Where I'm Calling From

thrown it, and put it with her other cards and letters in a box on the shelf in his closet. In one of the envelopes, there was a photograph of her in a big, floppy hat, wearing a bathing suit. And there was a pencil drawing on heavy paper of a woman on a riverbank in a filmy gown, her hands covering her eyes, her shoulders slumped. It was, Carlyle assumed, Eileen showing her heartbreak over the situation. In college, she had majored in art, and even though she’d agreed to marry him, she said she intended to do something with her talent.
    Carlyle said he wouldn’t have it any other way. She owed it to herself, he said. She owed it to both of them. They had loved each other in those days. He knew they had. He couldn’t imagine ever loving anyone again the way he’d loved her. And he’d felt loved, too. Then, after eight years of being married to him, Eileen had pulled out. She was, she said in her letter, “going for it.”
    After talking to Carol, he looked in on the children, who were asleep. Then he went into the kitchen and made himself a drink. He thought of calling Eileen to talk to her about the baby-sitting crisis, but decided against it. He had her phone number and her address out there, of course. But he’d only called once and, so far, had not written a letter. This was partly out of a feeling of bewilderment with the situation, partly out of anger and humiliation. Once, earlier in the summer, after a few drinks, he’d chanced humiliation and called. Richard Hoopes answered the phone. Richard had said, “Hey, Carlyle,” as if he were still Carlyle’s friend. And then, as if remembering something, he said, “Just a minute, all right?”
    Eileen had come on the line and said, “Carlyle, how are you? How are the kids? Tell me about yourself.”
    He told her the kids were fine. But before he could say anything else, she interrupted him to say, “I know they’re fine. What about you ?” Then she went on to tell him that her head was in the right place for the first time in a long time. Next she wanted to talk about his head and his karma. She’d looked into his karma. It was going to improve any time now, she said. Carlyle listened, hardly able to believe his ears. Then he said, “I have to go now, Eileen.” And he hung up. The phone rang a minute or so later, but he let it ring. When it stopped ringing, he took the phone off the hook and left it off until he was ready for bed.
    He wanted to call her now, but he was afraid to call. He still missed her and wanted to confide in her. He longed to hear her voice—sweet, steady, not manic as it had been for months now—but if he dialed her number, Richard Hoopes might answer the telephone. Carlyle knew he didn’t want to hear that man’s voice again. Richard had been a colleague for three years and, Carlyle supposed, a kind of friend. At least he was someone Carlyle ate lunch with in the faculty dining room, someone who talked about Tennessee Williams and the photographs of Ansel Adams. But even if Eileen answered the telephone, she might launch into something about his karma.
    While he was sitting there with the glass in his hand, trying to remember what it had felt like to be married and intimate with someone, the phone rang. He picked up the receiver, heard a trace of static on the line, and knew, even before she’d said his name, that it was Eileen.
    “I was just thinking about you,” Carlyle said, and at once regretted saying it.
    “See! I knew I was on your mind, Carlyle. Well, I was thinking about you, too. That’s why I called.” He drew a breath. She was losing her mind. That much was clear to him. She kept talking. “Now listen,” she said. “The big reason I called is that I know things are in kind of a mess out there right now. Don’t ask me how, but I know. I’m sorry, Carlyle. But here’s the thing. You’re still in need of a good housekeeper and sitter combined, right? Well, she’s practically right there in the neighborhood! Oh, you may have found someone already, and that’s good, if that’s the case. If so, it’s supposed to be that way. But see, just in case you’re having trouble in that area, there’s this woman who used to work for Richard’s mother. I told Richard about the potential problem, and he put himself to work on it. You want to know what he did? Are you listening? He called his mother, who used to have this woman who kept house for her. The woman’s name is Mrs. Webster. She looked after