In Big Trouble

'Are you saying you never want to be with another man, or that you've finally gotten tired of the himbo parade that's been marching through your life?'

Kitty held out her plate to Esskay and let the dog lap up the traces of whipped cream. When she spoke again, her voice was slow and careful, as if she were making a confession.

'A new UPS man took over the route today. He came in with a shipment of books, wearing his shorts, although it's a bit late in the season for that. He had the nicest legs. You know how I like men's calves. Single, he made a point of letting me know, and very keen to see the Fritz Lang double bill at the Orpheum. I was two sentences away from having a date with him, if I wanted one. But I didn't, and I don't know why.'

'I swore off men, even before I had Laylah to worry about,' Jackie said. 'When I was trying to build my business, I felt as if I were a battery and they drained all the energy out of me. Now I'm a single mother and all the energy is drained out of me. Even with help-and all the support I'm getting from you guys-I'm exhausted most of the time. What would I do with a man, even if I could find one? And what would a man do with me? Watch me fall asleep in front of the television at nine o'clock?'

Tess said nothing. Her recent abstinence from men-from love, from passion, from all entanglements, however wrongheaded-had felt like a twelve-step program. One day at a time, and she was always aware in her mind of just how many days that had been. She liked men. They used to like her.

'I don't seem to meet guys anymore,' she said. 'Is that because I turned thirty?'

'You're healthier,' Kitty said. 'Mentally, I mean. You don't give off that damaged vibe you used to have. There's a large class of men with a homing instinct for women who are vulnerable, and that's why there was always someone lurking, ready to take advantage of you.'

'You're not damaged, and you've always had your pick of men,' Tess pointed out.

'I'm at the other end of the spectrum-true indifference. They start off thinking I'm the perfect woman because I want them only for their bodies, then end up saying I'm heartless. If you only knew how many men had accused me of objectifying them, or using them for sex.'

Kitty laughed, pleased with herself for being such a cadette. Laylah clapped her baby hands and laughed with her, while Jackie just shook her head and snorted: 'White girl craziness.'

It was one of Jackie's favorite expressions, but Tess thought it didn't apply here. Different pathologies for black and white women, but pathologies all the same. Valuing the men who didn't value you. Settling for vicarious power, instead of grabbing your own chunk of it. Worrying about the size of your butt. She had a sudden yearning to sweep Laylah up in her arms and tell her that they'd have it all worked out by the time she was a grown- up.

Jackie picked up the clipping that Kitty had left on the table. 'He is kind of cute. I hope you're going to call him, make sure he's okay.'

'I am not. Let him call me if he wants to talk. My home number hasn't changed, even if it's unlisted now.'

'You know for a fact he sent this?' Jackie had switched to her professional persona, the steely-eyed Grand Inquisitor who had built her fund-raising business into such a hot property that clients ended up auditioning for her.

'Well, no, but he's the only person I know in Texas.'

'The only person you know you know in Texas. Besides, what if he really is in a bind? I know you, girl, you'll never forgive yourself if something happens to that boy.'

Kitty nudged the portable phone toward Tess with her elbow. Tess ignored it, pouring herself another glass of wine. 'If I were to call-if-do you think I would do it here, within your hearing?'

Jackie and Kitty smiled smugly at each other, while Laylah made another pass at Esskay, squealing in delight when the dog ran away and slunk under the table, whimpering piteously.

'What does the doggie say, Laylah?' Jackie asked automatically.

'Meow,' Laylah said. 'Meeeee-ow.'

Not even an hour later, Tess sat on her bed in the third-floor apartment above the store, Esskay nestled beside her, yet another glass of wine on her bedside table. Almost eleven o'clock. An hour earlier in Texas, and a Friday night. He'd be out, of course, performing with his band, lots of Texas girls staring at him hungrily. Texas women were reputed to be better-looking than women from elsewhere. She imagined a super-gender with hard bodies, harder hair, tanning-bed tans, and those taut neck cords that come from years of expert bulimia. Barfing sorority girls with credit cards, convertibles, and eager, grasping mouths. Girls who kept a man out late, assuming he got home at all.

So if she called now, she'd get his machine. A machine would be a nice compromise, actually. Ideal, even, the equivalent of a drive-by shooting in the gender wars. Tag, you're it.

'What city?' asked the mechanical voice attached to the 512 area code.

'Austin,' she said into the alloted portion of silence.

'What listing?'

'Cr-Edgar Ransome.' She had to grope for his real name. Crow had always been Crow to her.

The voice provided ten digits and she punched them in from memory, only to hear another mechanical voice: 'I'm sorry the number you have called is not in service…'

She stared at the phone, puzzled. The phone must have been cut off pretty recently if he was still listed. Oh well, Crow wouldn't be the first musician to miss too many phone bills. Although his doting parents, the ones who had been so tolerant of his six-year plan at the Maryland Institute, College of Art, had always been good-natured about subsidizing him.

And if he were really in trouble, he'd go to them. Why hadn't she thought of this before? An only child like her, Crow had been brought up in a much more stereotypically worshipful home. In fact, his ego was so intact, his self-esteem so genuine, that it was as if it had been baked in his mother's kiln and coated with layers of shiny glaze. At least, she thought his mother had a kiln. She hadn't really paid close attention when he spoke of his parents, but she remembered something about his mother's ceramics, his father's economics classes, which had sounded vaguely Marxist to her. A pair of gentle, retrograde hippies, raising their son simply to be.

She flipped open her datebook. It still surprised her to see how busy her life had become. The fall was full of meetings and appointments. It wasn't just work and workouts, either, but dinners with old and new friends, even 'dates' with her mom. It had been nice, being sought-after, but suddenly all those names and numbers and addresses just made her weary.

Under R, she found the information Crow had inked in long ago, when these pages were emptier. There was his number, in the little Bolton Hill studio apartment he had all but vacated while they were together. His birthday, 8-23 ('Two Virgos!' he had written in his ecstatic, spiky handwriting, and she liked him for not making a crude joke at their expense). His clothing sizes, his Social Security number, the number of his favorite Chinese takeout place, and just in case she ever needed him during his infrequent trips home, a number and address for his parents in Charlottesville.

'Much too late to call strangers,' she told Esskay. 'After eleven, all phone calls are bad news.'

Esskay, still disgruntled at her undignified treatment at Laylah's baby hands, gave Tess a skeptical look, snorted, and rolled over, turning her bony spine toward her. Tess dialed the phone, rehearsing her opening lines. You don't know me but…We've never met but…Did your son ever mention we were sleeping together until I broke his heart, then came crawling back and he broke my heart, so now we're really even-steven, and I don't owe him a thing, right?

'Hello?' A woman's voice, low and husky. Not a Southern accent, for the Ransomes were New England transplants. But the clipped Bostonian edges seemed to have been smoothed down by the years in Virginia.

'Is this the Ransome residence?'

'Yes. Who's calling?' There was something tentative in the voice, something fearful. Tess realized that bad news must often begin this way: Is this so-and-so's residence?

'We've never met but I'm Tess Monaghan-'

'Oh, Tess!' Mrs. Ransome's relief was so intense it seemed to flow through the phone. 'I feel as if I know you. How's your aunt, Kitty? And the greyhound, I want to say its name is Jimmy Dean, but that's not quite right, is it?'

'Right section of your supermarket. It's Esskay, as in the Schluderberg-Kurdle Company of Baltimore, finest