The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg

mean.”
    “I’ll tell you what,” I said. “I’ll go over there. I’ll go to her house and talk to her.”
    “You want me to come?” Steve asked, and I shook my head no. I pressed the button for the elevator. “Tell Pete where I went. I’ll see you later.”

10
    ANTHONY WAS RIGHT: I HAD TO GET A CELL PHONE. I was standing at a bank of phones in a hall adjacent to a road-stop restaurant. I was squeezed between two callers: one a young dark-haired woman hunched over the receiver who apparently was attempting to have a secretive conversation, the other a wiry trucker sucking hard on a cigarette and yelling that he couldn’t possibly arrive on time, no, he could not possibly arrive on time; where was Phyllis, put Phyllis on the line, she was the only one in the whole place that knew what was really going on, where was goddamn Phyllis?
    On the way to Caroline’s, I had suddenly wanted to talk to my friend Maggie, to hear a voice from home saying that everything there is fine, everything there is still the same. I thought if I could hear her voice, I would be better able to visualize my house: the late-afternoon sunshine that makes an ellipse of light against the living room wall, the folded piles of fabric on my sewing table, the wooden spoons standing at attention in my kitchen, the doors to the kids’ rooms open halfway. I’d be able to see the hydrangea blossoms heavy on their bushes in the backyard, the treehouse that Hannah reads in. In addition to comforting myself with such images, I wanted to tell Maggie what had gone on, to ask her what she thought I should do. She was very good in situations like this.
    But she wasn’t there.
    If there is one thing I can’t stand, it’s being in dire need of talking to a girlfriend and having her husband answer the phone and say she’s not there. Then you have two problems: the person you so much need to connect with is not available,
and
you have to rearrange your emotions to converse with a man. There is not a thing in the world wrong with Maggie’s husband. Doug is affable and generous and a good cook to boot. But he is of the Y-chromosome school of emotional receptivity. So instead of trying to tell him what was going on, I took in a deep breath, turned down the anxiety flame, and said, “Okay! Well, I’ll just try later.” And then, in as friendly and even a tone of voice as I could muster, I said, “So what are you doing home in the middle of the day?”
    “It’s Saturday,” he said.
    And I said, “Oh. Right.”
    When I hung up, I stood for a moment in front of the phone, my arms crossed. It occurred to me to call Caroline and leave her a message letting her know I was on my way, that I’d be there soon after she arrived. But I didn’t.
    I got back in the car, started the engine, then turned it off. I rolled down the window, rested my forehead against the steering wheel, and closed my eyes. I’d only wanted to come home and go to the fair, just like always. Instead, I felt like I’d walked into a room where the door had slammed shut behind me, then disappeared altogether.
    A FEW BLOCKS AWAY FROM CAROLINE’S HOUSE, I pulled into a 7-Eleven. I’d decided I did want to call before I showed up; it seemed only fair. But when I tried her number, I got her voice mail. It was possible that she hadn’t arrived yet, but that seemed unlikely. It seemed more appropriate to imagine her lying in bed, fully clothed down to her shoes but under the covers, the way she sometimes was found after a bad day in high school.
    I bought a package of Twinkies, always our favorite as kids, and a
National Enquirer. A little joke, ha-ha; here you go, Caroline, now let’s finish talking and get this over with.
    I pulled into her driveway and parked behind her car. Caroline lived in a beautiful old Victorian that she’d bought when it was a wreck—raccoons had been living there. But she’d loved the bones of the house and saw its potential immediately. Now it was the nicest