Where I'm Calling From

now?
    How long has it been? A year? Longer than a year?”
    “Going on a year and a half,” Laura said, flushed and smiling.
    “Oh, now,” Terri said. “Wait awhile.”
    She held her drink and gazed at Laura.
    “I’m only kidding,” Terri said.
    Mel opened the gin and went around the table with the bottle.
    “Here, you guys,” he said. “Let’s have a toast. I want to propose a toast. A toast to love. To true love,”
    Mel said.
    We touched glasses.
    “To love,” we said.
    Outtside in the backyard, one of the dogs began to bark. The leaves of the aspen that leaned past the window ticked against the glass. The afternoon sun was like a presence in this room, the spacious light of ease and generosity. We could have been anywhere, somewhere enchanted. We raised our glasses again and grinned at each other like children who had agreed on something forbidden.
    “I’ll tell you what real love is,” Mel said. “I mean, I’ll give you a good example. And then you can draw your own conclusions.” He poured more gin into his glass. He added an ice cube and a sliver of lime.
    We waited and sipped our drinks. Laura and I touched knees again. I put a hand on her warm thigh and left it there.
    “What do any of us really know about love?” Mel said. “It seems to me we’re just beginners at love. We say we love each other and we do, I don’t doubt it. I love Terri and Terri loves me, and you guys love each other too. You know the kind of love I’m talking about now.
    Physical love, that impulse that drives you to someone special, as well as love of the other person’s being, his or her essence, as it were. Carnal love and, well, call it sentimental love, the day-to-day caring about the other person. But sometimes I have a hard time accounting for the fact that I must have loved my first wife too. But I did, I know I did. So I suppose I am like Terri in that regard. Terri and Ed.” He thought about it and then he went on. “There was a time when I thought I loved my first wife more than life itself. But now I hate her guts. I do. How do you explain that? What happened to that love? What happened to it, is what I’d like to know. I wish someone could tell me. Then there’s Ed. Okay, we’re back to Ed. He loves Terri so much he tries to kill her and he winds up killing himself.” Mel stopped talking and swallowed from his glass. “You guys have been together eighteen months and you love each other.
    It shows all over you. You glow with it. But you both loved other people before you met each other.
    You’ve both been married before, just like us. And you probably loved other people before that too, even. Terri and I have been together five years, been married for four. And the terrible thing, the terrible thing is, but the good thing too, the saving grace, you might say, is that if something happened to one of us— excuse me for saying this—but if something happened to one of us tomorrow, I think the other one, the other person, would grieve for a while, you know, but then the surviving party would go out and love again, have someone else soon enough. All this, all of this love we’re talking about, it would just be a memory. Maybe not even a memory. Am I wrong? Am I way off base? Because I want you to set me straight if you think I’m wrong. I want to know. I mean, I don’t know anything, and I’m the first one to admit it.”
    “Mel, for God’s sake,” Terri said. She reached out and took hold of his wrist. “Are you getting drunk?
    Honey? Are you drunk?”
    “Honey, I’m just talking,” Mel said. “All right? I don’t have to be drunk to say what I think. I mean, we’re all just talking, right?” Mel said. He fixed his eyes on her.
    “Sweetie, I’m not criticizing,” Terri said.
    She picked up her glass.
    “I’m not on call today,” Mel said. “Let me remind you of that. I am not on call,” he said.
    “Mel, we love you,” Laura said.
    Mel looked at Laura. He looked at her as if he could not place her, as if she was not the woman she was.
    “Love you too, Laura,” Mel said. “And you, Nick, love you too. You know something?” Mel said. “You guys are our pals,” Mel said.
    He picked up his glass.
    He said, “I was going to tell you
    about something. I mean, I was going to prove a point. You see, this happened a few months ago, but it’s still going on right now, and it ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we’re talking about when we talk