Short Fiction: "Land Line"

The cordless was just sitting there on its wall mount, tempting me like the porn stash in my dad’s closet. The voicemail indicator light seemed to be winking at me; the plastic antenna was a beckoning index finger, frozen just before a come-hither curl. I was alone in the kitchen, with the exception of Peter’s Boston terrier Wallace, who was lapping at his water dish in the corner. The TV was on in Peter’s parents’ bedroom down the hall.

Peter’s parents were still refusing to buy him a cell phone, even though he kept insisting to them that everyone else at school had one. (He would sometimes point me out as an example, dragging me into a family argument which I much preferred to keep out of.) Despite his best efforts, his dad remained Ludditically committed to the idea that cells were an unnecessary intrusion into personal tranquility. That was why Peter was still restricted to his house’s land line—in this case, the white corded phone located on the side table next to the couch in the basement. Peter and I had been sitting on that couch playing Madden mere minutes earlier that night. But then our conversation had shifted towards Ashley MacGuffin.

Ashley was a fellow sophomore who played flute in the school band. She was friends with Peter and, through that relationship, had sort of become second-degree friends with me. For most of the year she had been going out with Chris Lyman, a quiet percussionist from the year below us. I never knew Chris all that well, and, to be honest, he seemed like a nice enough guy, but I began to notice that the longer he and Ashley were together the less I liked him. His shyness started to seem haughty, and his consistent, non-descript T-shirt-and-jeans combo started to give me the impression of calculated posturing. Who did he think he was, acting all down-to-earth like that?

Then, about a month before this routine visit of mine to Peter's house, Ashley and Chris had broken up. Ever since then I had wanted to see Ashley more and more often. This wasn't a desire that I expressed or really pursued in any active way, but every time I hung out with Peter I found myself hoping that she would be there too. And I thought that maybe she was being a little more friendly to me, directing more of her statements my way and laughing more at my occasional jokes.

Finally, Peter and I had been playing Madden, and I had asked him some question about whether or not Ashley was seeing anyone.

"You want me to talk to her for you?" Peter had asked, turning his attention away from the field goal he was about to kick. My attempt at subtlety had failed.

I put in only a weak attempt to reject Peter's offer. It made me feel cowardly, but the truth was that I no longer had any confidence in my own ability to talk to girls. I had asked out two or three every semester since freshman year, and was always met with a polite, merciful rejection. I didn't think I had it in me anymore; I had developed a physical aversion to asking for dates, like a lab monkey who learns the hard way which button administers an electric shock. The only way I would be able to approach Ashley would be if I had prior confirmation of her mutual interest.

So eventually I accepted Peter's offer. He had picked up the aforementioned white phone but then looked at me and said, "I guess you should probably leave the room. I mean..."

"Oh, yeah," I said. "Totally, no problem." I had walked upstairs with entirely honorable intentions, but now I could faintly hear Peter's voice saying, "Hey, Ashley, what's going on?", and the kitchen phone was still sitting there, daring me.

The phone had a point: Why not listen in? Deep down I knew that electronic surveillance was a bad way to start off a relationship, but this nonetheless seemed like a victimless crime, and one could make the argument that a victimless crime is no crime at all. Yes, one could certainly make that argument.

I discreetly slipped the phone off of its hook, held it to my ear, and pressed the "call" button.

The first thing I heard was Ashley's voice in mid-sentence: "--for my Physical Sciences test, what about you?" I realized that I had never fully appreciated how pretty Ashley's voice was; her pretty face, her buoyant waves of brown hair and pillowy cheeks, had always distracted me. It occurred to me that Ashley's voice was like her smile--upward-curving, somehow encouraging. I wondered what she had been doing before Peter called. Homework? Watching TV? Other ideas of what she could have been doing, vivid but improbable, started forming in my mind. I chivalrously suppressed them.

"Not much," I heard Peter saying through the earpiece, "just hanging out here, playing some PS2." Alone, though, right? Surely you were playing alone? "You excited for the recital next week?"

Okay, great. Peter was starting with some small talk, but I knew he'd come around to the main point in time. He was the kind of guy with whom deep, personal conversations were sort of a prerequisite for friendship. People were comfortable talking with him. Plus he had a girlfriend, Lily, so I could trust him not to step on my toes here. I wondered if he had heard anything when I had picked up.

"Yeah, kind of," Ashley replied. "I sort of wish I had more time to practice, but I'm sure it'll be fine. Are you going to be able to make it?" I started pacing softly around the kitchen and noticed that Wallace was looking up at me from his dish, sad-eyed and judgmental.

"Oh, yeah, definitely," Peter said. "Listen, the reason I called was that I wanted to ask you, ah... How are you doing with being broken up with Chris?"

I stopped pacing and pressed the phone a little harder against my ear.

"With Chris?" Ashley said, her voice hesitating cautiously for the first time in the conversation. "Oh... I'm doing alright. I mean, it was tough at first, but in the end I think it was the best thing for both of us, you know?"

"Uh huh. Sure."

"Why? Why do you ask?"

I heard footsteps coming down the hall and froze. I instinctively wanted to turn and dash off into the more secluded dining room, but was simultaneously paralyzed by the fear that the phone would pick up the sounds of me crashing across the linoleum. Besides, on second thought there shouldn't be anything inherently suspicious about me using a phone. I held my ground, inaction being my default defense mechanism.

"Well," Peter was saying, "I was just wondering how you felt about possibly dating again."

Peter's mom appeared in the doorway to the hall, dressed in high-waist jeans and a sweater and carrying a laptop in one hand like an hors d'oeuvres tray. She looked up at me, and for a second I was heart-stoppingly sure that she was going to loudly address me by my name. Instead she just smiled pleasantly, respecting the conversation she assumed I was having, and continued on her way.

I swiveled the mouthpiece towards the back of my head and breathed a sigh of relief.

Ashley was laughing, then said, "Ooh, Peter, are you asking me out?" I started pacing again, suddenly worried about my trust in Peter’s fidelity.

Peter laughed back and said, "No, no, no, that would be... That might be weird."

"Might be a little weird."

"Ha ha, but no, what I was actually thinking about--"

Suddenly I had the urge to not hear the rest of the conversation--not just to hang up the phone but to walk out of Peter's house, go home, sit down in front of the TV with some cookies and milk and never ask Peter about what Ashley said. I wouldn't have been with her, but I would still be able to believe that maybe I could be with her, and, in a way, isn't hope much more fulfilling than gratification? Is not the grass always greener on the other side?

I didn't do that, though.

"--Was whether or not you ever thought about maybe going out with Tim?"

There was a pause. I could hear Peter's mom typing away on her laptop in the living room.

"Tim?" Ashley said eventually.

"Yeah," Peter said. "You know, Tim Watterson?"

"Yeah yeah yeah, I know Tim."

Another pause.

Peter tried: "So..."

"Yeah," Ashley said, "I mean, I just... Look, Tim's a really nice guy and all, I mean, I like him, but..."

My nerves seemed to be trickling down into my abdomen.

"...I don't know, I guess I just don't see him that way, you know? I just see him as more of a friend, I guess."

I vaguely heard Peter's voice return, saying something about okay, sure, that's fair, but it went through me like radio chatter. Something was different. I wasn't sure if I felt lightheaded or if it was the opposite, that I was sobering into a headachey realness after a temporary high. My mind started flashing through daydreams that it would no longer be allowed to revisit: Ashley and I bantering playfully while waiting in line for movie tickets, Ashley and I kissing casually in the hallway between classes, Ashley and I spending time in her bedroom while her parents weren't home. It was like throwing away photographs of an ex.

I began to believe very concretely that I had nothing left to lose.

All of these thoughts were going by very quickly, which is important because trauma provides us with only limited opportunities for irrationality. The more time that passes, the more likely we are to hold our tongues, swallow our pain, grab some cookies and milk and sit in front of the TV waiting calmly for the next blow to make contact. But for about ten seconds after I heard the word "friend," I was seized with the urge to do something, and so I did the only thing I could do. I spoke.

"Umm..."

Peter's voice trailed off and was followed by silence, he and Ashley both presumably trying to figure out where the non-word had come from. I imagine that Peter understood pretty quickly, the poor guy.

"Hello?" Ashley said.

"Hi, Ashley, it's Tim," I said. I heard a thump from downstairs.

I was improvising but trying to be as reasonable as possible. "Listen," I said, "look, I totally respect your decision and I'm not trying to be all weird or anything, really, I just want to ask--"

"Oh my God, were you listening the whole time?"

I heard Peter bounding up the stairs and took off for the dining room, trying to buy myself as much time as possible. "I just want to ask," I said, nearly tripping over a breadmaker that was sitting on the floor, "what, like, what exactly is it about me that makes you see me as just a friend? Like, just so I know, for future reference. Is it something I can change?"

"Oh my God."

I heard Peter yell, "Tim, God damn it!" as he stormed out of the basement. Wallace, apparently upset by all the commotion, was barking in the kitchen.

I positioned myself behind one of the dining room's hardwood chairs and said, "Like, is it something simple like my clothes, or my haircut? Is there something about my personality? I just want some feedback here."

"Tim," Ashley said disgustedly, "what is wrong with you?"

"Ashley," I said, "that's what I want you to tell me!"

I heard a click on the other end of the line.

Peter swept into the dining room and lunged over the chair at me, trying to grab the phone out of my hands.

"Give me that, you fucking idiot!"

"Okay, she hung up, man, she hung up!"

***

My mom picked me up about half an hour later, Peter having spent our remaining time together trying to make me aware of my own stupidity and fucked-upedness. I told Mom that I was good and that school was fine, and then settled into silence for the ten-minute drive home. My reflection stared back at me incredulously from the passenger-side window, hanging transparent over the clapboard houses shuttling by in the darkness outside.

I wished that there was some way to at least make Ashley understand that I hadn't been taunting her or trying to make her feel bad; I had actually been genuinely curious about what she thought of me. In my desperation I was starting to almost hope that I had some glaring flaw that people whispered about behind my back, because at least if my problem was specific and identifiable I could maybe do something about it. Perhaps all my problems would fade away if I just exercised more often, or started using a different deodorant.

But I couldn't blame Ashley for not opening up to me. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I didn't really know her all that well. This was the first one-on-one conversation we had ever had that didn't consist of pleasantries about day-to-day routines. I smiled and fought down an amused snort when it occurred to me that, unlike with every other girl I had pined after, I had actually kind of bared my soul to Ashley, and gotten back some real emotion in response. Affection would have been preferable to revulsion, but one takes what one can get in this world.

Then I remembered that Ashley would be in my English class the next day. Dammit.