*
Just when you think you’re getting somewhere, life intrudes. I was pretty sure someone had written that line somewhere, and it came flying back at me when my phone buzzed a few minutes later. I was in my room, quickly packing and riding the wave of Mary’s smile, and once again answered without first checking who it was.
“I need to see you,” Rita said, her voice husky, urgent.
I froze, caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, an ex-philanderer-in-the-headlights, and said, “Oh. Hi.”
“I need to talk to you. I need to see you.”
“This isn’t a good time.”
“Don’t say that to me.”
“Rita, I’m in Delaware with the family. I can’t talk. Everyone is here. I told you that. Maybe we can talk when I get back, though, truthfully, I’m not sure why.” She didn’t say anything. “Is there something wrong? Is there a problem?” I asked.
“Chase died.”
“Chase?”
“Chase. From the club. He died two weeks ago.”
“I’m sorry. Chase?”
“You know, Chase. Chase Hart.”
“Oh, right. The tennis player. Him.” Chase was the quintessential aging archconservative, someone I avoided, particularly in the locker room, where he was known to launch into unprovoked political tirades while naked, his testicles dangling frighteningly low. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s so sad. Heart attack. They couldn’t revive him.”
“Did you know him well?”
“Very well. We had become very close. Very close.”
I glanced at the clock, reluctantly sat on the bed. Mary, smiling, happy Mary, was waiting for me, and I was discussing the demise of Chase Hart, a man whose balls used to upset me. “How old was he?”
“Sixty-seven. Just gone like that, just gone.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. How are you holding up?”
“I don’t think I can go on. I really don’t.”
I looked down, focusing on the carpet. “Well, it’s sad.”
“I miss you.”
I wasn’t exactly sure of the exact connection here, how Chase Hart’s dying resulted in her missing me, so I said, “I don’t think you miss me.”
“How do you know what I feel, how I feel?”
“Rita, have you been drinking?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not even lunchtime.”
“I’m not drinking now.”
“Oh.”
“But I will be. Soon.”
“I have to go.”
“I need you. I need to talk to someone. I’m very alone right now. I hate being alone. I hate it. When are you coming back?”
“You’re not alone. You have lots of friends, you have family. Your cats.”
“I’ll come out to meet you. Tell me where you are. I can leave today.”
The image of Rita bursting into a Cracker Barrel made my heart seize. “That’s not going to work. It’s not. And you know, you really shouldn’t call me anymore. We’ve been done for two years now. It’s over between us. You know that.”
“I don’t want to die alone.”
“Rita, just stop it. Stop it, come on. No one’s dying.”
“Chase died.”
“Well … right … okay … but you’re not.”
“I need to see you. Why is that such a big thing? Why can’t you do that for me?”
I took a breath. “Because I’m getting back together with Mary.”
Silence. Then, “You are?”
“Yes.”
“Are you back together now?”
“Not officially, no. But I will be. We will be. Very soon. That’s what I want, and I think that’s what she wants.”
“John, you said that two years ago. If you were going to get back together, you would have been back together by now. She doesn’t want you back. She doesn’t. It’s time you face reality. She doesn’t want you.”
I had had enough. “Listen, I’m sorry about Chase, I really am, but I have to go now. Good-bye. Good-bye.”
“Don’t say good-bye to me!” She actually yelled this, but I hung up anyway.
*
I resumed my packing but went about it now much more slowly, a sense of foreboding settling in. The call, Rita’s desperate and insistent tone, her sadness, everything, rattled me. (Note: adding to my concern was the fact that I had watched the movie Fatal Attraction not two weeks before, and worried a boiled rabbit, or more likely, a boiled Stinky Bear, was in my future.) I considered calling her back with hopes of calming her, maybe promise a visit when I returned, but decided against it. Such a response would just encourage her, and Rita was not someone you encouraged any more than necessary.