The second call was from Willidene Gibbs, wife of an old lawyer and former partner of Ralph’s. Annabel picked it up on the first ring.

“Helloah? (Pause) No, I don’t. Look, I can’t guess, so I think you better tell me. (Pause) Willidene! Oooh! (Fake pleasure, not too convincing.) If you had a dollar for every time I’ve thought of you, you could travel all over the world on it. Look, I’ve got cookies in the oven (lie), so I may have to be abrupt. Oatmeal cookies, that’s the only kind they’ll touch. How’s mister? —Well, make him understand that carrying all that weight is a drain on the heart, look at Laird Cregar! (Pause) Oh, Ralph never changes, you know Ralph. (Implication: Ralph is my cross.) You wouldn’t know these boys, talk about big and handsome. Berry-berry’s traveling now, you know. Just seeing the country and we couldn’t be happier about it (lie), footloose and twenty-one, writes regularly (lie), says the Grand Canyon is breathtaking (lie), and I don’t know where all he’s been (true). Did you know if you throw a penny down it, you’ll never have arthritis? The Grand Canyon. I didn’t either, but that’s the saying. (Pause) Oooh! That little snotnose (me), do you know what he did? Quit school and didn’t say a word to either of us. We’re looking around for something private for him, more advanced; it’s so hard for him to drag behind with the slowpokes, I don’t blame him a bit. Do you know what I wish we could afford? An old-fashioned tutor! I may do it myself, you know, three hours a day, classes in the kitchen, we could make a game of it.”

There followed a series of seven yesses and two wonderfuls. But I don’t think Annabel was listening to Willidene Gibbs. The “cookies” started to burn, and she hung up.

Tonight there was a conversation between Annabel and Ralph in the basement.

Ralph uses the basement all the time now. He has his card table set up in front of the furnace. When the new stoker was put in, he went down there every few minutes to make sure it was operating right and to sneak a drink of Old Grandad, which he’s got bottles of hidden all over hell. Then finally he set up a card table and started working jigsaw puzzles and just stayed there. I think it makes him feel more like a Socialist to sit in a basement. Because upstairs Annabel’s got all kinds of Venetian blinds and knickknacks and it’s hard to think about proletarians, etc. Anyway he hates it up there. So do I. There’s something creepy about those two bedrooms going to waste, Berry-berry’s and the guest room. For a while Ralph tried to get Annabel to take in refugees so they wouldn’t be empty any more, but she put thumbs down on the whole idea. So now when Ralph sits in the basement it’s kind of like pouting. Sometimes I sit there with him and help him with the puzzles. But we don’t talk much because Annabel has got the basement tapped. Not exactly tapped. She uses the laundry chute. You open a little door in the bathroom and put your head inside, and you can hear everything that goes on in the basement. This does not bother me any. I understand the impulse. But it slows Ralph down some. However, when he is in a certain mood, he likes the idea that she’s listening and says some things especially for her benefit. For instance, before the refugee question simmered down, he had these regular broadcasts about how all women are fascists at heart, etc. For a while it was pretty nerve-racking.