Do Not Call Read online

  Do Not Call

  Julian Folk

  Copyright 2016 Julian Folk. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.

  The author greatly appreciates you taking the time to read his work. Please consider leaving a review, or telling your friends about it, to help him spread the word.

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  Chapter 1

  North Berkshire, Massachusetts

  Anxiety moistens Connor’s forehead. Fear hollows his gut. Resentment poisons his spirit.

  Husband and wife stand in the living room of the last house for sale in North Berkshire. If Ayelet disapproves, they must buy in another town, forcing Connor to drive to campus. His dream is to walk.

  He toiled eight years as grad student in Manhattan. The department handled room and board and issued him a yearly stipend of $11,000. Living that way, he learned to cherish the small things. The walk to campus ranked as his sweetest pleasure.

  North Berkshire’s realtor, Vanessa, a redhead withering under Ayelet’s high standards, recites the stats:

  “Cape-style, built in the thirties, owned by a writing professor at the college, Dr. Thompson. Spring thaw came late this year. A foot of snow melted in one day. Dr. Thompson slipped on the overnight refreeze and died. He was 92.”

  “I hate refreeze,” Connor says.

  Dust particles float in the air. The lights emit a liver failure-yellow. The carpet disintegrates under their shoes.

  “I assume the professor lost his wife decades ago,” Ayelet says.

  Impatient, disdainful, she folds her arms under her chest. This is Ayelet’s sixth month of pregnancy. The stance looks uncomfortable. Seconds pass and she adjusts it, putting her arms akimbo.

  “Mrs. Thompson passed in the early eighties,” Vanessa says.

  Connor reminds himself he could live in a tree stump, if he had to, and shower and shave at the campus gym. He has no standards to speak of. A house is shelter. Period.

  “Any engineer worth his salt would praise the structural integrity of this home,” Vanessa says and directs attention to the ceiling of the master bedroom. No water damage. Nothing sunken in.

  We’re grinding Vanessa down, Connor thinks. She lacks the will to sell the house properly. If Connor wants to walk to campus, he must sell this house himself.

  Connor’s lectures draw high ratings. His blend of hipster handsome and hotshot charisma works magic. He steals a glance at Ayelet.

  She wilts on the inside.

  Six-feet-tall, candlewax-white skin, jet black hair and curves galore, Ayelet’s a best-selling author whose sense of humor is dry as drought-stricken plains. Dov, her agent, currently battles the networks to bring the best possible adaptation of her fantasy series, The Mother of the World, to the silver screen.

  Professor Thompson’s dump offends every cell in Ayelet’s body. Connor wouldn’t be surprised if their unborn son kicks her stomach in protest. His wife would rather bathe in vomit than plunk down cash for this house.

  He needs to uncover one positive attribute and focus her attention on it.

  So he ventures to the dining room.

  “Vintage china cabinet,” he says. “Immaculate plates. Dusty, but...”

  Prepared for disaster, he strolls to the kitchen and flips the light. Brand new stainless steel spanks his face. A quartz countertop clobbers it. Professor Thompson outlasted his kitchen, so he bought a new one.

  Connor opens the oven and inspects. Cast iron, not a blemish on it, pristine. Undefiled by food.

  Why isn’t Vanessa touting this?

  “New kitchen, babe,” he says.

  “Warped cabinets,” Ayelet says, right on top of him. “Too claustrophobic.”

  Connor regroups and strategizes:

  Ayelet quit law after two years of practice. As a consequence, her parents, Val and Jeff, cut the financial umbilical cord. Accordingly, she rented a one bedroom in Bed-Stuy. What made that apartment okay?

  Connor recalls a line. She said it at the rooftop party where they met: “My place isn’t much but it’s quaint.”

  Quaintness is key.

  What, in this dump, is quaint, or could be made quaint?

  He turns the faucet knob in fear. The water ran brown at a previous house, where tree roots passed through the pipes. Estimate of ten thousand bucks to fix.

  “No tree roots in the pipes, right, Vanessa?” Ayelet asks.

  “None,” Vanessa says.

  The realtor sneaks a swig from a flask.

  “Turn the tap,” Vanessa says. “Water’s clear as the North Berkshire sky.”

  Connor’s final scan of the kitchen yields a nice result. The window. It affords a view of the woods in back. Massive spruce trees. Up to two hundred feet high. They resemble the new condo buildings sprouting in Brooklyn.

  Connor tugs Ayelet to the window.

  “It’s like a city of trees,” he says.

  “Sort of,” Ayelet says.

  “My whole life I’ve lived away from nature,” he says.

  “Folks ice skate on the lake back there,” Vanessa says. She sneaks another swig. “Takes a couple days to freeze, depending on conditions. The town tests the ice. Nobody falls in.”

  “Awesome,” Connor says. “I’m a swimmer. Used to swim competitively in school—”

  “Snapping turtles in the lake’ll bite your balls off,” Vanessa says. Her vodka breath wafts. “They guard their turf like heck. Go swim somewhere else.”

  “Got it,” Ayelet says.

  Is his wife’s resistance melting?

  If it is, it melts at a slow rate. Connor takes Ayelet’s hand, ashamed by his sweaty palm. World, give him this one thing. LET HIM CLOSE THIS SALE—

  But a sudden, shrill noise stabs his eardrums. He jumps. The noise drills holes in his brain.

  Ayelet covers her ears.

  Then it stops a second.

  And starts again.

  A fucking phone…

  Connor hunts the source. Ayelet flanks him. Vanessa sneaks two swigs.

  The ring originates in the den. The old man’s musk hangs in the room. His ass imprinted itself, deep and detailed, on the seat of his armchair.

  There you are.

  A retro rotary phone on an end table.

  Its shade of red occupies a space on the spectrum between tomato and blood. Call it lava. The ring belongs to a lava red phone. Molten lava.

  “Oh, it’s so pretty,” Ayelet says, “and cool.”

  The unit looks like it was pilfered from the set of Chinatown. Connor hasn’t lived in a house with a landline in twelve years, since he left for college. He hasn’t encountered a working rotary phone in his life.

  Ayelet answers on the fourth ring:

  “House for sale.”

  Her fingers probe the dialing holes. Slants of afternoon sun chop up the phone. How noirish.

  Connor still hates it.

  “Sorry, Bud,” she tells the telemarketer. “No home loans. No debt. We’re folks who live in the black.”

  It’s true. They are. Connor did undergrad on academic scholarship. He’s debt-free AND income-free…

  Vanessa seesaws and grips the doorway molding to steady herself.

  “If you guys hope to use that ancient artifact,” she says, “go ahead and register your name on the Do Not Call List.”

  Ayelet nods, contemplating the phone.

  Is this piece of crap going to sell his wife on th
e house?

  Connor pictures his ideal morning as a husband, father and professor. He wakes up, makes love to Ayelet in his smiley porn-for-women style, washes her back in the shower, dresses sharp in a blazer and jeans, feeds Baby his baba, kisses Momma and Baby goodbye, hoofs it down the block, stops in at Bean-to-Martha’s on the corner for a coffee and a scone, crosses Main Street, strolls through campus, says hey to the young girls who wink his way, throws open the doors of the lecture hall and teaches his heart out.

  What a wonderful life.

  It’s why he spent his twenties eating cafeteria food, living in a shoebox and drinking swill.

  Ayelet cradles the retro phone like a baby.

  “How elegant,” she says.

  Yes, babe. Yes. SUPER-ELEGANT.

  “How refined,” she says.

  SUPER-REFINED.

  “How mysterious,” she says.

  SUPER-MYSTERIOUS.

  Her iPhone pings. A text. “Dov has news,” she says. “Vanessa, what’s the number here?”

  Ayelet instructs her agent to call the retro phone. She steps back, anticipating a shrill cry from the pre-digital world… The cry startles even when you expect it. She swoops down and snags the receiver mid-ring.

  “Yes, Dov,” she says.

  The realtor’s bag interests Connor. Its contents are clunky and heavy. Vanessa adjusts the strap on her shoulder. The items shift. No clinks. Those aren’t flasks or bottles. They’re books. Awaiting Ayelet’s autograph.

  Connor’s own book, How to Survive the Bully Apocalypse, a memoir of his resistance to a psychopathic high school bully, landed on the digital dustheap in April.

  Right here, right now, Ayelet’s world undergoes a revolution:

  “Oh, Dov, don’t kid me like that…”

  Of the cable networks, HBO has the budget to adapt Ayelet’s books, but they already broadcast a medieval fantasy series. The others could use one. But they’re not so flush.

  Ayelet’s good news is better than sex:

  “Oh, Dov… Oh, Dov… Oh my God I don’t believe it…”

  She pushes on her belly, as if to calm the baby.

  She whispers to Connor and points her pinkie at the phone, “What a clear connection on this landline.”

  Back to Dov, “Wait. Finish telling me in the living room. That’s where this phone belongs. Call back in a minute.”

  If the retro phone belongs in the living room, does that mean that Connor and Ayelet belong in this house?

  She unplugs and disconnects the phone. No word on her news. She walks it to the living room, gets on her pregnant knees, plugs in and connects. The shrill cry sounds.

  “What about the money?” she asks her agent

  Dov says the number.

  “I COULD DIE.”

  The agent elaborates.

  “Send me the papers.”

  She hangs up. The clang reverberates throughout the house. It hurts Connor’s ears as much as the rotary ring.

  “Showtime, the BBC and a production company from India have partnered to finance my show,” Ayelet says.

  His wife’s huge wild eyes captivate and intimidate Connor. Her cheeks glow so bright. Her smile could devour the world.

  “Season One’s budgeted at nine figures. My deal’s eight figures. They asked me to write the pilot. DO YOU BELIEVE IT, CONNOR? This shitty house is a good luck charm.”

  Connor’s legs go gelatinous. His heart weeps tears of joy. His ego commits hari-kari. Ayelet envelopes her husband in a warm hug wet with kisses.

  Vanessa openly swigs from her flask. She passes it to Connor. The booze scorches his esophagus. He daydreams of self-immolation.

  Ayelet texts the news to friends. Vanessa presents documents. Ayelet signs them. Vanessa thrusts the books at Ayelet, who has never been so glad to inscribe her masterpieces.

  Connor examines himself in the living room mirror. Blond hair, blue eyes, high cheekbones, slender nose, thin lips. Pure pretty-boy. This is the face of a trophy husband.

  I’ll be the best trophy in New England.

  Another shrill cry: the retro phone rings again. This time unwanted. The ring reverberates. Angry and petulant, it constitutes a sonic attack on Connor’s mood.

  He answers:

  “This residence is unoccupied.”

  “Sounds occupied to me, sir.”

  The caller’s attitude perturbs Connor, whose smile abruptly skews ugly.

  “I’m Bud at Mass National Bank. We offer home loans—”

  “Not interested,” Connor says. “My apologies. Have a good day.”

  He hangs up softly.

  “I’m gutting this house,” Ayelet says, “but keeping the red phone. We’ll register for the Do Not Call thingamabob first thing.”

  Then the phone rings AGAIN.

  Connor rips the receiver off the base and says nothing.

  “Do people deserve equal concern and respect?” Bud asks.

  The gall of this telemarketer elicits a laugh.

  “Not cold-calling jerks,” Connor says.

  “Fuckin’ bully,” Buds says and goes click.

  Bully?

  Ayelet volunteers to drive Vanessa home. The realtor opts to walk: “I’ll pick my car up tomorrow.” They watch her sway down the block toward Main Street. She takes a breather at Bean-to-Martha’s.

  Ayelet starts her Lexus.

  Connor buckles his seat belt.

  Equal concern and respect… Fuckin’ bully…

  The telemarketer’s words ring like the retro phone and awaken dormant anxieties. Connor’s mind devolves to a zoo in which the cages spring open at the same time. Nausea ensues.

  Ayelet blasts the AC. Warm air so far. The summer heat and East Coast humidity wring Connor’s skin like a sponge. He lowers the windows. Husband and wife hear a faint cry—the retro phone rings one more time.

  Ayelet laughs.

  Connor can’t.

  Chapter 2

  Ayelet stayed true to her word. Only the retro phone remains, perched on a new end table in the living room. Like a red cat that shrieks.

  Rain pushes the Labor Day/Housewarming festivities inside. Fifty invited guests turn up and so do half as many party crashers. Ayelet purchased a reservoir’s worth of beer, wine and liquor. Invited or not, the guests drain the reservoir by the minute. Many brought along copies of The Mother of the World trilogy and stacked the books at the door, names written inside. These readers have put money in her pocket—subsidizing the purchase and renovation of her new home—so she feels obligated to sign their books.

  The booze serves itself.

  The hors d’oeuvres don’t.

  Gladys, a next door neighbor and Professor of Ethics built like a starved ostrich, preps the baking sheets. Jordan, a Professor of Yoga Studies—bones lighter than air, body like water—works the oven.

  Ayelet’s assistants chat more than they help. She fantasizes about kicking everyone out and writing Book IV of her series. Her Showtime pilot script drew raves from the network.

  While stabbing toothpicks in the fried mac & cheese balls, Gladys notices movement in the backyard:

  “How brazen. Black bear’s hopping the fence. Come here. Take a look.”

  Ayelet lunges to the counter, nearly knocking the tray of mac & cheese balls into the sink. The backyard spotlight throws shadows of the tree and bushes against the fence. She discerns two black legs freefalling behind the bushes.

  “Smart bear,” Ayelet says. “Using the bushes as cover.”

  Jordan gently insinuates herself. The three women observe the bear’s head, a black bump, peek above the bush. The animal squats, bashful, turns on a dime and disappears in the tree’s shadow.

  “That big boy’s preparing to hibernate,” Gladys says. “I’m surprised your fence didn’t snap like a bunch of twigs.”

  Shit, Ayelet thinks. She rubs her belly. Worried for Baby. “Nobody told us about bears.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Jordan says. “People don’t get maule
d in Western Massachusetts. These guys eat bugs and leaves. They visit when Xavier’s napping in the hammock. Ignore them and they’ll go away. Just don’t run.”

  Xavier hears his name and joins the bear-watching party.

  Mid-forties, muscular but carb-friendly, the department head who fell in love with Connor’s research on the origins of bullying in colonial America kisses Jordan, his wife, luxuriantly on the mouth. Gladys recoils at the falling droplets of spittle but Ayelet gets hot.

  Maybe they’re swingers.

  The kiss breaks.

  “With the baby coming, Ayelet, I’d be more concerned about winter snow than wildlife,” Xavier says. “The heavens dump it on North Berkshire. Nor’easters are the worst. I’m talking huge snowdrifts. Snowdrifts like sand dunes. You could lose a twelve-year-old in those things.”

  Xavier leaves no trace of wine in his glass.

  Ayelet serves the mac & cheese balls on a wave of gusto and aplomb.

  She has it all—career, husband, baby-on-the-way—and she knows it.

  Connor is holding his own tonight. The man has issues. She wouldn’t label him damaged, per se, but scarred, for sure. And his scar tissue runs deep.

  That memoir of his devastated her.

  On a desk in the boys’ locker room, with a scalpel stolen from AP Bio lab, Connor’s high school bully, Eric Rice, castrated him. The principal persuaded Eric to surrender Connor’s balls. Surgeons reattached the scrotum and re-connected the tubes.

  In an earlier misadventure, a boy named Brad, acting on Eric’s orders, chased Connor at a local festival. Connor sprinted into traffic and Brad followed unthinkingly. A minivan struck Brad and killed him. Eric implored his beat cop-father, driving a police department cart, to pursue Connor. Officer Rice caught him three blocks west and threw Connor against the brick façade of Barclays bank. Wielding his baton, he split Connor’s skull.

  I feel so guilty, Ayelet thinks. Nobody bullied me in high school.

  Much as she would rather be writing her heart out, this night belongs to Connor.

  Ayelet dings her wine glass. One-by-one, the guests surrender their attention to her. Or try to. Notifications ping their phones. Many phones receive them at the same time.