a Miracle
June and Rudy play in the kiddie pool in the backyard, protected from the mid-July sun by the pop-up tent. I shake my head, baffled by my chronic discontent; I wait out spring's soggy tease for summer, then summer arrives, and now it's too hot for me to stay outside. Always waiting for the next thing.
I stand by June's window in the back of the cool house, keeping an eye on June and Rudy as they splash each other. What's the temperature in Manhattan, I wonder? Check the weather app. I turn to fetch my pocketbook from the living room, then stop.
The weather in Manhattan? Really?
I get my pocketbook anyway and bring it back into June's room. I reach for my phone, then instead reach into the interior pocket and dig out the tube of lipstick.
The lipstick hasn't moved from that pocket since April, and it's a miracle that June hasn't found it. I rotate the tube back and forth in my fingers. Not a day has gone by that I haven't thought about him. What I really can't believe is how normal I've acted since I got home. That first night after the affair, I warded Pete off for a few days claiming a yeast infection. I really don't know if Pete would be able to tell if I fucked someone else or not, but better safe than sorry.
I haven't had one drink since New York, about three months ago. I wonder if Jimmy ever thinks about me, that wild night, the pub, the weight bench. Rolling the lipstick back and forth in my fingers, I finally pull off the lipstick cap. As it rises, I notice something etched on the metallic part of the tube. Bringing it close to the window for better light, I see numbers. Ten numbers.
A phone number.
My heart thumps a beat. No.
Why not?
How do I know it's his number, anyway? Well, who's else would it be, and only one way to find out for sure. I breathe deeply and exhale slowly to try to calm my heartbeat. June and Rudy run in circles and blow bubbles in the yard, and that should occupy them for at least five more minutes. Just a phone call to a friend, right? An acquaintance. Pete always says I should be more social. Funny, I think the same about him, and Facebook doesn't count. And he's not interested in anything I do besides cook and occasionally fuck.
I take a huge breath, fish my phone out of my pocketbook, and start entering the number. Breath, hold it, exhale, my hand shaky. I press Call.
... brrt... brrt... brrt...
Hang up! No.
I hear a breath. "Well, hello, beautiful," a deep voice answers. Does he know it's me?
"Hi, Jimmy, it's uh..."
"Yeah, Julie, you left me your number, remember?"
"Julie," I mumble, "Uh, yeah, uh, sorry. Wrong number," I almost laugh, almost cry, as my heart sinks.
Julie?
Fool. I always sucked on the phone anyway, a hopeless phone-phobe. I sink onto the corner of June's bed, just about to hang up.
"Hey, just joking--Caroline!"
My stomach jumps. "Very funny! Good Lord Almighty, I just wanted to call and say hi, see how you're doing."
"Well, I'm glad you called. I've been thinking about you." I hear high-pitched voices in the background.
"Me, too. I mean, I've been thinking about you, not about me." I laugh, more like a hiccup.
"I know what you meant. I wanted to call you, but I didn't want to get you in any trouble. I mean, I don't know how private your phone really is, you know, kids and all."
