Hanging Up

by Delia Ephron

  “Basically.”

  “Maybe he’s waiting for me to get in the bathtub.”

  “Who?”

  “My father. He’s waiting for me to be luxuriating in a bubble bath. I’ll have to jump out, drip water all over the floor to answer the phone, and then discover it’s him. Oh God, I should go see him. But I’m exhausted. I was at the Nixon Library all day trying to decide whether roast beef should be served in front of an exhibit of Tricia Nixon’s wedding dress. At least my father hasn’t phoned. Thank goodness he hasn’t phoned.”

  There is a long pause.

  “Hello?” I say. “Are you still there?”

  “You seem wired,” says Adrienne.

  “And you sound like a broken record,” I reply, not unpleasantly. “I’m not wired, I’m tired. I’m getting off. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  I hang up, feeling restless. It’s five o’clock, the hour when I’m normally here in Joe’s study regaling him with my day. I would be describing the trio of dummies in the Nixon Library: Pat, Tricia, and Julie—the girls dressed for their weddings, Pat as the mother of the bride. Of which bride, I wonder. Did they dress her in what she wore to her older daughter’s wedding or her younger daughter’s? I would have moved Joe’s tapes onto the floor and parked myself in his wicker armchair with my feet propped up on his wastebasket. Joe would be leaning back, bending his desk chair as far as it could go, his hands clasped behind his head. He would be devouring my words. But I am used to Joe’s travels. I reward myself by doing things I never do when he’s here. Like consume an entire dinner of guacamole dip.

  I go into the kitchen. Why am I here? That settles it, I’m definitely not going to see my father today. I don’t even know why I’m in the kitchen. Oh yes, guacamole. I stick the Post-it with Ogmed Kunundar’s number on the wall and take a few avocados from the fruit bowl. I dial her on the kitchen phone, then, with the receiver clamped between my chin and my shoulder, cut open the avocados.

  “Hello, is this Mrs. Kunundar?”

  “Yes, who is calling?” She has a piano voice, but all treble clef and every word a different note.

  “This is Eve Mozell.” I am talking the same way, words all over the scale, as if I have joined her in some extraordinary level of politeness. “I believe you phoned me by accident because you thought I was a window-dressing place, but you probably meant to call me about your son, Dr. Kunundar.”

  “They are all doctors. You mean which?”

  Which one? Oh God, I can’t remember. What was his first name? “I’m not sure, but he and my son had a car accident. I asked him if I could settle this without going through the insurance company and he said he would ask you. Does this sound familiar, Mrs. Kunundar?”

  There is silence.

  “Hello?”

  “It was Omar. Omar is genius.”

  “I’m sure he is.” I slice a lemon.

  “Have you heard of lasers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Omar can fix your nose with a laser.”

  “That’s amazing.” As I squeeze lemon juice onto the avocados, the phone squeezes out from under my chin and the receiver shoots across the room.

  “I’m sorry. I dropped the phone.”

  “You are a family of accidents, then?”

  “Well, no, I hope not. I was cooking and talking, that’s all. Mrs. Kunundar, I know the car accident was my son’s fault. I will be happy to pay your son directly for the repairs.”

  “Omar says you do not see your mother.”

  “Yes, that’s true.”

  Silence again. It’s like silence from a therapist. There’s no way to know what it means.

  “Look, Mrs. Kunundar, what I’m suggesting isn’t illegal. It’s simple and easy for both of us, but if it’s a problem, please forget it.”

  “And your father?” Is she interrogating or curious?

  “My father. What about him?”

  “Do you see him?”

  “He’s in the geriatric hospital at UCLA. I see him all the time. I’m going right after we get off the phone.”

  Big lie. I just used my father’s illness to gain sympathy. That is so tacky. So utterly shallow. What’s worse, now I will have to go to the hospital to prove I’m not a liar.

  “I hope he is not very sick,” Omar’s mother says with an intonation that approximates the C-major scale. “Is it something with his nose or his ear? Perhaps you should discuss with Omar. Also I have a foot son and a heart son.”

  “It’s actually my father’s brain. He’s forgetting things, not my phone number of course, unfortunately, I wish, but—” I stop dead. Why did I say this?

  “You have a lot of trouble. I will tell Omar.”

  “Thank you.”

  She hangs up.

  Is it good that I have a lot of trouble, or bad? Have I passed or failed? Did she understand what I meant, that I wished my father would forget my number, or was what I said so callous and undaughterly that she couldn’t comprehend it? The phone rings. It’s my father. Now when I’m totally discombobulated, it’s definitely him.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this ABC Window Dressing?”

  “Mrs. Kunundar, this is Eve Mozell again.” I restrain a desire to scream.

  “Why?”

  “You called me. You have my number mixed up with ABC Window Dressing. Maybe you should dial information.”

  “I am very sorry.” She hangs up.

  Now, for sure, I am too wiped out to go to the hospital. I mash the avocados up and put in a lot of salt. I deserve a lot of salt today.

  I call Jesse in his room on his number.

  “Hey,” says Jesse.

  “Hi, sweetie. Do you and Ifer want some guacamole?”

  I hear them stampede down the stairs. Ifer arrives first. She is wearing ripped jeans, which reveal all sorts of glimpses of her bare skin, and a scoop-necked sweater that ends right under her breasts. “Hiya,” she says, pulling her sweater up at the top and then down at the bottom. She plops into a chair at the kitchen table. “You look weird.”

  “I do?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Actually, I may be a little upset.”

  “I knew it,” she exclaims.

  “You are definitely psychic,” says Jesse, taking the chips and guacamole off the counter, and swinging his leg over a chair to sit.

  “Do you mind if I have some too?”

  “Sure, Mom, you don’t have to get cranky.” He puts the guacamole in the center of the table and scoops a mountain of it onto a chip. “What’s wrong, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. At least my father hasn’t phoned.” I look around for some wood to rap on. The table, of course. I knock it twice. “Thank God, he hasn’t phoned. He’s in the hospital,” I explain to Ifer.

  “He’s not sick, he’s cracked,” says Jesse.

  “Jesse, for God’s sake.”

  “Oh, that is so sad,” says Ifer.

  “He’s been there two weeks. Why do I suddenly feel anxious today?”

  “May I put my hand on your forehead?” asks Ifer.

  “What for?”

  “Mom, it’s just to get your vibrations.”

  “Oh, in that case, sure.”

  Ifer presses her fingers against my head. “Excuse my nails, they’re China-wrapped.” She closes her eyes.

  “Don’t move,” says Jesse.

  “You’re upset,” she says finally.

  “I know, that’s what I told you. The question is, Why?”

  “I can’t tell you why,” Ifer says solemnly. She eats a chip and licks guacamole off her fingers. “That’s something only you can tell yourself.”

  “My father hasn’t phoned.”

  “God, Mom, you said that already.”

  “That’s why I’m upset.” It’s as if the apple just fell on my head. “Why hasn’t my father phoned?”

  I leave Jesse and Ifer to demolish the guacamole, and go upstairs to phone Madeline in private. I don’t ask what her
big news is. I don’t ask about her trip. I unload my anxiety without preliminaries, as if her vacation to Montana took place in the middle of a phone call I am now resuming.

  “I’m terrified to go back to that hospital.”

  “Why?”

  “Dad hasn’t telephoned in five days. It’s like he’s dead.”

  “Don’t they tell you when someone dies?” asks Maddy.

  “Of course. I just mean he may be alive, but if he’s stopped calling, he’s dead.”

  “Can we pull the plug?”

  “You can’t pull the plug unless he’s plugged in to begin with.”

  “Hold it, Eve, I’ll be right back, that’s my call waiting.… Listen, I’ve got to take this, I’ll go with you to see him. I’ll meet you there tomorrow, I promise. In front at one.”

  “But what’s your big news?” I say this to a dial tone.

  The next day Madeline is waiting for me, sitting on a bench in the courtyard in front of our father’s present residence, the UCLA Mental Health building. The courtyard has two jacaranda trees, which, since it is the end of May, are blooming. These are perfect trees to inhabit the front yard of a loony bin, because they bloom lavender—the entire foliage turns purple. What an astounding sight. It’s impossible to look at a lavender tree and not wonder whether, in spite of how beautiful it is, something is haywire. Madeline waves. We exchange light kisses on the cheek.

  This is the way it is with us sisters. Hours clocked on the phone, lives intertwined, but when we’re actually face to face we hold back. My father may cry easily. He’s soppy with feeling. But we take our cues from our mother. We are not a huggy group.

  “How do I look?” she demands. “Do I look different?”

  “You look relaxed.”

  She also appears to have spent a lot of money in a western shop. She is wearing cowboy boots, a blue workshirt, a fancy tooled belt with a silver buckle, and a red kerchief around her neck. If Joe were here, he’d be humming “Home on the Range.” He says Madeline never takes a trip without coming back dressed as the place, and he likes to provide musical accompaniments to her outfits. He whistled “La Cucaracha” when she dressed in ruffled peasant blouses and a concha belt after a trip to Cancún. She turned up in lederhosen after skiing in the Alps and he yodeled.

  Madeline peers into my face. “I look relaxed, that’s all?”

  “Did you have your eyes done or something?”

  “God, Eve, I’m not your age.”

  “Then what?”

  “Never mind.” Very coy. She pushes all her hair from one side of her head to the other. She does this frequently to her flowing, rather glamorous hair, which she has taken to describing as chestnut-colored on her résumé.

  She follows me into the building. “Howdy,” she says to a man who is wheeling himself out. She smiles at him.

  Since Maddy became the receptionist on Living Dangerously, she smiles at passersby and holds it, giving them time to recognize her.

  “It’s creepy here, I’m warning you,” I say as we get into the elevator. “What’s your big news?”

  “I’ll tell you later.” She holds up a brown paper bag. “I brought a schnecken for Dad. If he acts strange, we’ll give it to him. He loves schneckens.”

  “He has the dwindles. He’s in and he’s out. They say he’s not coming back. I mean permanently.” We get out on the seventh floor and go down the hall to Geriatric/Psychiatric. I push the buzzer for someone to let us in.

  “Did you talk to them about herbal medicine?”

  “No, but you’re welcome to.”

  Doris opens the door. Maddy gives her a big smile too. Doris does not return it. Her mouth, that road between her cheeks, is narrower than ever. A one-lane blacktop. “Hello, Doris. This is my sister, Madeline.” Doris nods like a humorless German maid who is paid to open the door but will not be polite about it. Adrienne would know what movie she was from, definitely some murder mystery in which she ends up in court as a hostile witness. “Where’s my father?”

  Doris tips her head toward the sitting room. I put my arm through Maddy’s. “Come on.”

  I pull her along. I’m on home turf, moving comfortably. Maddy stares at the cage, at the nurses inside, whose images are crisscrossed by bars. There’s a scream coming from somewhere. It rolls right off me, while Maddy stiffens—she has entered enemy territory.

  We turn left into the sitting room, where the TV is on as usual and the wheelchairs and seats are organized in rows. My father is in the back. It’s as if someone forgot him at a drive-in movie. Parked him in the last row and split, but he couldn’t care less. He stares at the ground. His body slumps forward. His shoulders seem narrower, weaker, his middle larger than ever.

  I realize that Madeline doesn’t pick him out until I say, “Hi, Dad.”

  “Oh,” she gasps, then swallows it—the actress in her goes to work covering the shock and dismay. “Hi, Daddy,” she says in a forced upbeat tone.

  I touch his arm. It’s white, bloodless, like a specimen from a glass cabinet. As I rest my hand, I notice him eyeing it. He looks up at me confused, then back at my hand. What’s strange about this? My hand, the touch? “Hi, Dad,” I say loudly, even gaily. “How are you?”

  “What time is it?” he asks, bewildered.

  I check my watch. “One-fifteen.”

  I turn two chairs around to face him, forming an arbitrary conversation zone in the middle of these orderly rows of seats. We stare at each other. “I couldn’t think of anything to say” achieves a new level of meaning. “I just got back from Montana,” Maddy announces finally. “Do you like my hat?”

  “What time is it?” asks my father.

  “One-sixteen.”

  The bouncy man sticks his head in the room. He winks, disappears, then sticks his head back in. No one pays attention but us. “Peekaboo, I know you.”

  “Me?” asks Maddy. She smiles radiantly. At last, a fan. “You’ve probably seen me on television.”

  “You’ve probably seen me on television,” he says, trotting over.

  She is momentarily puzzled. “Oh, are you on too?”

  He pumps her hand and doesn’t stop. “Great to see you.”

  “Same here.” She wrests her hand away but speaks politely to balance it out. “What’s your name?”

  “No hard questions,” says my father.

  Maddy and I burst out laughing. My father is surprised. He laughs too. “Hey, Dad, Madeline’s hat is like the one John Wayne wore in your movie.”

  No reaction. No reaction to Luck Runs Out the one time in my life I have brought it up.

  “I’m on my way,” declares the bouncy man for all to hear. “Would you open that?” He points across the hall at the dining room door. Madeline gets up.

  He’s not supposed to go in there, should I stop her? “Maddy, wait,” I blurt, as Doris, seemingly from out of nowhere, throws herself in front of the door. She blocks it spread-eagled as if protecting her log cabin from Indians.

  Maddy freezes, her hand extended. About to seize the doorknob, she is instead eyeball to eyeball with Doris.

  My father doesn’t seem to notice any of this. He continues to gaze about grumpily as Maddy returns, taking baby steps, eyes fixed on the floor. She puts her hand on her chair seat, checking out its stability before sitting.

  “What time is it?” my father growls.

  “It’s one-twenty now.”

  He looks at my shoes. “What is it, Dad?”

  His eyes travel up my legs. “You know I’ve always liked you.” He has a sly smile.

  “I like you too,” I say lightly.

  “You were always very attractive.” He draws out the last two words as his eyes climb higher.

  I jump up, out of my seat. “Well, thanks.”

  His eyes are now fastened on my breasts, and in some weird way, they pin me in place. “We never got it on like I did with your mom, but I want you, Lola.”

  “Lola? I’m Eve. I’m your daughter.” Obs
erve the rules, I am begging, please.

  “I don’t have daughters, I have sons.” He’s a drooling wolf, about to pounce.

  I grasp Maddy’s arm. “Come on, we’re going. Good-bye, Dad.”

  “Wait a sec.” Madeline fumbles with her purse, trying to stuff the bag with the schnecken in.

  “What time is it?” asks my father.

  “One twenty-three.” I grab Maddy’s purse myself and yank her. We start walking fast, holding on to a shred of normal demeanor by not doing what we want, which is to scream and run. Out of the sitting room, down the hall, our legs move fast and faster. “Let us out,” I shout, an inch from panic, as we dead-end at the locked front door. Someone in the cage hits the buzzer, releasing us.

  Out we fly. “Stop him!” someone yells. I whirl around, expecting my dad. Expecting this man who can’t work his own wheelchair to be in hot pursuit. But it’s the bouncy man—he has followed us outside the locked ward and is trotting happily toward freedom, the red exit sign at the stairs. Doris flies into the air and tackles him. She lies on the floor, her arms wrapped around his legs, holding him in place.

  I tear to the elevator and push Down. I smash the button twenty times. The doors open. Maddy and I get in. As they close, Doris is still lying on the floor, gripping his ankles. She has just captured a bird, a Dr. Seuss bird that was about to flap its wings and fly away, its long legs dangling.

  “Don’t tell me he doesn’t know what he’s saying, he knows what he’s saying. He’s horrible, disgusting, and revolting.”

  Madeline and I have careened into the nearest coffee shop. I have ranted all the way here. Maddy keeps looking this way and that, telling me under her breath to take it easy.

  “Take it easy? Why?” I demand in a loud voice.

  “Someone might recognize me.” She uses a stage whisper and offers tentative smiles to other customers as we are led to a table. It is immediately comforting—this lumpy brown leather booth, the many signs in script with exclamation points, like “Soup de Jour for sure!” This coffee shop has been here awhile. It’s not as old as my father, so it isn’t falling apart, but it has some history. “I really do hate him,” I say.

  Maddy’s elbows thud onto the table and her head drops into her hands. “No wonder Mom left him.”