30 Pieces of a Novel

Popovers

A GIRL … A young woman … a college student or someone of that age — when he was in college they were “coeds,” or maybe by then they were no longer called that, but even if they went to an all-girls’ school? — comes over to their table and says, “The seater didn’t give you menus?” and his older daughter says no, and she says, “I’m sorry, I’ll get them in a flash — nobody make a movie,” the last in movie tough-guy voice, and laughs. Funny? The movie remark was clever, though she probably heard it somewhere, most likely on TV or in a movie — but sweet, charming, also pretty … very pretty … beautiful, almost … no, he’d consider her quite beautiful, and with a tall attractive figure — she must be five-nine — and sense of humor and spryness and a very nice smile, and, from what he could quickly see, great teeth: white, bright, evenly lined. Oh, boy, if he were only forty years younger, or thirty-eight years younger or — seven … let’s see, she’s about nineteen or twenty, he’s fifty-eight, so he was right, he’s got thirty-seven to forty years on her — and working in this restaurant. What a place to be for the summer. Northern coastal Maine, in the middle of a national forest, cool nights, great views, the rest of it, and excellent facilities for the staff — he spoke about it with one of the servers last year when they came here for lunch or for popovers at the two-to-five tea. Or two-thirty to five. Looks at the menu. The latter. Seemed all the servers were college students, so he asked how they got the job, just in case one of his advisees during the school year asked if he knew of a good place to work in the summer or he wanted to volunteer the information to one of them he particularly liked. “Jordan Pond House,” he’d say — he thinks he even told one but the kid never followed up on it—“in Trenton or Bar Harbor or even Hull’s Cove. Just ask Maine phone Information — area code 207—for Acadia National Park and this restaurant there. But good accommodations and food for the staff, I was told, and an unbeatable setting: bubble-shaped mountains, lakes, the forest smells, and the girls”—if it was a male he was saying this to; he thinks it was. “Let me tell you, that’s the place I’d go to if I were you. Good-looking, hard-working, and pleasant, and they come from everywhere: France, Canada, South Africa, Japan, and all over the States, and some from what are thought of as the best schools, which probably means intelligent, resourceful, and independent young women paying their own way at college or a good part of it. You know about the schools because each table has a little name card in a holder identifying the server and what school he or she’s at.” This one’s Sage Ottunburg, but it only says PALM BEACH, FLORIDA underneath, so maybe she’s out of school or never went to one or the restaurant’s stopped listing the schools. He looks at the holder on the next table but can’t from here read the name and what’s underneath. Maybe the schools aren’t listed anymore because some of the non-college kids objected for some reason, or customers, men and women, would later try to locate the server at that school. But would that be any easier — let’s say this one goes to a large state school — than finding her in Palm Beach? How many Ottunburgs could be there? If more than one, then probably a relative. So all some guy had to do if he wanted to call her in September, if she leaves here as that server last year told him most of the students do a little before or right after Labor Day, is dial Palm Beach Information, ask for Sage Ottunburg, and if there isn’t one listed just ask for any Ottunburg, and if he gets one of her relatives, but not her folks, ask if one of the other Ottunburg numbers is hers. But why’s he going on like this? And if some guy did want to meet her, he’d call her here, wouldn’t he? Unless he was with his wife or girlfriend or someone; or even if he was: something on the sly. And maybe she goes to school but for one reason or another doesn’t want to be categorized by it or doesn’t want it listed, or who knows what.

She comes back with the menus. “Take as long as you like,” she says, “there’s no rush; this place is too pretty to feel rushed, and it smells so wonderful here”—for they’re on the outdoor patio — and takes a deep breath, and he says, “Just what I was thinking, and thank you,” and opens the menu and when she walks away he discreetly looks at her rear end and legs and when she returns for the order he quickly looks at her breasts a few times and tries to imagine what they look like under her shirt. High and young, and it’s funny but when he was in his late teens and early twenties he doesn’t think he ever thought how beautiful young breasts are. Older women had lower softer ones; young women, if they weren’t top-heavy, had high firm ones, and he doesn’t even think he thought of the firmness, but that was about the extent of his observations on breasts then, except if they were flat. Though there was an older woman — thirty-six, at the most thirty-eight, so for sure not “old” to him now; in fact, if he were seeing her today he’d consider her young — whom he went with one summer, about a half year before the Washington reporter’s job, when he was just out of college and worked as a soda jerk in an upstate resort and she was the stage designer of the theater there. And another who was fifty or so when he slept with her on and off for a year and he was around thirty, and both seemed to have not lower or high breasts or soft or firm, just very big and full ones. So what does he know? Every time he thinks he’s on to something, he quickly refutes himself.

They order; she comes back many times: to bring their food, refill their water glasses, see if everything’s “satisfactory,” take away his plate, give his wife a free extra popover — she had something called “soup and popovers,” which came with two popovers but the kids split one of them. “How do they make those things, the popovers?” his younger daughter asks Sage, and he says, “Yeah, I’ve been curious about it too. Do you have a brigade of popover makers back there?” and she says, “You mean humans? No, it’s all done by machine — two, actually, and a third that mixes the dough and eggs and stuff, and these big popover machines just keep turning them out all day. From breakfast through dinner, pop pop pop, they plop out and we just grab them if we have an order and put them in the already prepared basket with a towel around them to keep them warm.” “They’re the best,” his daughter says, and he says, “Well, your mom’s made some pretty good ones in that popover pan we always bring up. Did we bring it this year? I haven’t seen it,” and his wife says, “I don’t know, you’re the one who packs the car. I know I reminded you,” and he says, “Oh, darn, I might’ve forgot,” and his wife says, “No big deal; mine aren’t nearly as good as these, and besides, I like them best when we have them here as a treat,” and he says, “Yours are wonderful on a cold night or a foggy afternoon with guests when no one wants to go out, and it’s something the kids like helping out with,” and his older daughter says, “When did we ever do that?” and Sage says, “That’s how I like them best too — as a special treat. Here, I think I’ve overindulged on them, not that we’re allowed to have all we want … but you know, if a customer doesn’t eat one and you’re very hungry, because you build up an appetite running around in this job,” and he says, “I can’t imagine someone not eating his second popover unless one of the diners with him swiped it. But that reminds me — but you’re probably too busy, you wouldn’t want to hear it,” and his older daughter says, “What?” and Sage says, “It’s true, I’ve some orders in the kitchen waiting, and all with popovers, if you can believe it, excuse me,” and goes, and his older daughter says, “What were you going to say that reminded you, Daddy?” and he says, “Oh! When I worked as a soda jerk, or fountain man as I was also called, in a resort in New York, I got so sick of eating ice cream, or maybe not so much from eating it as from dealing with it, that’s the reason I don’t like it today,” and his wife says, “Everyone likes ice cream; one has to be scarred by it to develop an aversion to it. For you it was the cigarette butts and other filth in it on the plates coming back to you, but you should finish your own story,” and he says, “Your mother’s right. You see, I had no customers of my own, just made all the concoctions from the orders the waitresses gave me. And then they handed me their dirty dishes to stick through a window to the dishwasher behind me. And they looked so ugly with all the things the customers had done to their ice cream, the butts and stuff, sometimes stuck standing up on top of the sundae where the decorative cherry had been, that I got sick of it, ice cream melting all over and around this — well, excuse me, but this shit, and that’s why I hate it today,” and his wife says, “At this place you always help yourself to a spoonful or two of ice cream, so you can’t hate it entirely,” and he says, “At this place they always have at least one very unusual exotic flavor, which we always get unless it’s with peanut butter, and they make the ice cream themselves, so I’m curious,” and his daughter says, “Oh, yeah,” and he says, “Yeah, I’m curious, as to how, let’s say, peppermint raspberry sage might taste. Not ‘sage,’ that’s just because it’s our waitress’s name, but you know what I mean.”

He likes everything about her. He’s tried to find a profile or some part of her he could dislike, a bump on the nose, for instance, or not find faultless, but it’s all faultless: nose, lips, eyes, hair, teeth, legs, arms, fingers, nails (no crap on them and not choppy or uneven), breasts, hips, stomach from what he can make out, waist, rear … the name, though: Sage. Not faultless. Speaks well, big bright smile, pleasant personality, chipper, friendly, though no fake, doesn’t give them the bum’s rush, as his dad used to say — she has other tables, is obviously busy, yet stops to talk, listen, suggest, answer the kids’ questions generously, laughs a lot but not heehaw-like … it would be nice, moonlight, cool night, the whole works, just a comfortable unsticky night, the air — smell of it, he means; sounds of the insects — not the biting of insects, though; so you slap on some repellent — even the scent of that on her; especially that scent, perhaps — walking with her, that’s what he’s saying would be nice: after work, around the grounds, in town for a movie, whatever the town: Southwest or Northeast or Bar Harbor, or for pizza and beers anywhere, back to the rooms they stay at on the property, but now he remembers that server last year saying the staff quarters were a short walk off; sneaking into her room if you have to sneak to do it — the restaurant management might have some proscriptions about this. Doubts it, or not enforced; keep the help happy and wanting to stay past Labor Day. Holding her hand outside, kissing her outside, furtively brushing against her at work: “Need any help filling those water pitchers?” Holding and kissing and with no constraint brushing and touching every part of her inside the room or at some hidden spot in the woods. Falling in love, swimming at Long Pond or Echo Lake or some other warmwater place he doesn’t now know of on the island here. Just imagine her in a bathing suit: lying on her stomach on the sand reading, turning to the sun or him with her top off in a cove it seems only they go to, running into the cold water with him at Sand Beach on their day off if they get them on the same day. Forgot to ask the server last year if they get days off, but it’s probably a law that a full-time worker has to, once a week at least, and after a while he bets you can switch around your days off to where you and your girlfriend get them together.

“What are you looking at?” his wife says, and he knows she’s caught him staring at Sage passing their table and means, Why are you looking at that girl so openly? and he says, “Oh, our waitress? It’s just she reminds me of someone and I can’t figure out who,” and she says, “The girl of your dreams,” and he says, “You’re that girl, or were when I first saw you, and still are the woman of my dreams, day and night and during catnaps, now that we’re married and so on … but yes, sure, if I were younger? Oh, boy, you bet. I’m saying if I were working here when I was twenty or so, still in college, feet free and fool loose, hormones up to my ears, and you were working here too … that’s what I was mainly thinking of before: how come I didn’t meet you when I most urgently needed to and not so much when — no, this isn’t true, but I’ll say it all the same — my companionable and genital exigencies, we’ll say, didn’t have to be so imperially attended to? No, that didn’t come out right,” and she says, “If you were twenty, I’d be nine, and I think that sort of behavior’s not only prohibited here but may even be frowned upon,” and he says, “But you know what I mean,” and she says, “I think I do, and I think I appreciate some of your thoughts too, but I also think you are”—and this very low—“a liar,” and he says, “Me? Mr. Honesty?” and his older daughter says, “What are you talking of, you two, and why are you calling Daddy a liar?” and he says, “Your mother whispered that, which means even if you heard you’re not supposed to give any sign you did and certainly no words,” and his daughter says, “But why did she?” and he says, “Youth, youth, wunderbar youth, don’t lose it, enjoy it, employ it, but don’t destroy it — something.” “What’s that mean?” his daughter says, and he says, “Nothing, everything, some of what’s in the in-between … I’m in my confusing Confucian period right now”—stroking an imaginary long wisp of chin beard—“and also don’t flaunt it, I should’ve added,” and his wife says to her, “First of all, don’t mistake Confucianism with confusion, indirectness, and unintelligibility. Your father was only admiring our waitress, Sage. Or not admiring her as much as trying to recall a young woman he knew many years ago who looked like her,” and his daughter says to him, “Do you think she’s pretty? I do,” and he says, “Very pretty, and she’s very nice. One day, you know, you could get a job here … in who knows how long, nine years? Eight? Then I could come here and be reminded of another very pretty girl I once knew: you at eleven,” and she says, “I wouldn’t want to work all day waitressing,” and he says, “Why not? You’d earn money for college, travel, and clothes, and you’d make lots of friends and have this entire national park to live in,” and she says, “They live here?” and he says, “Yeah, I learned this from one of our waitresses last year: in dorms or their own rooms or ones they might have to share with another girl,” and she says, “Then I’d like it. I love it here, so clean and fresh and everything. But I’d hate getting sick of popovers. And if it’s the same thing that happened to you with ice cream, then for life,” and he says, “Ice cream’s different from popovers. And I’m sure, in a place like this, so fresh and clean as you said, customers don’t stick cigarette butts in them.”

Thinks of Sage on and off the rest of the day: car ride home, shucking corn, taking the clothes off the outside line and folding them as he stood there, little during dinner and then when washing the dishes, and that night, in the dark when he’s outside the house peeing, he imagines them standing and him holding her, face looking up at his from a height his wife’s would be until he changes it in his head so it’s even with his, then on a bed, side by side rubbing the other’s body, and then she turns over on her stomach so he can get behind her, then the two of them in the back of a car trying to find a comfortable position to screw in, both completely naked though he thinks they’d only be naked from the waist down, if that, no matter where they parked. He never did anything like that in a car — at the most heavy petting and not for some twenty years, the last time in front of the woman’s house in the front seat of her car, just as a joke: “You know,” he said, or something like this, and they’d been sleeping together for months, “I haven’t made out with a girl in a car for years, and never one behind the wheel, so is it all right if we don’t go in just yet and sort of futz around a little out here?” and she said, “Go ahead, I wouldn’t mind fooling around like that too; it’d be different.” But how does one go about having sex in a car? He knows, to do it half in and half out of a car, she’d sit off the end of the seat with her legs outside and of course the door open and the man would do it standing with her legs up on his shoulders or against his chest or somewhere around there, or leaning over her with her legs around his waist or hanging over the side. He once, in a New York state park years ago, walked past a young couple doing it that way or something like it. But entirely in the car with the door closed? Probably in the backseat with her sitting on his thighs and facing him. Or she could sit with her back to him and in the front seat too, he supposes, depending on the size car. Sage saying when she’s on top of him in his head, “I’m in love with you, I don’t care about the age difference,” with the same smile she had when she spoke of overindulging on popovers. It gets him excited. It’s almost black out now, no moon or stars and no other house or light of any kind for half a mile, he’s behind the unlit patio, door’s closed to it from the kitchen so he’s out of view, and he forces his penis back through the fly, zips up or tries to but has to push the penis down again before he can get the zipper up over the bulge, feels the last of the pee dribbling down his thigh, not just drops but a stream. Did it too quickly, should have shook more — why’d he rush as if he were about to be caught with his hard-on out? He might think of her later if he makes love with his wife, but only up to a point. In fact if he thinks anymore of her he’ll almost definitely make love to his wife even if she’s not at first in the mood to, simply through his persistence and the way he has when he wants to very much and various things he does and her willingness after a while or just resignation to it, feeling it easier to give in than resist if she wants to get to sleep, and she also knows he’ll be quick.

Then he thinks of the time — he’s sitting at the kitchen table now reading a book, kids asleep, wife somewhere else in the house, little radio on the windowsill next to him tuned to a classical music concert taped in St. Louis — he was a guest waiter in a children’s sleep-away camp, still in college but troubled about what he’d do when he graduated — journalism, Garment District, advertising, law, grad school in English or international relations, stay an extra year in college to get his predentistry requirements out of the way or take some education courses the next two terms so he could become a junior high school teacher for a few years, or just quit college now and join the army or odd-job it around Europe and the States till he knew what he wanted to do — and met a girl there, someone very beautiful and intelligent whom he flipped for — marriage, he began thinking, why not marriage and babies early on which’ll force him into some profession and give him a draft deferment and all the sex he wants? — and when he tried kissing her the second time one night she said something to him like — it was outside, in the middle of a baseball diamond, and she was trying to get her arm out from under his to point out some constellations she recognized in the sky and which he’d said he was interested in—“Let’s be frank about this right away, Gould: I can in no way become involved with you romantically. It’s the lack of chemistry or the void of something else and maybe of a dozen things; it’s not that there’s some other guy I specially like, although this would be the most propitious time for me to start a new relationship, since I’m completely free in every possible way and the surrounding conditions here are so perfect for it. But that’s how it is and will always be between us, I’m afraid, so please, I can see you’re a very persistent fellow when you want to be, but don’t think you can ever change it,” and he said, “Hey, fine by me; I can’t see any problem with your decision, and not to make you feel small, but there are plenty of little fishies in the sea,” and shook her hand good night, and after a few days’ sadness and then downright despair for two weeks he got her parents’ phone number and called, actually put a hanky over the mouthpiece to disguise his voice, though he’d never talked to them before — he supposes he didn’t want any speech mannerisms or defects detected and later relayed to her and she could say “Oh, you mean with a weak R and drops his G’s; I know the jerk”—and said to her father, because he answered, “Excuse me, you don’t know me, but your daughter (he forgets her first and last names now) is sleeping around. All I can say about how I know this is I’m one of the many guys she’s doing it with but the only one who resents the others and wants her all to himself, even, if you can believe this after what I said about her activities, eventually to marry her,” and hung up. A stupid, awful thing to do, despicable, he knew that then, knew it before he did it but hardly thought twice about doing it, for he was crazy in love and couldn’t stand seeing her swimming in the lake or walking around in shorts or escorting her campers into the mess hall and thought maybe her parents would come up and whisk her away and that’d be the end of her in his life, besides being jealous, to the point where his stomach ached and he couldn’t sleep because he kept thinking of them, of this drippy, brainy squirt she was going with now and, he knew, would soon be screwing. She later came up to him and said, “Did you call my home the other night and talk to my dad? Don’t lie that you didn’t,” and he said, “Me? How would I even know where you live and what your father’s name is and so on to get your phone number?” and she said, “I’ve mentioned what borough I live in and that his first name is Jackson, a not very common first name, so it’d be a cinch to find him through Information or if the camp office has a Brooklyn phone book, which it has to, since half the campers come from there,” and he said, “Maybe you did tell me all that but I don’t recall it and I didn’t call him, I’m sorry, but also for how it’s obviously making you so upset,” and she said, “You’re a big bull artist if there ever was one and you know it. It could only have been you, as you’re the only guy I know stupid and juvenile enough to do it.” He didn’t believe she was sure it was him, continued to think of her almost constantly, stomachaches, trouble falling asleep, every time he saw her and the brainy squirt; they looked even happier, holding hands, necking in front of everybody, they had to be sleeping with each other now but where would they do it? — each had a bunk with six to seven campers in it — in the woods, maybe, late at night, or they pooled their money for a motel room or did it in someone’s car; and a couple of weeks later he called her home again, her mother answered and he said, hanky over the mouthpiece, in what he thought was a thick Middle European accent, that he was the camp director, Rabbi Berman, and he thinks her daughter’s pregnant and wants her and her husband, for the sake of Sandy’s campers — that was her name, Sandy — to come up and get her off the grounds immediately—“The girl’s a disgrace!” he yelled, and hung up. He didn’t know what happened after that, if the parents came up or even told Sandy about it or called the director, but she didn’t accuse him of making a second call and continued to avoid him the rest of the summer, turning around and hurrying away from him if she saw him heading in her direction, leaving the social hall or one of the local bars alone or with her boyfriend if Gould was there at the same time.

He makes love with his wife that night: first puts his hand on her breast, she puts hers on his — they were lying on their backs, room dark, still no stars or moonlight; he had to trace her face to find her lips — got on their sides to face each other and kissed and more deeply kissed and moved their hands down and now they were really started, he’d thought of Sage a lot before he turned the night-table light off while he was waiting for his wife to come to bed and a little of Sage during the beginning of the lovemaking and then just thought of his wife and now just thinks of a woman in the dark with more appealing — higher, firmer, but not larger — breasts, and legs stronger, harder, longer, slimmer than his wife’s, but the same beautiful face as hers — to him almost no woman has a more beautiful face and lovelier hair or skin — and next day Sage is intermittently on his mind: while he’s running his daily two miles, swimming in the local lake he likes taking his kids to, reading the newspaper, working on a manuscript, cooking dinner, and washing the dishes after and later listening to another concert on radio, this time an organ one taped in St. Paul. He doesn’t know what it is but she’s sure as hell captured his imagination, he thinks, which a woman, usually one young as she the last dozen years and up till now always one of his students, does from time to time, but never as intensely or for this long. He thinks of getting her phone number from Florida Information and calling her parents. That is, if they live there, because maybe the college she goes to is in that city or town — which is it? — and she lives in Palm Beach only when she’s away from home. Well, he’ll find out, won’t he? when he calls Information, and that would be the end of it if that’s what the situation is. But why call her parents? Not like the last time: to get them to come up and take their daughter away. Just to do something wild, idiotic, and unfuddydud-like, that’s all, something he once was or used to do or just didn’t feel constricted and tight about being or doing till around twenty years ago, which was a few years before he met his wife. And unfuddydud-like’s not the word; it’s “uncareful, unheedful, unforethoughtful, untimid, unsmothered, imprudent, unrepressed.” In other words, a reason or justification he just thought of but one connected to the memory of what he did with Sandy and her folks. In other words, if he hadn’t thought about Sandy in connection to Sage, he wouldn’t have thought of doing it. In other words, an excuse to be as stupid and reckless as he can one more time because he suddenly feels compelled to and it feels scary and exciting but damn good. But why be that stupid and reckless? Didn’t he just say? Anyway, don’t answer, for by questioning it he won’t do anything to be like it, for doing what he thought about doing is something you do without giving it those kinds of justifications and reasons and second thoughts, and more so at his age than when he was twenty or thirty or approaching forty. So it’s just for him, a release of some sort, last done so long ago it’s almost as if he never did it, stupid as it is. And when he gets, if he does, one of her parents on the phone, what will he say? What he has to, what will come out, and, unlike the last time, all unthought-of beforehand and unrehearsed, in any accent or voice he wants, even his real one, since neither they nor Sage know him, and probably the real one is the bravest to do and so in the end will give him the greatest release. If he gets their answering machine he’ll leave whatever message he’ll leave and call it quits with this wild, idiotic craziness or whatever it is. Or maybe he’ll do it as an experiment: once he speaks to one of her folks or their answering machine or the phone just rings and rings till he hangs up, will Sage then leave his mind for good or close to it? Or maybe tomorrow — probably tomorrow — this whole notion of calling will be gone. Is that what he wants? Of course it would be best, along with his not thinking of her so much if at all, for what’s he gain by it? But that’s not what he’s saying and he doesn’t want to think of it anymore now or it’ll all be spoiled. How’s that? Drop it; and he squeezes his eyes closed and stays that way for about a minute, and that seems to do it.

He goes to town next day. “I have some photocopying to do and I’ll pick up a good bread,” he tells his wife; “anything else you might want?” hoping there isn’t, since he doesn’t want to make a bunch of stops, especially if what she wants him to get is before the place he wants to make the call from, and she says, “Nothing I can think of,” and he starts to leave, then thinks of it and also what a fake he is, considering what’s getting him out of here, and goes back to kiss her and then leaves, stomach churning nervously, even youthfully in a way, hasn’t felt that feeling in his pit for he doesn’t know how long, a feeling like — well, churning, nervousness, and of course he’s been thinking of Sage most of the morning, but that could be because he was thinking of making the call and how he would do it, which means he didn’t give himself a chance to forget her. Does he really have the guts for this? he thinks in the car: the brains, no, but the guts? Well, he’ll find out, and stops at a pay phone against the side wall of the first service station in town, has three dollars in change; if the call’s more he’ll forget it: he’d have to get change from the guy inside, and besides, it doesn’t make sense if it has to be so expensive. Looks in the phone book attached to the phone stand for the Palm Beach area code — it isn’t listed but West Palm Beach is — and he dials it plus the Information number and asks for Ottunburg and spells it, “I don’t know the exact address but it’s there, in the heart of the city, and I think this Ottunburg’s the only one.” He’s told that there are five Ottunburg numbers, all at the same address — Nelson F., pool, cottages two and three, and the children’s phone — and he says, “Give me Nelson, not the pool or cottages but the main house,” dials, sticks two-seventy-five in when asked for it, and a woman answers and he thinks it could be the maid or cook or someone, what with the spread they must have, and says, “I’d like to speak to Mr. Ottunburg, please”—not sure why he asked for him; if a man had answered he might have asked for Mrs. Ottunburg, probably to give himself a little more time — and she says, “He’s not home; who’s calling?” and he says, “Is he at work?” and thinks why’d he ask that? since he’s not going to make another call and not just because he has no more change, and she says, “He’s on a business trip, may I take a message?” and he says, “Is Mrs. Ottunburg in?” and she says, “This is she, who am I speaking to?” and he says, “Then this is for you too, ma’am. Your daughter Sage — who’s fine, by the way, best of health, no problems — is having an intense affair with a fifty-eight-year-old man in Bar Harbor, Maine, I’m sorry to have to report to you,” and she says, “My, my, not Sage,” and he thinks, She kidding him or what? because she doesn’t sound serious, which even if he didn’t expect her to that much he didn’t think she’d be mocking and he says, “Yes, Sage, a waitress, I believe, at the Popover Palace or something there in Acadia National Park — I never get to those places because I can’t stand the crowds,” and she says, “May I again ask who’s calling, since this is quite alarming, sir?” and he says, “I can’t divulge my name, I’m sorry, and I have to go now,” and she says, “One thing I do know, though, is that you can’t be the man she’s having this affair with — Sage would never take to someone so gross,” and hangs up.

He knew it — didn’t he? — that it wouldn’t turn out right but was somehow worth the risk, or he didn’t know it but somehow sensed it; maybe that’s what the stomach pains were about, the nervous churnings: a warning not to make the call because he’d be embarrassed by it after, for it was crazy, really too crazy, and the call could be traced — he hadn’t thought of that before — people have the technical means now, the caller’s number showing up somewhere on the phone called, he’s read about it, remembers seeing in the article a photo of a little box like an electric shaver with numbers in a narrow window, and telephone operators have been using this equipment for years and the very rich would probably be the first home customers to have the device installed, not only because they could afford it, though he doesn’t know if it costs that much, but also because they might think that since they’ve more money to lose than other people they’re more likely to be the targets of cranks and criminals and solicitors over the phone and so on, but it was a public phone he called from — he’s in his car now, heading for a local produce stand that sells good bread — out of view of almost everyone, including the service station attendant inside, so he’s sure nobody saw him by the phone and there must be a dozen cars like his of the same color around the area, and even if someone did see him, just about no one around here knows him — he’s a summer renter who comes to town now and then just to buy a few things they can’t get at a big supermarket somewhere else and use the library and have his car serviced once a summer at the other station and maybe every other week a pizza and things at a restaurant with his wife and kids — and it was exciting, making that call, more in the expectation than the doing, and gutsy in a way, so he got that out of him … got what? Just proving he can do it, stupid as it was, but we all occasionally do stupid things, don’t we? or something like it — well, maybe not, and not at his age, but no harm done in the end, he’s sure: the mother will speak to Sage, maybe even today, maybe even use his call as an excuse for calling her, if she needs one — they might be very close, talk on the phone several times a week — and Sage could say “What man was he referring to? I know no fifty-eight-year-old man except one of the cooks at the restaurant, and he’s gay and I think is even married to his mate — anyway, they both wear the same wedding bands,” and her mother will believe her, that’s the kind of relationship they have, he could almost tell when she said, and now he’s sure it was said cynically, “My, my, not Sage”: absolute trust, honesty, et cetera, between them, daughter confiding in Mom and even Dad for years; Sage could then talk of her boyfriend — he’s sure she has one, it’d seem that every pretty girl at every summer job away from home like this would — saying she’s taking every precaution regarding birth control and disease, but about that silly call: “Don’t worry about it, Mom, I’ve had things like this to deal with before, you know that,” and her mother will say, “The price of being so beautiful. Remember what your granddad used to say to me — it doesn’t apply to you in this situation, so it isn’t a criticism, it just popped into my head—‘If you got it, don’t flaunt it.’ Do you know, I don’t think I know what the actual dictionary definition of the word ‘flaunt’ is — do you, my darling?” and Sage will say, “Why, though, are you telling me this?” and her mother will say, or could, could: “As I said, I don’t know; it just came to me, and it probably means wave, wouldn’t you think? — flutter, flap,” and Sage could say, “By the way, Charlie sends his love,” meaning her boyfriend, a waiter at the place, and her mother could say, “And give Charlie my very best and tell him to always be exceptionally good and, if the situation ever calls for it, protective of my lovely daughter,” and Sage could say, “Mommy, I can very well look after myself, so I don’t have to tell Charlie that. Besides, if he isn’t good, in all ways, out he goes,” and her mother could say, “Still, insist on the best treatment possible — you deserve it — but give as well as you get … oh, I am sounding trite today and not truly giving you your due … goodbye, my dearest,” and Sage could say, “One more thing. Who the heck could that man be who called you, and how would he know how to reach you? He must work here — someone who’s made a move on me or something and I told him, or said with a look, ‘No chance.’ I better find out. A person like that could do a lot of damage before the truth’s found out. You said he had a mature voice. Do you mean like an older man’s?” and her mother could say, “Yes, I think so, but I seem to forget now,” and Sage could say, “No, no older man would do that. It has to be one of the jerky boys here, acting old but doing it convincingly. Two of them are studying to be actors, but they’re too nice and sophisticated for that and we like one another, so I know it can’t be them. Maybe one of the busboys who has a crush on me — a couple do, or look as if they do — and he spoke to you in a faux older man’s voice. Or someone not even from here — why didn’t we think of it? Possibly from school, a fellow who has a grudge against me for some reason — a grad student, even — and he knows I’m here and probably having a great time. That’s most likely, and I think I’ve a good idea who it is. Good, I’ve solved it for myself, so you don’t have to be concerned about hiring a personal bodyguard for me,” and her mother could say, “The thought never entered my mind. Both your father and I know you can take care of yourself. But you can understand why a parent would get somewhat worried over such a call, though I gave no hint of it to that ugly man.”

He buys bread and drives home. His wife asks what he did in town besides photocopying, and he says, “Oh, the copying; I forgot. But why, was I gone so long?” and she says, “Longer, I’d think, than it takes to buy a loaf of bread, if that’s what you have in there, not that I’m accusing you of anything,” and he says, “Ah, you know me. Thought I’d be back sooner after buying the bread”—pulls the Russian rye out of the bag—“but had a coffee at the Pantry; helped myself to a free second cup — you know, but not because it was free. Read part of today’s Times. It was just sitting there; a tourist must have left it. The world, for all the recent developments, is still, I can safely report, much the same. Went to the library to do the copying but got distracted at the seven-day shelf. There wasn’t anything for me, and I also didn’t want to take out another old video there. And then to the bookstore, but there wasn’t anything there I wanted either. Maybe one, but it was a hardcover and too expensive,” and she asks, “What?” and he says, “A novel; it looked good. Slaslo was his name, or Laslo: his first name, and not with a Z. Author I never heard of. But what do you say we go swimming? I still have two hours before I pick up the kids,” and she says, “Good idea, I’ll get ready,” and he says, “Unless you want to do something else, and even then we’d have enough time for a swim,” and she says, “You know me, usually willing. But maybe you could give me a rain check on it. I’ve been housebound for two days and I’m dying to get out.”