“No, I took a cab,” Maggie said.
“Well, can I drop you off?” he asked. “I’m going home, anyway.”
“That’s awfully nice of you,” Maggie said.
For some reason, the stiff formality of Larry’s offer and the polite acceptance of it by Maggie seemed to dispel whatever suspicions Mary Garandi had. “I’ve got to get back,” she said. “Give my regards, will you?” She gave the pea jacket a slap and walked back to the dual-control car. Larry and Maggie watched, speechless. She backed out of her space, waved to them, executed a wild turn, and then cut into the street without signaling and without looking to see if there was any oncoming traffic.
When the car was out of sight, Larry said, “Whew.”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“She seemed suspicious.”
“Yes.”
“What shall we do?”
“Let’s get in the car first.”
They walked to the car. When they were seated, Larry said, “We can’t talk this over too long. She may be home before us, Maggie. She lives right across the street from me!”
“I know.”
“Do you think she—”
“I don’t know,” Maggie said. “I thought so for a while, but then she seemed all right.” She paused. “Shall we tell them?”
“I think so. I’ll drop you off right at your door. We’ll make it a friendly kind of thing. I’ll tell Eve I ran into you at the diner. It’s the only thing we can do. Mary may open her mouth.”
“All right, I’ll tell Don, too. This was stupid, Larry.”
“Yes, but it’s done.”
“Are you frightened?”
“A little.”
“I am, too.”
“All right, let’s get it over with.”
“Call me as soon as you can,” Maggie said. “I’ll be dying.”
“I’ll call you.”
“All right. Let’s go, Larry. Please. I’m very nervous about this. Let me know. Please call me tonight.”
He dropped her off in front of her house. They hid nothing. When he stopped the car, he got out, went around to her side, and opened the door for her. Don was not yet home, and he was grateful for that. Some of Maggie’s neighbors watched her as she got out of the car, but none of them seemed particularly interested or excited by what was happening. He said goodbye in a friendly way and, in perhaps a louder voice than was necessary, she said, “Thank you so much. Give my regards to Eve, won’t you?” and then she went into the house.
When he got home, he told Eve about his supposed day in the city and then said, “Oh, a funny thing happened.”
“What was that?” Eve asked.
“I stopped for a cup of coffee on the way home. The diner up on the turnpike. I ran into both Margaret Gault and Mary Garandi. It’s a small world, all right.”
“What happened?”
“Oh, the usual,” Larry said. “We talked for a few minutes, and then I asked them if I could drive them home. I dropped Margaret off.”
“What’d you talk about?” Eve asked.
“With whom?”
“Margaret.”
“Who remembers? I don’t think she’s very bright, do you?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Just the impression I got,” he said. “What’s for dinner, hon?”
The episode, in his home at least, was over.
It remained for him to find out how things had gone in Maggie’s house. He planned to go up to the center to call her immediately after dinner. But the Porters dropped in just as he and Eve were finishing the dishes. Trapped in the house, he fidgeted nervously all night long, hoping Phyllis and Murray would leave early so that he could get out on the pretext of needing some air. They did not leave until two in the morning. He could not risk awakening Don at that hour.
He went to sleep, tossing fitfully all night.
The telephone is our burglar’s tool, he thought.
Sitting in the phone booth the next morning, he found it impossible to conceive of anyone ever having had an affair before the telephone was invented. This was the assurance and the reassurance which kept them together during the week-long separation. This was the advance scout which checked and double-checked on possible danger, warned of it, prepared for it. This was the single grappling hook which connected two separately revolving worlds from which two people had somehow been stolen and thrown together. The telephone was an absolute necessity.
And so was the loose change, he thought, reaching into his pocket. Hastily, he deposited his dime and dialed.
Because the phone calls were stolen, they had to be speedily inserted into the normal routine of two separate lives. There was no time to cash a dollar bill or a fifty-cent piece, no time to linger at the cash register where a curious neighbor might engage you in conversation and then surmise you cashed your bill to make a phone call. He could think of only two conceivable reasons for using a local public phone booth if you had a phone at home. Either you were calling your wife to decipher an item on the shopping list or you were calling another woman. He could understand a curious neighbor buying the undecipherable item the first time around. He could not picture that neighbor buying the same story twice. So it was essential that he have ready change in his pockets, change that would take him quickly into a store or a filling station or a restaurant and then quickly to the phone booth. Once inside the booth, he could turn his back to the glass doors and make his call anonymously.
Now, as the phone rang on the other end, as he wondered why Maggie did not answer it, he realized he had learned to hoard small change like a miser.
Nickels and dimes, quarters, he collected faithfully, cached them in his jewelry box with his cuff links. He never left the house without an assortment of change in his pockets. He assumed it was the same for any man involved with another woman, and he wondered what would happen on that fictitious day in the future of America when suspicious housewives across the face of the nation decided to hold an unannounced inspection of their husbands’ pockets.
“Hello?” the voice said.
“Hi,” he answered. The voice sounded almost like Maggie’s, but the shading was slightly off. He almost said “Maggie?” and then something stopped him, something warned him of danger, and he said instead, “Who’s this?”
“Who’s this?” the voice asked.
He was sure now that the woman was not Maggie. He said, “This is Fred Purley of Purley Real Estate. May I speak to Mrs. Gallanzi, please?”
“I think you have the wrong number,” the voice said.
“Isn’t Isabel Gallanzi there?”
“No,” she said, “you have the wrong number.”
“Oh, excuse me. I’m sorry,” he said, and he hung up.
He called back later that day.
“Hello?” the same voice said.
He recognized the voice at once this time. Abruptly, bringing his voice down an octave, he said, “Lemmee talk to Joe.”
“Who?”
“Joe. Joey. Lemmee talk to him.”
“There’s no Joey here,” the woman said. “You have the wrong number.”
“Argh, goddamnit,” Larry said, and he hung up.
He was unable to reach her for three days, and now when that same infuriating voice came onto the line, the voice that was so close to Maggie’s without being hers, he was ready to scream at it.
“Hello?” the voice said.
“Honey, this is Sam,” he answered instantly. “You said you wanted ice cream, but you didn’t—”
“You must have the wrong number,” the woman said.