Hanging Up. Delia Ephron

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      By dropping by her place to apologize for my behavior, I had managed to talk Maddy into paying a visit. She gave us all, even Dad, homemade bead necklaces, and he reciprocated by giving her money to install a telephone.

      Later my father turned up the Christmas music really loud. You could hear “Joy to the World” in every corner of the house. “I forgot about celebrating,” he said. “I forgot all about it.” He closed his eyes for a moment and let the music wash over him. “Evie?”

      “What?”

      “When you don’t celebrate, you might as well be dead.”

      “Hardly, Dad.”

      “Hey, wait a second.” My father chucked me on the chin. The gesture was so cliché-paternal it might have come from a sitcom, maybe even the one he wrote. “I don’t say too many smart things anymore, sweetie pie, so when I do, listen up.”

      On the basis of his behavior on Christmas Day and the fact that, between Christmas and New Year’s, I had to drive him around only twice in the middle of the night, I informed my sisters that he was simply brokenhearted, our old dad was somewhere inside the droopy outer shell and would be back eventually. But this didn’t mean I wasn’t ecstatic to return to school. “Just drop me at the airport,” I told him.

      “You sure?”

      “Yeah, absolutely.”

      When we arrived at the terminal, my father pulled my suitcase out of the trunk and stood there, his handkerchief out, ready to catch his tears. I kissed him lightly on the cheek.

      “We have something special, don’t we, Evie?” A sad smile trembled out.

      I grabbed my suitcase. “Bye, Dad.” I backed up fast. “Bye,” I shouted louder, although he wasn’t far away.

      I wanted to cheer when those automatic doors opened and I was standing in the check-in area with tons of other kids returning to college. They had parents hanging around them, handing them gum and Life Savers, asking them if they’d packed everything. I was anonymous. Not one person there was related to me, and my heart soared.

      At school, I threw myself into final exams. My last was in a course called Great American Plays. We’d had to read a play a night. My friend Zoe had obtained a copy of the previous year’s final, and it had questions like “Pork chops?” You had to know what play pork chops figured in.

      Zoe and I, fueled by No-Doz, stayed up all night shouting clues at each other. “Water?” “The Miracle Worker.” “Dog?” “Come Back, Little Sheba.”

      When the hall phone rang, it was four in the morning.

      “It’s my dad, who else?” I picked up the receiver. “Hi, Dad.” I didn’t even wait to hear his voice, and was punch-drunk enough to be nice. There was no response. “A prank,” I told Zoe.

      “Sorry, Wrong Number,” said Zoe.

      I was hanging up when I heard, “Pills.” Thickly. Like he had mud in his mouth.

      “Pills?” I put the phone back to my ear.

      “Long Day’s Journey into Night. No, After the Fall,” shrieked Zoe.

      I waved her to stop. “Dad, what is it?”

      “I took No-Doz.” Really thickly now. Tongue-too-fat-for-mouth thick.

      “Well, that’s no big deal. Believe me, I know.”

      He hung up. I hung up. “What happened?” asked Zoe.

      “Nothing. We’re taking No-Doz here and he’s taking it there. That’s weird.”

      We returned to my room. I sat on the bed and pulled my textbook, 100 American Plays, onto my lap. It was the heaviest book in all my classes—ten pounds. I knew this because Zoe and I had weighed it. In protest we only dragged or slid it. “He doesn’t have finals. Why would anyone take No-Doz who didn’t have—Oh my God. He didn’t say, ‘No-Doz,’ he said, ‘Overdose.’”

      I shoved the book off my lap and started hunting under clothes, papers, books. “What are you looking for?” asked Zoe. There it was, my address book, under a bag of potato chips. I raced to the phone.

      I couldn’t get the booth open. I yanked and yanked at the door. “Help.” Zoe had followed me. She reached over and pushed. The door folded in.

      “I need change,” I shouted as I thumbed through the book for Maddy’s number.

      “Shut up,” I heard someone yell groggily.

      “Eve’s father took an overdose,” said Zoe, running to her room.

      “You’re kidding?”

      “Eve’s father took an overdose.” I heard it repeated over and over, punctuated by yawns, as Zoe tore back, holding out a jar filled with nickels, dimes, and quarters.

      I fumbled with the coins as I stuffed them in, misdialed, and tried too quickly to start over. I banged on the receiver to get a dial tone.

      “Let me dial.” Zoe pressed down on the receiver, held it awhile, then released it and inserted several quarters. “What’s the number?”

      The entire floor was out of bed and gathered around the booth. I noticed that Joanne, the engaged person, was now sleeping with toilet paper around her head. While Zoe dialed for me, I wondered whether Joanne would sleep that way after she got married.

      Zoe handed me the receiver. I heard ringing. An angry male voice answered: “What is it?”

      “I’m sorry to wake you—” I stopped. I could barely speak. “This is Maddy’s sister, Madeline Mozell’s sister Eve. Get her, hurry up, please, it’s an emergency.”

      While I waited what seemed like five minutes, but was probably only two, several girls got bored and went back to bed.

      Finally Maddy picked up. “What’s wrong?”

      “Dad took an overdose of something, I don’t know what. You’ll have to call the police and get over to the house.”

      “Me?”

      “You’re the only one out there, for God’s sake.”

      “But suppose he’s dead. Suppose I find him plopped on the carpet. Or like, he could be in the bathtub.” She started gasping, hyperventilating.

      “Maddy, you have to.”

      “I won’t go.” She screamed this really loud, and kept on screaming. Probably everyone in the hall could hear.

      “What’s going on? Is that her father?” asked Joanne.

      I yelled into the receiver, “Isaac, Isaac, are you there?”

      “’Lo.”

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