Whenever You Call Read Online Free PDF Page B

disconcerted not merely because he was behaving so strangely, but also because I couldn’t understand why .
    Yeah, he was a nutter.
    On that note, I wandered back into the bathroom and rubbed cream over my arms, paying special attention to my elbows, then my legs, and more extra attention to my ankles and knees. Finally, my face. I took my flannel nightgown from its hook on the back of the door, and dropped it over my head. Though we’d been having such warm spring weather, it still got cool at night, particularly in a two-hundred-year old carriage house with the heat turned off .
    In my study, I went over to the computer and reread his e-mail. I couldn’t resist. What can I say? I’m far from perfect, especially when my romantic sensibility is engaged. Also, as a writer, I’d come to trust my judgments about people. So, yeah, he was a nut case, except … he wasn’t. I knew it. He called to me and I was unable to resist answering the call.
    I think I know you.
    I hit SEND.
    I couldn’t really explain why I wrote that. He could, and probably would, judge me as crazy. Maybe that would put an end to the whole nonsense. I turned off the computer and printer, then switched off all the lights. A light from the steep stairway shone down and lit my way as I climbed the stairs. In my bedroom, I reorganized the pillows so that I would have a nest in the center of the bed and I poked the switch on the electric blanket. The window on the front of the house was wide open, which I left that way, but I closed the window in the back because there was only a dark alley out there and it tended to creep me out. I snapped the lock on the window into place. By the time I’d climbed into bed, the blanket had become toasty.
    I expected to lie in the dark, worrying about what to do with myself professionally, now that I’d received Jenny’s blessing to quit the writing gig. I started to compose a letter to my agent and, zap, I was asleep. I woke up sometime in the middle of the night, in a state of complete confusion. I wasn’t sure that I’d really been asleep at all, but the glowing dial of the alarm clock read 3:12 in the morning. I turned over and tried to pretend that, number one, I wasn’t really awake, and number two, that I didn’t have to pee.
    Finally I gave up on all pretense and hauled myself out of bed and down the rickety stairs to the basement bathroom. After I’d gone to the bathroom, I felt even more awake. I went into my study and switched on a single lamp, then booted up the computer. By this time, I knew I’d woken up because I wanted to see whether Rabbitfish had answered my e-mail. And there was a reply from him, which had been sent only fifteen minutes earlier, at 2:55 a.m. Seemed like an odd time to be writing e-mails.
    I am not knowable. Sorry to disappoint you.
    Obviously, I could think of zillions of answers, some silly, some serious, and a few funny. I left the computer on, but turned off the small lamp, waited a few minutes until my eyes had adjusted to the dark, then carefully headed back upstairs to bed. I crawled under the covers, punched the pillows to make them plump up invitingly, and settled in. I’d made a resolution. No more e-mail exchanges with this Rabbitfish character.

4
    I SPENT THE NEXT couple of days immersed in the painful process of informing my publisher, agent, children, former husbands, and all manner of friends and relatives, that I was no longer a writer. I must have said the words, “I quit,” at least a hundred times. Unfortunately, the very next question everyone invariably asked was What are you going to do? I didn’t have a clue, which was what I said over and over again. This response didn’t resonate well. On Saturday morning, I carried my morning coffee out to the front steps of my house and sat down, wrapping my nightgown around my legs. I heard the phone ring inside, but I ignored it.
    Somehow, I had to come up with a plan. But how? I was suffering from a bad case