Whenever You Call by Anna King Page B

I whispered.
    “Didn’t you get my message?”
    Her voice sounded weird. Maybe she had been a virgin, after all.
    “I had to get to class by nine a.m.”
    “Oh, that’s right, I forgot.”
    Pause.
    Jen said, “We did it.”
    “Yeah?”
    “It was totally wonderful.”
    She trailed off.
    “But?”
    “Something strange happened.”
    “Are we talking about anal sex or something?”
    Finally, she laughed. “No, not strange sexually .”
    “Jen, I don’t mean to rush you, but I’m late for the afternoon class, so I can’t continue this conversation much longer. If you want to tell me—”
    She interrupted, “Sorry, sorry, I’m used to you being free all day. Okay, so the strange thing was that I felt like I had both my legs and feet.”
    I was so stunned by what she’d said that I went dumb. All desire to return to class left me.
    “Told you it was weird.”
    “Can you explain a little more what you mean?”
    “It’s pretty hard to find the right words, like trying to talk about a dream. But it was as if my legs were there . I felt them. It was so strong that when we’d finished, I looked down and fully expected to see my feet.”
    “This is fascinating.”
    “That’s what Tom said.”
    “I bet.”
    Jen said, “What do you think it means?”
    “I’m going to need to think about it. Can we have dinner together tonight?”
    “I’m swamped because I took off early yesterday.”
    “Early for you.”
    She giggled. “And tomorrow night I’m seeing Tom again.”
    “You’re doing the terrible girlfriend thing to me!”
    “The thing where you let a long and important female friendship get destroyed by favoring a new man?”
    “That’s the one!”
    “Won’t happen.”
    “Anyway, it’s very good that you can’t have dinner tonight or tomorrow night because I have a great deal to do, what with memorizing drink recipes and stuff.”
    I had worn neither dirndl nor kilt to bar tending school that morning, and instead biked over wearing shorts for the first time that spring. Since my legs were so white when I got dressed, I’d smeared on copious amounts of self-tanning lotion. Now, as I started biking home, I noticed that my legs had turned a gruesome shade of dark brown, streaked with white. I looked like I had a serious skin disease. I decided to go running as soon as I got home and then take a long soaking bath with the hopes of scrubbing some of the brown off.
    As I was changing into running clothes, I tried to resist the lure of checking my e-mail. It was very nearly impossible to control myself until I realized that I was showing unhealthy signs of an addiction about hearing from Mr. Rabbitfish. And I had a terrible feeling that there would be nothing from him today, anyway. I ran to the Mt. Auburn Cemetery and along its winding paths, dodging rocks and gravestones at the same time.
    I never managed to actually think about anything while I ran except how to keep going despite my lungs heaving and my leg muscles burning. I wasn’t a natural runner, and people would probably argue that I should find some other sport, but I thought that was bullshit. I knew plenty of natural runners who had terrible knees and other runner-related injuries. I figured that since I was so bad at it, I would never overdo it. Brilliant, huh? So far, my theory was working.
    I was drenched in sweat by the time I got home. I pulled everything off while standing in my small entrance, then headed downstairs naked. I had a stackable washer/dryer unit hidden in a closet down there, and I immediately started a load of wash, then turned on the water in the bathtub to start filling it up. The good workout gave me confidence, so I checked my e-mail.
    No e-mails from Mr. Rabbitfish. I’d already begun to see a pattern in him. I’d receive a flurry of e-mails, or at least one, then nothing for several days. I wasn’t sure what this meant, but then, I wasn’t sure what anything meant when it came to Mr. Rabbitfish. Eventually,