But not this person. That phone kept ringing and ringing and ringing. We would pause at the end of each ring, relishing the brief silence, expecting that another one would not follow and that we could then get back to business. But after two seconds or so another ring would always shatter the calm of the living room. Finally our mouths broke apart.
"I'm ripping that fucking cord out of the wall." I told Nina, pushing away from her.
"Bill," She said, obviously as annoyed as I, "Why don't you just answer it? Whoever it is must have something important to say or they wouldn't have let it ring so long. Maybe there's some sort of emergency."
"They're gonna have an emergency if they don't have a damn good reason for this shit." I proclaimed.
I walked over to the phone and picked it up roughly, cutting it off in mid-ring. I put it to my ear. "What?!" I almost yelled.
There was a brief pause. Finally, "This is the AT and T operator. Will you accept a collect call from Tracy?"
Tracy? Goddam her! This had better be good. "Yes." I said shortly. "Put her on."
"Thank you." The operator said, probably sounding much huffier than her supervisor would have cared for.
"Bill?" Came my sister's voice hesitantly.
"Hi Tracy." I said impatiently, looking over at Nina, who was sitting on the couch in her bra, her nipples poking at the material. I could vaguely make out the shadow of her aureole through the cotton. My dick was throbbing with desire. This had better be good.
"Uh…" She said uncertainly. "Are Mom and Dad home?"
"No they're not." I said. "It's the first day of baseball." I knew that Tracy would need no further explanation than that.
"Oh yeah." She said, giggling, her tone telling me she knew damn well what day it was and that Mom and Dad wouldn't be home. "It is, isn't it?"
"Yeah." I told her. "So they're over at Janice and Ken's. You might try them tomorrow. Probably later would be better. They're bound to be hung over."
"Okay." She said. "Oh, did you hear about Cindy?"
This got my attention a little. "No." I said. "What about her?"
"I got a letter from her yesterday. Her professor boyfriend is divorcing his wife. Cindy has moved in with him. Can you believe it?"
"Actually I can." I answered. This news didn't surprise me in the least. The only surprise was that it had taken so long.
"She's dropping out of college too." Tracy added. "I guess she figures she got what she went there for."
"I guess she did." I replied, casting another glance at Nina, disheartened to see that her nipples were losing their erection. "Listen Tracy." I said.
"I was kind of in the middle of something."
"I'm sorry." She said. "I'll let you go and get back to it."
"Thanks." I said.
"Umm?" She said hesitantly. "There IS one thing I wanted to ask you while I had you on the line."
"What's that?" I asked.
"Well," She said uncertainly. "The people that I hang out with here are having, well, a little baseball pool."
"A baseball pool?" I asked, exasperated. What the hell did she want to talk to me about this for?
"Yes." She answered. "For five bucks you can enter who you think will be in the World Series this year. If you're right, you win the pot in October."
"The World Series?" I asked, trying to glare through the phone.
"Yes." She said. "So I was wondering if maybe YOU could tell me who was going to be in the series this year? I know you have a real good head for this sort of thing Bill." She giggled knowingly.
I looked up at the ceiling for a moment and then cast a glance at Nina, who was looking at me expectantly, questioningly.
"Tracy," I told her honestly. "I don't have the slightest idea."
There was a long pause. Finally, pouting, "Bill, this doesn't hurt anything. How is this different than you taking advantage of stocks you know are going to go up? I could win twenty-five hundred bucks from this!"
"It doesn't Tracy." I said, lowering my voice a little so Nina couldn't hear. "If I knew, I'd tell you. But I don't know."
"How could you not know?" She nearly screamed, pissed at my refusal to supply her with this information. "You've already lived through it! You know! You just don't want to tell me for some moralistic, bullshit reason."
The biting edge of her words cut through me like a knife, deflating my desire like a punctured balloon. "Tracy," I said carefully. "I really don't know. I'm not a baseball fan. I've never paid attention to baseball in my life, just like Dad. How the hell would I know who was in the series in 1984?"
"Because you've already been through it!" She cried. "You HAVE to know. You just don't want to tell me!"
"Tracy?" I asked, looking at Nina again, she was now definitely sensing that something was wrong. "Tell me who won the World Series in 1982."
"What?" She asked.
"You've already lived through it." I said, mocking her tone. "It's only been two years from your perspective instead of," I thought for a second, doing some quick mental addition, "Seventeen years from my perspective. So tell me, who won the series?"
"That's different!" She said desperately. "You're a boy. Boys know this shit!"
"This boy doesn't." I told her, feeling my own anger starting to rise now. "But let's put that aside. Let's ask you some girl shit. Who won best supporting actress in 1982?"
"What?" She asked, confused.
"You heard me." I whispered harshly. "That's girl shit if I've ever heard it. So who won it?"
There was silence on the line for a moment. "I don't know." She finally said.
"And I don't know who won the fucking World Series in 1984." I told her. "And if you call me back in October and give me the names of the two teams who are actually in the fucking thing, I still wouldn't know who won it. I don't watch baseball Tracy. I don't give a rat's ass about who was in it or who won it. You should know that. You're right, this information is harmless, and I would tell you if I knew, but I don't know. And I don't appreciate you screaming at me because of this. And I especially don't appreciate your indignant tone with me because of it."
The silence on the line was longer this time. "I'm sorry Bill." She finally said. "I shouldn't have yelled at you."
"Goddam right you shouldn't have." I said.
"I just thought that maybe…, well, you know."
"Tracy," I told her, calming a little. "You're going to be all right. You don't need to be so greedy. Isn't it enough that you're alive?"
She didn't have an answer for that.
The rest of our conversation took less than thirty seconds. When I hung up, Nina was looking at me quizzically.
"Your sister?" She asked carefully.
I nodded.
"You seemed mad at her." Nina said. "Anything wrong?"
"Nothing I can't handle." I told her.
"Bill," She said softly. "What's wrong? You can talk to me about anything you know?"
"I know Nina." I answered. "And usually I do. But this is something of a family secret if you know what I mean."
"Like what my Dad told you?" She asked sharply.
"Kind of." I agreed. "But much more secret than that. I'm sorry."
"It's okay." She said, pouting a little.
The mood for the day was effectively broken. By the time my parents got home that evening Nina was long since at her house and I was long since releived of my testosterone by my own means. I spent the rest of the day with Mike, drinking some beer he'd managed to get hold of. It was fun but not as fun as what Tracy had interrupted.
It was late April when I went to Nina's house to pick her up one evening. It was Friday night and we had a date to go see the release of the movie 1984 based on the Orwell novel that had been the basis of the first conversation we had shared. I pulled to the curb at her house at 6:30 and stepped out of my car, heading for the front door.