The Phone Rang - Darcy Vebber

The phone had been ringing all morning. In her pocket, on the dresser, next to the stove. It started before she even made coffee. She let the messages pile up.

The day was spectacular. The wind from the desert had cleared the air, made L.A. smell of sage instead of car exhaust, brightened the light, sharpened the shadows. Lisa opened the windows at her kitchen sink and looked out over Hollywood, feeling, briefly at least, like the master of her world. If only life were more like a board game and she would be allowed to stay where she was, no slipping back down the track. That would be ideal. Keep the apartment, they would say. Keep the lovely espresso machine and the coffee that is delivered every month from a cooperative in Mexico. Keep the view, the day, the weather, the comfort of knowing where everything is and what is to be done.

Begin again from there.

The phone was like an insect, buzzing crazily where ever she put it down. The vibrations actually made it move, as if it could not contain its news. She was glad she’d resisted the Blackberry. The avalanche of emails was piling up in her computer. As long as she didn’t turn it on, they would stay there, behind the screen.

None of the calls, none of the emails would be from Helen asking her back. This was something she let herself know for an instant or two at a time, as the water heated in the espresso maker, when the light clicked on, watching the milk bubble in the steamer. The job, which was like a relationship in so many odd ways, was not working out. The position was evolving, the needs changing. It was time, really for Lisa to move on. It was for the best. Or better anyway, for both of them. Helen had fixed Lisa with one of her strange dark eyed, truth seeking gazes and said you don’t want to be here.

Most of the calls were from people in her phone book, names and photos appearing on the caller ID like some kind of cartoon of life flashing before her eyes. Here are all the people who know you and care about you, in Hollywood anyway. It was nice that there were so many. She admitted that to herself. Nice, too, that so many were outraged. She had sampled enough of the messages to know that.

She poured the frothed hot milk from its metal pitcher into the wide mouthed cup she had bought when she bought them machine. It was sky blue and there had been two of them until her sister broke one. They’d been fighting and Kate insisted on doing the dishes, insisted she was not so drunk, so unreliable as Lisa claimed. Lisa unsnapped the coffee holder from the machine and tapped the little brick of used espresso into its bin.

She took the cup and the phone to the kitchen table and sat, sipping and watching the screen.