The Night Listener : A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

adjustment was being made, either to him or his bed or the apparatus draining his lungs.
    I asked if this was a bad time to talk.
    “My mom is here,” he explained. “Bein’ a big pain.”
    “Hey,” came a woman’s voice softly scolding him.
    “This is him,” he told her. “Say something.” Whereupon Donna came on the line. “Hello, Him,” she said. Her voice was honeyed oak, as sturdy as it was warm. Odd as it seems now, I felt instantly at ease with her, as if we’d been gabbing on the phone for years, sharing everything.
    “Thanks for arranging this,” I said.
    “Oh, please. You did me the favor. I’ll be hearing about this for months, believe me.”
    “Well…glad to be of service.”
    “We’re doing the yucky stuff now. If I’d known he was gonna call you I would’ve told him to hold off a tad longer.” I said I understood completely.
    “You’re his favorite writer, you know.”
    “Well, he’s mine,” I said. “From now on.”
    “C’mon.”
    “I mean it. Ashe didn’t exaggerate a bit.”
    “Oh, God, really? That’s so great.”
    She was clearly pleased, but she sounded distracted. In light of
    “the yucky stuff” at hand and the complications I’d already caused, I thought it wise to sign off. “Look,” I told her, “I’ll call back later.”
    “You don’t have to. You’ve done plenty.”
    “I’d like to. If it’s okay.”
    “Of course. If you’re sure it isn’t…”
    “I’m sure,” I said.
    Donna gave me their phone number. I read it back to her twice, slowly, as if it were a private line to Camp David, or, back in the old days, the unlisted number of some really hot guy I’d met at the baths.
    There are moments, I think, when you actually feel your life changing, when you can all but hear the clumsy clank and bang of fate’s machinery.
     
    FOUR

    ROUGHHOUSING

    “GUESS I WAS RIGHT, HUH?”
    My bookkeeper was up in the window, calling down to the hot tub, where I floated naked and bereft, feeling sorry for myself in the least pitiable of places. It was four o’clock and foggy; the shampooey spice of the eucalyptus trees was drifting down from the woods.
    “About what?” I asked.
    “That book.”
    “Oh, yeah. You were, actually.” I didn’t have a clue as to how she’d deduced this.
    “There’s a message on your machine,” Anna explained, “from somebody who’s gotta be the author. Except that he sounds about ten.”
    My sodden heart stirred like some half-dead creature on a beach.
    “What did he say?”
    “Want me to play it for you?”
    “Yeah. If you would.”
    Anna left the window and returned moments later with the answering machine, which she set on the sill. I noticed something flicker in her dark hair: a streak of electric magenta that hadn’t been there on her last visit. It seemed out of character somehow, even for someone so certifiably young; Anna was such a no-nonsense sort of person.
    Then Pete’s voice settled on me like the song of a small, gray bird:
    “Hey, dude. I just wanted to thank you for reading my book. I hope you’re doin’ okay. You sounded kind of weird on the phone. No offense or anything. You don’t have to call back, unless you want to, but you better want to, you big dicksmoker. You know where to find me, unless I’m out Rollerblading with the Spice Girls. Yeah right, Lomax, dream on. Okay, that’s all, take it easy, man.” Silence consumed the garden again. Anna just stood there, gazing down at me expectantly.
    “Thanks,” I said.
    She blinked at me a moment longer, then left the window. I knew I owed her an explanation, but I just couldn’t do it. Even now, it seemed patently disloyal to launch a new story with anyone other than Jess. I needed him here to make it real for me, to trim its ragged edges and file it on the proper shelf, before I could offer it for general consumption.
    I sank into the velvety curve of the wood and let the warm water hold me. The little beige bromine floater drifted by,