Vera
He knew he’d hear from her soon, not about his wife’s death but just a phone call, since she hadn’t called for a long time. He answered the phone. She said “Hi, how are you? Just wanted to know how things are going.” He told her. She said “Oh, I’m so sorry. And here I blundered into the phone so cheerfully and full of hope. It has to be awful for you. If there’s anything I can do to help, I’m here for you.” “Thank you,” he said. “Right now, though, I can’t talk about it — it’s still too soon to — so I’ll have to hang up.” “I understand. Oh, my poor dear. Much love to you and your daughters.”
They’d been in touch for so many years. Twenty-five, maybe. For a while she called him about once a year, usually on or near his birthday. “I know it’s around this time,” she said a couple of times. He never called her unless she left a message on his answering machine in his office at school, and even then most times he didn’t call her back. For the next ten years or so she called him every four to six months, in his office but now a few times at home. Always to find out how he and his wife were doing. Abby said once “She’s just checking to see if I’ve finally croaked, so she can move in on you. You’re still a good catch, you know. Your looks, health, tenured position, writing, and our combined assets.” He said “Not a chance. With all the infusions and new medications and stuff you’re taking, you’re only going to get better the next few years, and she and I are only telephone friends. For some reason I mean something to her. I’m one of her oldest friends, she said. We go back more than forty years. One doesn’t have too many of those, so she doesn’t want to lose contact with me. Who else does she know who remembers her parents and the house she grew up in and her two Scotties? I don’t care much for her calls, but by this time I don’t know how to keep her from making them. But if you object, I’ll find some way to stop them.” “Why would I object? Anything that’ll happen between you two will happen after I’m dead. And it might even be good for you, a way to take your mind off losing me. And she’s still pretty and quite lively, you say.” “Well, that was a while ago, but what does it matter?”
Last time he’d seen Vera was fifteen years ago when he was in her city for a new book of his. Took the train up from Baltimore, she met him at the station, took the train back. They had coffee at the cafe in the bookstore. He was giving a reading there and bought a copy of his book at full price — thought it would make him look cheap to her if he took the author’s discount, which was offered to him — and inscribed it and gave it to her. To Vera, my dear old friend. She never mentioned later on that she’d read the book or any part of it or even started it, and he never asked.
About two years after that she called him to say she was staying overnight in Baltimore — she had an audition for a part in a play at the best theater company there — and he asked Abby, she said it was all right, and invited Vera for dinner. “But not to sleep here, okay?” Abby said. “I’d find that a little strange.” He picked Vera up at her hotel and drove her back. She said in the car “Your wife is beautiful, spiritually and physically. Such magnificent skin and hair — that of a much younger woman — and a lovely voice and manner of speaking. And so intelligent. I felt ignorant compared to her. She obviously adores you. And you’re so good to her, tending to all her needs and just the way you speak to her. I like seeing that, although it’s nothing short of what I expected of you. What she must think of me, though, for the way I treated you in the past.” “Not at all. She knows all about it and said that was long ago, when we were practically kids. Believe me, she never had a bad thought about you. That’s not Abby.” “Good. I didn’t tell you, by the way, and you were both very discreet about it, but once again I didn’t get the part. They said I was good and it was close but I was just a mite too old for the role. That’s always a good excuse. I didn’t think I did well.” “Nonsense. I’m sure you did well. And I’m sorry — for you and also because it would’ve been nice to see you on stage and have you over for dinner again, and we would’ve taken the kids to the play too. They would have loved knowing that we knew one of the main characters.”
Since that first phone call after Abby died, she called him about once a month to see how he was doing. “I’m concerned about you,” she said in her last call. “Your daughters away. You living alone after so many years with Abby.” “I’ll be all right,” he said. “I’m getting used to it — the living alone, I mean. As for my daughters — I miss them tremendously, but they come down for weekends now and then.” “Have you ever thought of visiting me? It’d be a good change for you, doing something new, and I’m not that far away. Two, two and a half hours by car.” “I never go anywhere. The local Y; the local food market; that’s about all. Oh, for a book at a nearby bookstore about once a month. I don’t think I’ve been out of Baltimore County since Abby died seven months ago.” “That’s what I’m saying. I’ll show you around here, take you out to dinner, and you can spend the night. I’ve a guest room.” He said “Maybe you’re right. Let me think. No, you’re right. It could be a major emotional breakthrough for me, just reaching the entrance to 95 North, and my kids will love it that I even attempted to get away from the house for a day. They’ll think, next time I might even drive up to see them in New York. Okay, I’m coming. But dinner’s on me. And breakfast out also, if we have that too.”