to blend into the pew. I was trying to put together a puzzle that would never fit because I’d always be missing the most important piece.
I wrote my mother a letter I could not send because I didn’t have her address. I wrote, I miss you. I wrote, You leaving was the first bad thing to happen to me.
The trouble was that I was transforming in two directions—seemingly into my faith role in the church, silent and Godshot, and equally somehow into a phone sex operator, shameless and in command of the hand that pressed that blinking answer button.
I PAINTED MY nails black at my mother’s call desk, swiveled in her chair. I tried out some stretches and gave up. Everything made me out of breath now. A call blinked through. It would be Forne at this time, ready for more plastic bag adventuring. I answered the phone and he seemed down. I could tell immediately. Voices give everything away when you really listen, the lilt and register of a voice tells you all you need to know about how to be, what to say.
“I feel a heaviness around you, honey,” I said to him. I pretended I was Daisy. She always talked to her callers like they were some mix of child and man, son and lover. “How can Sunny help your heartache?”
He sighed. “How are you?” he said.
“Oh, I’m really nice, all dolled up. I know how you like it—”
He cut me off. “No, how are you? You the person.”
I paused. This was weird and went against our rules. This was how my mother got lured in, went off script, and ended up a stolen woman.
“No,” I said. “I know what you’re doing and I’m not here for any of it. You got a hard-on I can help you with or you’re feeling real curious over a gal you haven’t ever met? One or the other, and only one road leads to us staying on this call.”
Maybe this was part of it. He wanted me to talk down to him some more. It felt good to talk to him this way, get my anger out.
“My wife found out about the calls,” he said. “She saw my credit card statement. She normally doesn’t look at anything like that, but she did.”
“I’m hanging up now.” I didn’t have any interest in his problems, truly. They annoyed me. It felt like he wanted me to lift weights with my mind to solve them. “Sorry about your shattered dreams.”
“Wait,” he said. “My wife wasn’t mad at me. She didn’t care, actually. She acted like she knew. She said what she was mad about was me spending our money on calls while bitching to her about going to the expensive hairdresser, the one that uses the organic dyes.”
“Does something in your brain think I care? I don’t.”
“It just got me thinking about you. I really like talking to you. You know the real me.”
I dropped the singsong southern accent. “Sunny isn’t even my real name. You don’t know anything about me. Don’t be a fool.”
“I just don’t know why there have to be these walls between us. I want to know what you like to read, what you watch on TV. If we went to a diner, what you gonna order? Chicken fried steak, or some kind of fancy salad with crunchies on top?”
“You’ve lost it,” I said. “I have to go now.”
“I’m sick,” he said.
“You are, I’d say so, yes.”
“Like I’m dying, I think.”
I stopped. I took a deep breath. Maybe he was lying but maybe he wasn’t.
“Well, what’s wrong with you?” I said.
“That’s why I want to know about you. Here I am, a man with not much time and I just want to hear about how you’re doing.”
“I’m fine.”
“Fine is never fine.”
“What are you, a counselor?” But as soon as I said it, I wondered if maybe he could help me. Would he be able to find my mother?
“I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable.”
“You want to help me?” I said. “I’ve got a missing persons case on my hands.”
“Okay, sure.”
“Her name is Louise Herd,” I started, but then I heard that plastic rustling on the other end. “Hey, what are you doing?”
Forne moaned a little. “I’m here.”
Goddamnit. He was messing with me. The rustling got faster and faster and then he let out a pitiful little squeal.
“Never call here again,” I said.
“Baby,” he said. “I want to come pick you up in my hot rod and take you away