letting the damned thing wake Sam.
She settled her head back on the pillow, in control now, and pressed the cool plastic receiver to her ear. Her palm was damp, slippery on the phone’s smooth surface. She had to adjust her grip to hold on. “‘Lo.”
“I want to speak with Sam, please.” A woman’s voice. Young. Tense. And something else: angry.
“Who’s calling?”
“Tell him Lisa.”
“Well, listen, Lisa, Sam’s asleep.” Something cold and ugly moved in Allie’s stomach. Its twin awoke in her mind. “Is it important? About work?”
“Not about work.” Was that a laugh? “I don’t work with Sam. But it’s important, all right.”
Allie didn’t say anything. She was fighting all the way up from sleep, reaching out for answers and finding only questions. Lisa … Did she and Sam know a Lisa? Had Sam ever mentioned the name?
Lisa said, “Gonna let me talk to him?”
“It’s almost midnight; he’s asleep. Sure it can’t wait till morning?”
“It can’t wait.”
Allie stared into deeper darkness where she knew ceiling met walls. A corner; no way out. “Hold on.”
She nudged Sam’s ribs and whispered his name.
He rolled over, facing her. She caught a whiff of his warm breath, the wine they’d had with dinner. His upper chest and neck gathered pale light but his face was in shadow. “Whazzit?”
“You awake?”
“‘Course not.”
“Well, you got a phone call. Woman named Lisa.”
“She on the line now?”
“Now. Waiting. ”
Sam was quiet for a long time. Allie could hear him breathing rapidly. She felt her world sliding out from under her. It was making her sick, dizzy. Too casually, he said, “Tell her I’ll call her in the morning.”
Allie pressed the receiver back to the side of her head, so hard that it hurt. She gave Lisa Sam’s message.
“You’re his wife,” Lisa said, sounding furious and determined. “I know he’s married, ‘cause I followed him home from my apartment. Saw you two through the window, then saw you come out together and followed you. Saw how you acted together. Tell him that. Explain to him I know his name’s really Jones, just like it says on his mailbox. Tell him he better fucking talk to me, or I’ll talk a lot more to you.”
Allie listened to her own breathing. “I don’t think I will tell him. Anyway, he’s asleep again.”
“I really think you should.”
“Sorry, I don’t agree. You’ve got a lot of your facts wrong, Lisa.”
“Not the essential one. Wake up Sam, if he really is asleep. Put him on the goddamn phone.”
“No.”
Lisa laughed, not with humor. The bitter sound seem to flow from the phone like bile. “You poor, dumb bitch.” She hung up. Hard.
Allie lay unmoving, the receiver droning in her ear. The darkness closed in on her tightly, making it difficult to breathe.
After a while she said, “Sam?”
Seconds passed before he said, “Hmmm?” Drowsy. Pretending to be asleep. Maybe it was all a dream. Maybe hope could make it so, glue it where it was broken so nobody would know the difference and nothing was changed from the time they’d gone to sleep.
But Allie knew it couldn’t be repaired.
“Lisa told me to say she knew you were married. That she followed you home.”
He gave a long, phony sigh, as if this didn’t concern him and he resented it interfering with his rest. “Whaddya say her name was?”
“Lisa.”
“Last name?”
“You tell me.”
Nothing but silence from the darkness on Sam’s side of the bed. A jetliner roared overhead like a lion in a distant jungle. The echo of traffic rushed like flowing black water in the night.
She watched him in silhouette. “She’ll call back, Sam.”
Lying on his stomach, he raised himself up so that his upper body was propped on his elbows, head hanging to stare at his pillow. It was a posture of despair. His hair had fallen down over his forehead and was in his eyes. “Yeah, I guess she will.”
Allie said in the calm voice of a stranger, “Who is she, Sam?”
