Hanging Up. Delia Ephron

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СКАЧАТЬ Search the night table, the bureau, the bathroom, stop at the mirror. Oh God, is that my face?

      This is not the first time this has happened. Not the first time, since I turned forty, that I have passed a mirror and stopped short, startled by my own reflection.

      These sideways unexpected encounters are the most jarring, these candid glimpses when I have not taken time to prepare my face to be seen and my brain to see it. All I notice are the lines around my eyes. Are these new? The creases running south from the edge of my nose. Definitely deeper. My mouth, of which I am extremely fond, have been ever since a girl in my bunkhouse at Camp Tocaloma told me it was rosebud-shaped, my mouth is starting to turn down. I need a vacation. No. This is just me. Me at forty-four.

      I look the way I always have, but the face of the future is threatening to take over. I have two faces in one, a nonreturnable bargain.

      One day, when Joe and I passed an old couple walking arm in arm, I warned him, “Soon we’ll be them.” “I hope so,” he replied. He was admiring their coziness, but that’s not what I meant.

      The first time I “got” death, I was eight years old and standing in my elementary school playground, waiting in line for my turn at handball. “When you’re dead, you don’t know it.” The kid in front turned to me, announced this, and then rubbed his fist around in his eye. “When you’re dead, you don’t know it.” Every time I went to sleep I would count frantically, lie in my bed going from one to a hundred as fast as I could, so I wouldn’t think about it, and eventually I succeeded. I didn’t think about it for years. But when I started being surprised by my reflection, the thought came back, and lately every morning I wake up with that little boy’s face staring into mine: “When you’re dead, you don’t know it.” Also, for the past year I have changed my hairstyle every two months. Somehow this seems connected.

      Why am I here? “Joe,” I yell, “do you know why I came upstairs?”

      “No,” he shouts back.

      “Oh, I remember. My sunglasses.” I find them on my desk, next to Dr. Omar Kunundar’s phone number. Good grief, I almost left without taking care of this. I sit down at my desk and dial. I hear the voice of a very businesslike woman.

      “Hello, this is the office of Dr. Kunundar. If you are having an emergency, please press one and leave a message. If this is a nonemergency medical call, press two and leave a message. For other business, press three. Thank you.”

      I press three. “Hello, this is Eve Mozell again. A week ago, my son Jesse opened his car door into Dr. Kunundar’s car. I would like to discuss the accident as soon as possible and would really appreciate it if the doctor could give me a call at 555–4603.”

      These words don’t convey how charming I am on an answering machine. I am sincere and warm, polite but inviting. It’s all in my voice, and it’s one reason I’m good at my job: I do special events. People hire me to throw fund-raisers or convention parties. I am a great planner, great at anticipating what might go wrong so it doesn’t. No Surprises is the name of my company. I do most of the planning on the phone, so I end up leaving many messages for people, like about whether we want a pasta station or a roast beef station, or about this adorable mariachi band I have located. I have “phone talent.” I easily become buddies with people over the phone.

      So why haven’t I heard from the doctor after I’ve left several messages, even if he’s out of town? I assume it’s because he hasn’t heard my voice. Because this nasty nurse, obviously she’s nasty, has been screening his calls.

      I phone my assistant.

      “Hi, Kim, I’m running a little late. Any messages?”

      She gives me the number for Madge Turner, who is on the board of several medical associations in southern California and who hires me frequently to do their special events. I am planning one for her now. “Hello, Madge, this is Eve Mozell.”

      “Hello, Eve, how are you?”

      I consider answering truthfully, spilling out my general state of anxiety. “Fine, I’m fine, thank you. How was the cruise?”

      “It was very relaxing.”

      I like talking to Madge because she always says the most obvious thing. If she were on Family Feud—“One hundred people surveyed, top five answers on the board”—Madge’s answer would always be the top one. (Why do people take cruises? Number-one response: To relax.)

      “That’s nice, I’m glad to hear it.”

      “The food was delicious. They had canapés with salmon and caviar every evening before dinner. Do you think we could have salmon and caviar?”

      “I think so. I’ll price it out.”

      “I ate way too much.” (What do people regret about cruises? Number-one response: Ate too much.)

      “I was talking to the people at the Biltmore—”

      “Eve.” She cuts me off. I hear nervousness.

      “Yes.”

      “Could we change the location? Wait, don’t say no. I know the invitations have gone out.”

      “The party is only a month away.”

      “I know, I know, but if you send me the RSVP list, I’ll take care of mailing the location change. I’ll organize a little group to make follow-up calls, I promise you. And I’ll get us out of our obligation to the Biltmore. You know, the Biltmore’s downtown and I hate downtown. Besides, I had the most brilliant idea and I had it right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.”

      “Well, great, what is it?”

      “We should have our party at the Nixon Library.”

      I don’t say, You’re kidding. I don’t say, In all the time we’ve worked together, I’ve never known you were a Republican. Part of my job is restraint, being careful where I put my foot. I try to be chummy, never frank. “They do parties there?” is all I say, mildly.

      “Oh yes, it’s quite wonderful. It’s not really a library, it’s a museum. There are fountains and a reflecting pond. And they have the place he was born right on the premises in case people get bored and want to take a little walk. I have the name of a woman there.”

      I write it down, get off with Madge, then phone Kim and ask her to set up an appointment for me with the woman at the library and to send the RSVP list to Madge immediately. I come banging down the stairs. “I’m going,” I call out. But I can’t leave without complaining. I detour into the breakfast room. “You know this party for four hundred fifty ear, nose, and throat doctors? Well, Madge Turner is changing the location to the Nixon Library.”

      After a long beat, Joe looks up from his paper. “Who goes to that place? Probably the most white-bread group in the country.”

      “I suppose you think it would be interesting to talk to them.”

      He laughs. “‘What Nixon means to me.’ I bet you’ll have a great time.”

      “I don’t think so. I’ll see you later.”

      At five o’clock, I visit my father. I call Joe and tell him he does СКАЧАТЬ