I had picked up from a romance novel. But she was right about my nose: it did turn bright red when I was sniffly.