Etiquette and Vitriol by Nicky Silver (classic fiction .txt) 📗

This is Contact. Can I help you?

AMANDA: Yes. Well, probably not. I mean, I can’t imagine how you could. I just, I wanted someone to talk to and it seemed too late to call anyone—

BEA: What’s your address?

AMANDA: Pardon me?

BEA: What is your address?

AMANDA: Why do you ask?

BEA: This is a crisis hotline. I need your address.

AMANDA: I don’t see how that’s relevant.

BEA: I am not allowed to talk to you without an address.

AMANDA: I don’t know that I want you—

BEA (A threat): I’m hanging up.

AMANDA: 241 West 21st Street.

BEA: That was so painful?

AMANDA: I just don’t see the purpose—

BEA: Have you swallowed anything?

AMANDA: I just wanted to talk to someone.

BEA: What floor are you on?

AMANDA: Six.

BEA: Is the window looking more and more inviting?

AMANDA: I believe you have the wrong idea.

BEA: You have any firearms?

AMANDA: Firearms?

BEA: You know, guns, whatnot.

AMANDA: Certainly not.

BEA (Irritated): Are you lying to me? I will not tolerate being lied to!

AMANDA: I’m not going to do anything drastic.

BEA: Oh people say that. They always say that. People lie.

AMANDA: I assure you, I have no intention of—

BEA: Last week, Tuesday, I think, Tuesday or Wednesday, I can’t remember—I’m on the phone forty-five minutes with this young man, forty-five minutes, and he’s swearing up and down that he has no intention of doing anything—and after all that time, mittin-drinnen, out he sails. Right out the window. Dead.

AMANDA: Oh my.

BEA (A fact): People lie.

AMANDA: What was troubling him?

BEA: Oh, I can’t remember. Something. Something was wrong with him. Who can keep it straight. But I tell you, I felt VERY betrayed!

AMANDA: I won’t jump out the window.

BEA: That’s why I’m on graveyard. I had a perfectly lovely shift: six to ten. After the talk shows and before the news. Now, I’m on graveyard.

AMANDA: I’m sorry.

BEA: I felt very betrayed.

AMANDA: I understand.

BEA: Right out the window. Splattered. Dead. I heard the whole thing. It was terrible. What can I do for you, darling?

AMANDA: I just wanted to—talk to someone.

BEA: You’re lonely?

AMANDA: Well, I wouldn’t say that.

BEA: No. You’re calling strangers in the middle of the night, but you’re not lonely.

AMANDA: Alright, I’m lonely.

BEA: Well, let me tell you, everyone’s lonely, my dear—what’s your name?

AMANDA: Amanda.

BEA: Amanda, loneliness is my oxygen. I breathe loneliness. I’m Bea, and you don’t know what loneliness is until you’ve walked a mile in my shoes. You haven’t tasted loneliness, you haven’t been in the same state with it. I lost my husband several years ago—I don’t want to dwell. Allif a sholem. So what’s the trouble?

AMANDA: My husband is . . . gone.

BEA: Gone? You mean dead gone? What do you mean? Be specific.

AMANDA: No, no. He’s just gone.

BEA: Is he missing? D’you call the police? Not that they’ll do anything.

AMANDA: I haven’t called the police. I mean, he’s fine. He called me to say he was fine. He said he needed some time to work.

BEA: When was that?

AMANDA: Two weeks ago.

BEA: How long you been married?

AMANDA: Three weeks.

BEA: And he’s been missing?

AMANDA: Two weeks.

BEA: I see.

AMANDA: He’s working on a film. He writes films.

BEA: Did he write Howard’s End?

AMANDA (Bewildered): No.

BEA: Too bad. I loved that picture! That is a beautiful picture. Did you see that picture?

AMANDA: No.

BEA: Ya should see it. See it on the big screen if you can. It was a lovely, lovely picture.

AMANDA (Testy): Well, I didn’t see it.

BEA: Oh.

AMANDA: He makes small, independent films.

BEA: Did you see Enchanted April?

AMANDA: No.

BEA: Me neither. I’m dying to.

AMANDA (Lighting another cigarette): The point is—

BEA: Are you smoking?

AMANDA: Why?

BEA: Oh it’s a terrible habit. You mustn’t smoke. How old are ya darling?

AMANDA: Thirty.

BEA: You have your whole life ahead of ya, which, if you stop smoking, could be a long, wonderful adventure.

AMANDA: I’m not smoking.

BEA: I heard you.

AMANDA: I have asthma. I wheeze sometimes.

BEA: Are you lying to me!?

AMANDA: No. I’m not. I’m not. I swear.

BEA: Did you see Room with a View?

AMANDA (Lying): Yes.

BEA: Oh was that a wonderful picture? Did you love that picture?

AMANDA: It was very good.

BEA: I loved that picture. So let me understand. You’ve been married three weeks and your husband’s been missing for two of them?

AMANDA: Correct.

BEA: Did your husband—what’s his name?

AMANDA: Ford.

BEA: That’s a beautiful name! I love that name. Did Ford—I love saying it—did Ford tell you where he was going?

AMANDA: Well, it was a Monday. We’d spent the week on Martha’s Vineyard. You see, it was our honeymoon and Ford has a friend who owns a house on Martha’s Vineyard, which he never uses—

BEA: What’s his name?

AMANDA: Who?

BEA: The friend, the friend with the house.

AMANDA: Why?

BEA: Maybe I know him.

AMANDA: Lillian.

BEA: His name is Lillian?

AMANDA: Yes.

BEA: Go figure.

AMANDA: In any event, we spent the week at Lillian’s house. It was our honeymoon.

BEA: How was the sex?

AMANDA: It was good.

BEA: When you say “good,” you mean what, exactly?

AMANDA: I mean it was good.

BEA: We’ll come back to that. So you’re in the city with Ford— I love that name!

AMANDA: Yes. We’re back in the city. It’s Monday morning. We had breakfast. And after breakfast, he told me that he wanted to go for a walk. So naturally, I started to put my shoes on. I thought he meant together.—But he said, he wanted to go alone. He was working on an idea for a film, mapping it out in his mind, as it were. I was a little hurt, to be honest. But I understand that the creative process is a very delicate dance. Ford is a genius. I’d seen all of his films before we’d ever even met, and I always found them—searing. Just searing and penetrating in a very powerful way. So, I didn’t want to question his process. It’s very important that an artist be nurtured. . . . So he went out. And I took a shower. This was about noon. After that, I tried to do some writing. I’m a poet—vocationally. That’s what I do. I was working on a new poem: “Untitled 103,” and I was very absorbed