“Ssshhh,” she said. “Not now.”
They hung up and Claire stood there in the quiet. Her ankles were still swollen and she stood barefoot on her sore feet, the cool wood of the floor beneath her. The heat coming up through the radiators hissed and crackled. She opened and closed her fingers. They were also swollen, and her rings cut into her. She tried to twist first the solitaire diamond, then the gold band below it, but neither would budge.
Claire picked up the heavy receiver again and placed her finger in the small circle marked Operator. She hesitated briefly, then dialed it. When the operator answered in a clipped nasal voice, Claire had to take a breath before she said, “I want to make a long-distance call.”
“Do you have the number?” the operator asked, all brusque efficiency.
Did she have the number? Claire almost laughed. She’d memorized it months ago, repeating it over and over as she drove or drifted off to sleep. That number had seemed almost magical. No, it had been magical. Just dialing it had made her shiver with excitement.
“Valley one,” she said now, “three nine five nine.”
In the space between them, Claire heard pages turning.
“Hold please,” the operator said.
Claire realized she was holding her breath as she waited for the phone on the other end to ring. She closed her eyes, imagining Miles asleep in a bed she had never seen, beside a woman she did not know. She knew his hair would be sticking up at funny angles. She knew how he must smell, of his Right Guard deodorant and the pomade he used to try to keep that hair in place. He would taste of Gleem toothpaste and cigarettes and of the Jameson’s he liked to sip.
Abruptly, the silence ended and a loud ringing filled the space between him and Claire. He was there, at the other end of that telephone. She imagined it ringing in the dark, waking him. Waking his wife too, no doubt. But he would be the one to rouse himself and answer it. If she said nothing, would he still somehow know that she was the one calling?
Then, just like that, as if no time had passed, his voice was in her ear, rough with sleep.
“Hello?” he said.
Again Claire took a small sharp breath. She thought of all the things she had dreamed of saying to him these past few months. Silly things, like how well the coq au vin recipe from the New York Times had turned out and how she thought Chet Huntley looked ill like he maybe had cancer and how she had bought the 45 of “Save the Last Dance for Me” and cried whenever she played it.
“Hello,” he said again, weary.
And big things. Big things like how she missed him, how she could not bear to remember the blue of his eyes or the way his hand felt on her thigh when they drove together because remembering them broke her heart all over again. Absently, her hand caressed her belly. Oh, Miles, she thought.
His voice came through the lines again, softer now. “Claire?” he whispered hopefully.
Claire nodded, unable to speak.
“Please tell me it’s you,” Miles said, all the pain she had caused him in his voice.
Slowly, Claire lowered the receiver and hung up.
What had she been thinking? Her hands were shaking. She needed a cigarette. Claire. He’d said her name. How beautiful it had sounded.
Sitting at the kitchen table, Claire sipped another glass of scotch and smoked a cigarette, her hands still trembling.
When the door opened, she froze, as if she’d been caught doing something wrong.
“Peter?” she said.
But instead, Connie from downstairs walked in.
“I heard footsteps,” she said, helping herself to a cigarette from Claire’s pack. “Any word?”
“Peter just called,” she said. “It appears to be a heart attack.”
“Not good at her age,” Connie said matter-of-factly.
She sat across from Claire, picked up the bottle of scotch and read the label to herself.
“Michael’s got colic,” Connie said. “The kid hasn’t slept through the night since he was born.” She sighed. “Fourteen months. Jimmy’s all eager for the next one and I’m like, when that kid sleeps straight through, we can talk about it.”
“My neighbor Dot,” Claire said, “she put her baby on the dryer and ran it and it worked. It calmed him right down.”
“You don’t say?” Connie said. “Hmmm.”
She got up and retrieved a glass from the cupboard, pouring herself a healthy amount of scotch before sitting back down. In the harsh kitchen light, Claire saw that her eyes looked like someone who needed a good night’s sleep—ringed with dark smudges, weary.
“I put some brandy in his bottle sometimes,” Connie said. “Just a little. When I’m desperate.”
“You should try the thing with the dryer.”
Connie nodded. Her eyes traveled over Claire in a way that made her squirm. “When are you due?” she asked, her gaze settling on Claire’s stomach.