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 answering machine,” Nadine said as excited as if she were getting a puppy. “Like our parents.”
“Our parents had turntables too, but that doesn’t mean we should get one,” I said.
A few weeks after Nadine and I sat at the kitchen table in our new apartment playing cribbage. I liked to watch Nadine’s hands while she shuffled the cards. I liked how she squeezed the deck, made it arch and flutter. She could’ve been a dealer in Vegas. We had gotten into playing games since our move north; they broke the boredom of not knowing many people. I was five points shy of beating Nadine when the phone rang.
“Don’t answer it,” I said.
“What if it’s an emergency?”
“Nobody has our number. Besides, isn’t that part of the fun? Screening calls?” I figured I might as well get some fun out of this thing. Also, I had not beaten Nadine all night and I didn’t want some damn phone call to change my luck, put the kibosh on my immanent victory.
“It’s 2 am, Hank.”
“Whoever it is doesn’t expect someone to pick up at this hour.”
“That’s exactly what they expect at this hour,” she said. “It could be an emergency.”
“You don’t know that it’s an emergency. If somebody really wanted us, they’d call our cells.”
The answering machine picked up the call. Nadine’s voice on the outgoing message gave only the phone number. No names. No cute music. No gimmicky message.
“You have reached 648-5864,” followed by the beep.
“Laura? You changed your message. Nice try. It’s me. Pick up the phone. I know you’re there.” Pause. “Pick up the goddamn phone! We need to talk. We got trouble. I’m at the North Beach place. Call me as soon as you get this.” Click.