She picks up the phone on the first ring and this is startling. In a world of caller ID, answering machines, and just plain screening, I’ve grown accustomed to the half-second pause, the interminable beat while your identiy is parsed against a list of friends, enemies, acquaintances, unknowns. A period of swift judgement where condemnation is not met by punishment but purgatory, rings echoing into the earpiece, leaving you to wonder for a while, not even knowing if you’ve been judged.

In this world, to not know who is on the other end of the phone line is a risk.

She picks up the phone; despite the length of wire I can tell she grips it with the intensity of a rock climber grasping a wedge of limestone, she is nervous and exhilarated. For a second, until I respond to her questioning “Hello?”, until I respond to her, she is hanging by her fingernails. Anything can happen; I can be anyone; the boss, an old boyfriend, a current girlfriend, her mother.

The half-beat is mine, now, to wonder. Who am I in her mind? Who does she hope I am? I’ve been waiting to call her for two days in some idiotic ritual advised by an idiotic magazine – does she even thing I’ll still call?

Slowly, my hand returns the phone to the cradle. I hear her voice crackle through the air as it hits the hook, cutting her off as I let her keep her sense of adventure.