Where I'm Calling From

I have been praying no one knew.
    But you did. Why did you? Please tell me why.

    Yours truly,

Are These Actual Miles?

    Fact is the car needs to be sold in a hurry, and Leo sends Toni out to do it. Toni is smart and has personality. She used to sell children’s encyclopedias door to door. She signed him up, even though he didn’t have kids. Afterward, Leo asked her for a date, and the date led to this. This deal has to be cash, and it has to be done tonight. Tomorrow somebody they owe might slap a lien on the car. Monday they’ll be in court, home free—but word on them went out yesterday, when their lawyer mailed the letters of intention. The hearing on Monday is nothing to worry about, the lawyer has said. They’ll be asked some questions, and they’ll sign some papers, and that’s it. But sell the convertible, he said—today, tonight.
    They can hold onto the little car, Leo’s car, no problem. But they go into court with that big convertible, the court will take it, and that’s that.
    Toni dresses up. It’s four o’clock in the afternoon. Leo worries the lots will close. But Toni takes her time dressing. She puts on a new white blouse, wide lacy cuffs, the new two-piece suit, new heels. She transfers the stuff from her straw purse into the new patent-leather handbag. She studies the lizard makeup pouch and puts that in too. Toni has been two hours on her hair and face. Leo stands in the bedroom doorway and taps his lips with his knuckles, watching.
    “You’re making me nervous,” she says. “I wish you wouldn’t just stand,” she says. “So tell me how I look.”
    “You look fine,” he says. “You look great. I’d buy a car from you anytime.”
    “But you don’t have money,” she says, peering into the mirror. She pats her hair, frowns. “And your credit’s lousy. You’re nothing,” she says. “Teasing,” she says and looks at him in the mirror. “Don’t be serious,” she says. “It has to be done, so I’ll do it. You take it out, you’d be lucky to get three, four hundred and we both know it. Honey, you’d be lucky if you didn’t have to pay them.” She gives her hair a final pat, gums her lips, blots the lipstick with a tissue. She turns away from the mirror and picks up her purse. “I’ll have to have dinner or something, I told you that already, that’s the way they work, I know them. But don’t worry, I’ll get out of it,” she says. “I can handle it.”
    “Jesus,” Leo says, “did you have to say that?”
    She looks at him steadily. “Wish me luck,” she says.
    “Luck,” he says. “You have the pink slip?” he says.
    She nods. He follows her through the house, a tall woman with a small high bust, broad hips and thighs.
    He scratches a pimple on his neck. “You’re sure?” he says. “Make sure. You have to have the pink slip.”
    “I have the pink slip,” she says.
    “Make sure.”
    She starts to say something, instead looks at herself in the front window and then shakes her head.
    “At least call,” he says. “Let me know what’s going on.”
    “I’ll call,” she says. “Kiss, kiss. Here,” she says and points to the corner of her mouth. “Careful,” she says.
    He holds the door for her. “Where are you going to try first?” he says. She moves past him and onto the porch.
    Ernest Williams looks from across the street. In his Bermuda shorts, stomach hanging, he looks at Leo and Toni as he directs a spray onto his begonias. Once, last winter, during the holidays, when Toni and the kids were visiting his mother’s, Leo brought a woman home. Nine o’clock the next morning, a cold foggy Saturday, Leo walked the woman to the car, surprised Ernest Williams on the sidewalk with a newspaper in his hand. Fog drifted, Ernest Williams stared, then slapped the paper against his leg, hard.
    Leo recalls that slap, hunches his shoulders, says, “You have someplace in mind first?”
    “I’ll just go down the line,” she says. “The first lot, then I’ll just go down the line.”
    “Open at nine hundred,” he says. “Then come down. Nine hundred is low bluebook, even on a cash deal.”
    “I know where to start,” she says.
    Ernest Williams turns the hose in their direction. He stares at them through the spray of water. Leo has an urge to cry out a confession.
    “Just making sure,” he says.
    “Okay, okay,” she says. “I’m off.”
    It’s her car, they call it her car, and that makes it all the worse. They bought it new that