Laura? Pick up the phone. I know you’re there.

We both loved the classics, especially black and white ones. Her grandfather was a cinematographer back in the late 40s. He taught her to appreciate light and shadow; argued that black and white was actually truer to life than color, more real because of the shades of gray.

THE LANDLINE BY JOSEPH GRANTHAM 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 36

Somehow Nadine had convinced me that we should get a landline. Other than the added expense, what did I care? That said, I want to be clear on this point: it was her idea from the beginning. I was against it. Sometimes I wonder how our lives would’ve been different if I had just put my foot down and said no to the landline.

“Who the hell gets a landline any more?” I said.

“That’s why it’ll be fun,” she said. “Retro! We might be the only ones on our block to have one.”

“Or zip code,” I said.

Seeing as how we had just moved to the tech capital of the world, she was probably correct on two of those points. I failed to see how it could be fun.

“We’ll need an ans…