Where I'm Calling From

into the shower.”
    The kitchen phone was on the counter in a corner behind the roasting pan. He moved the roasting pan and picked up the receiver.
    “Is Charlie there?” the voice said.
    “No,” Burt said.
    “Okay,” the voice said.
    While he was seeing to the coffee, the phone rang again.
    “Charlie?”
    “Not here,” Burt said.
    This time he left the receiver off the hook.
    Vera came back into the kitchen wearing jeans and a sweater and brushing her hair.
    He spooned the instant into the cups of hot water and then spilled some vodka into his. He carried the cups over to the table.
    She picked up the receiver, listened. She said, “What’s this? Who was on the phone?”
    “Nobody,” he said. “Who smokes colored cigarettes?”
    “I do.”
    “I didn’t know you did that.”
    “Well, I do.”
    She sat across from him and drank her coffee. They smoked and used the ashtray.
    There were things he wanted to say, grieving things, consoling things, things like that.
    “I’m smoking three packs a day,” Vera said. “I mean, if you really want to know what goes on around here.”
    “God almighty,” Burt said.
    Vera nodded.
    “I didn’t come over here to hear that,” he said.
    “What did you come over here to hear, then? You want to hear the house burned down?”
    “Vera,” he said. “It’s Christmas. That’s why I came.”
    “It’s the day after Christmas,” she said. “Christmas has come and gone,” she said. “I don’t ever want to see another one.”
    “What about me?” he said. “You think I look forward to holidays?”
    The phone rang again. Burt picked it up.
    “It’s someone wanting Charlie,” he said. “What?”
    “Charlie,” Burt said.
    Vera took the phone. She kept her back to him as she talked. Then she turned to him and said, “I’ll take this call in the bedroom. So would you please hang up after I’ve picked it up in there? I can tell, so hang it up when I say.”
    He took the receiver. She left the kitchen. He held the receiver to his ear and listened. He heard nothing.
    Then he heard a man clear his throat. Then he heard Vera pick up the other phone. She shouted, “Okay, Burt! I have it now, Burt!”
    He put down the receiver and stood looking at it. He opened the silverware drawer and pushed things around inside. He opened another drawer. He looked in the sink. He went into the dining room and got the carving knife. He held it under hot water until the grease broke and ran off. He wiped the blade on his sleeve. He moved to the phone, doubled the cord, and sawed through without any trouble at all. He examined the ends of the cord. Then he shoved the phone back into its corner behind the roasting pan.
    She came in. She said, “The phone went dead. Did you do anything to the telephone?” She looked at the phone and then picked it up from the counter.
    “Son of a bitch!” she screamed. She screamed, “Out, out, where you belong!” She was shaking the phone at him. “That’s it! I’m going to get a restraining order, that’s what I’m going to get!”
    The phone made a ding when she banged it down on the counter.
    “I’m going next door to call the police if you don’t get out of here now!”
    He picked up the ashtray. He held it by its edge. He posed with it like a man preparing to hurl the discus.
    “Please,” she said. “That’s our ashtray.”
    He left through the patio door. He was not certain, but he thought he had proved something. He hoped he had made something clear. The thing was, they had to have a serious talk soon. There were things that needed talking about, important things that had to be discussed. They’d talk again. Maybe after the holidays were over and things got back to normal. He’d tell her the goddamn ashtray was a goddamn dish, for example.
    He stepped around the pie in the driveway and got back into his car. He started the car and put it into reverse. It was hard managing until he put the ashtray down.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

    My friend Mel McGinnis was talking. Mel McGinnis is a cardiologist, and sometimes that gives him the right.
    The four of us were sitting around his kitchen table drinking gin. Sunlight filled the kitchen from the big window behind the sink. There were Mel and me and his second wife, Teresa—Terri, we called her—and my wife, Laura. We lived in Albuquerque then. But we were all from somewhere else.
    There was an ice bucket on the table. The gin and the tonic water