Where I'm Calling From

calling me Earl. I took her hand and squeezed her fingers. “What is it?” I said. “What is it, sweetheart?” But instead of answering she simply squeezed back, sighed, and then lay still again. The next morning, when I asked her what she’d dreamed the night before, she claimed not to have had any dreams.
    “So who’s Earl?” I said. “Who is this Earl you were talking about in your sleep?” She blushed and said she didn’t know anybody named Earl and never had.
    The lamp is still on and, because I don’t know what else to think about, I think about that phone being off the hook. I ought to hang it up and unplug the cord. Then we have to think about sleep.
    “I’ll go take care of that phone,” I say. “Then let’s go to sleep.”
    Iris uses the ashtray and says, “Make sure it’s unplugged this time.”

I get up again and go to the other room, open the door, and turn on the light. The receiver is still on its side on the table. I bring it to my ear, expecting to hear the dial tone. But I don’t hear anything, not even the tone. On an impulse, I say something. “Hello,” I say.
    “Oh, Bud, it’s you,” the woman says.
    I hang up the phone and bend over and unplug it from the wall before it can ring again. This is a new one on me. This deal is a mystery, this woman and her Bud person. I don’t know how to tell Iris about this new development, because it’ll just lead to more discussion and further speculation. I decide not to say anything for now. Maybe I’ll say something over breakfast.
    Back in the bedroom I see she is smoking another cigarette. I see, too, that it’s nearly four in the morning. I’m starting to worry. When it’s four o’clock it’ll soon be five o’clock, and then it will be six, then six-thirty, then time to get up for work. I lie back down, close my eyes, and decide I’ll count to sixty, slowly, before I say anything else about the light.
    “I’m starting to remember,” Iris says. “It’s coming back to me. You want to hear it, Jack?”
    I stop counting, open my eyes, sit up. The bedroom is filled with smoke. I light one up, too. Why not?
    The hell with it.
    She says, “There was a party going on in my dream.”
    “Where was I when this was going on?” Usually, for whatever reason, I don’t figure in her dreams. It irritates me a little, but I don’t let on. My feet are uncovered again. I pull them under the covers, raise myself up on my elbow, and use the ashtray. “Is this another dream that I’m not in? It’s okay, if that’s the case.” I pull on the cigarette, hold the smoke, let it out.
    “Honey, you weren’t in the dream,” Iris says. “I’m sorry, but you weren’t. You weren’t anywhere around.
    I missed you, though. I did miss you, I’m sure of it. It was like I knew you were somewhere nearby, but you weren’t there where I needed you. You know how I get into those anxiety states sometimes? If we go someplace together where there’s a group of people and we get separated and I can’t find you? It was a little like that. You were there, I think, but I couldn’t find you.”
    “Go ahead and tell me about the dream,” I say.
    She rearranges the covers around her waist and legs and reaches for a cigarette. I hold the lighter for her.
    Then she goes on to describe this party where all that was being served was beer. “I don’t even like beer,” she says. But she drank a large quantity anyway, and just when she went to leave—to go home, she says—this little dog took hold of the hem of her dress and made her stay.
    She laughs, and I laugh right along with her, even though, when I look at the clock, I see the hands are close to saying four-thirty.
    There was some kind of music being played in her dream—a piano, maybe, or else it was an accordion, who knows? Dreams are that way sometimes, she says. Anyway, she vaguely remembers her former husband putting in an appearance. He might have been the one serving the beer. People were drinking beer from a keg, using plastic cups. She thought she might even have danced with him.
    “Why are you telling me this?”
    She says, “It was a dream, honey.”
    “I don’t think I like it, knowing you’re supposed to be here beside me all night but instead you’re dreaming about strange dogs, parties, and ex-husbands. I don’t like you dancing with him. What the hell is this? What
    if I told you I dreamed I danced the night away with Carol? Would you like it?”
    “It’s just a