May We Be Forgiven

don’t you run down your list, and when you get to me I’ll call out, ‘Bingo.’”
    “You have the wrong number.”
    “Oh no,” she says. “I have the right number. I double-checked before I dialed.”
    “Maybe it’s my brother you’re looking for,” I suggest.
    “Does he have a heart-shaped mole over his left nipple?” she asks.
    Deep silence. “Who is this?”
    “Crap,” she says, sighing. “You don’t remember me. I fed you lunch and then some.” She pauses. “Look, I didn’t mean to catch you off guard. Can we roll back and try this again? Push the restart button.”
    “Sure,” I say, still not knowing who I am talking to.
    The line goes dead. I hang up. Immediately the phone rings again.
    “Hi, it’s Cheryl calling. Is Harry there?”
    “Speaking,” I say.
    “How are you?” she asks.
    “Good,” I say. “And you?”
    “I’m sorry I never called you,” she says. “I mean before now, I mean after we had our moment and before now.”
    “Oh,” I say, still unable to make sense of it, “that’s okay.”
    “I want to be honest with you about the whole Internet thing.”
    “Sure,” I say; the pieces are coming together.
    “I thought I was okay, doing really well, so I stopped taking my medication and I was working in a friend’s catering company and then business got slow and I had all this extra time and I started surfing and then making these ‘dates’ like the one I had with you. It got out of control and I crashed,” she says. “Hard landing. I had to be hospitalized—briefly.”
    We are silent. I take my shirt off and let it fall to the floor. Stripped down wet, stinking of vomit, I sit at the kitchen table.
    “Actually,” she says, “I’m not being entirely honest. I stopped taking my medication and then I started self-medicating. I was completely out of control; our meeting was one of many. I put myself and my family at risk. My son, you may recall, he came home when we were in the middle of … Well, it wasn’t good.”
    It’s suddenly clear to me. “Of course,” I say, enthusiastically.
    “And you,” she says, unnerved by my burst of enthusiasm and needing to change the subject, “what have you been up to?”
    “If we’re doing full disclosure,” I say, “I was hospitalized as well. I had a stroke.”
    “Perfect,” she says.
    “What do you mean, ‘perfect’?”
    “I mean, I’m glad we both had something happen, some sort of event interrupted us.”
    “I suspect it was the Viagra,” I say. “I was taking too much of it.”
    “Amazing, isn’t it,” she says, “how easily we slip right off the rails. Are you okay now?”
    “I’m fine,” I say. “Really good. And you?” I am looking around the room; everything is blurry. I am at least half blind and have no idea if it’s permanent or not.
    “You’ve been on my mind,” she says. “A lot. But I needed to wait to call you. I needed to be in better shape.”
    I make an agreeable if innocuous sound.
    “Forgive me if now I’ve forgotten the details. But who was it you’re interested in, Richard Nixon or Larry Flynt?”
    “Nixon,” I say. “Nixon died of a stroke, and I don’t know why, but when I was having mine I kept thinking of him, feeling like I always knew we had something in common but was never quite sure what until that moment; it was like a psychic connection. It wasn’t about belief or political philosophy, but on a human, emotional level. I think the guy got a raw deal.”
    “I’m wondering if I might run an idea past you,” she says, cutting me off.
    “I’m all ears,” I say—and it might be true, considering the condition of my eye.
    “You should talk with Julie,” she says with enthusiasm, like it’s a done deal.
    “Julie?”
    “Julie Eisenhower.”
    “Julie Nixon Eisenhower?” I ask, vaguely skeptical.
    “Yes,” she says.
    “Really?” I say, suddenly gleeful, as though an entire tide could turn on three names, Julie Nixon Eisenhower, as Humbert Humbert once liltingly tripped over three syllables in Lo-lee-ta.
    “Yes,” she says.
    I laugh out loud and then, coming to my senses, ask, “How is that possible?”
    “Don’t ask,” she says. And then pauses. “Okay, full disclosure, she’s my husband’s cousin by marriage. Can I have her call you?”
    “Please,” I say.
    “I don’t know how current you are, but in recent years there were some issues with the library.”
    “Yes,” I say, recalling various articles detailing Bebe