After I talked to Junie on the phone for about twenty minutes regarding a rare doll that she found for three hundred dollars on eBay, and after I talked to my husband about making sure that Junie did not guilt him into buying the doll, which had green face paint dripping from her eyes and was outfitted with a Technicolor dream coat, I sat in my old room and squinted until my head hurt. I took several deep breaths until I felt dizzy, and then I called the first number on the list, a Knoxville area code. I almost started crying when it rang, and then I made a little sound like a bark when it rang the second time, and then I don’t remember the third or fourth or fifth ring, but then it was an answering machine recording that said, “This is Lydia, leave a message and maybe I’ll call you back,” and I just sat there, dumbfounded. There was the beep, and I was not breathing, not making a sound. I almost said the line, almost, but then I just hung up. I crossed off the number with a pen. I wanted to strangle Lydia. I was just about to try the next number when my phone rang, and I dropped the phone, then cursed, then picked it up.

“Hello,” I said.

“You just called me,” Lydia said, not a question but a statement of fact. Her voice had none of the sultry playfulness of the answering machine message.

“Did I?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said, “you did. Or someone at this number did. Caller ID.”

“Oh, yes, I did,” I said. “I realized it was the wrong number when I heard your message.”

“What did you want?” she asked.

“Hmm?”

“Why did you call me?” she asked.

“Oh, ha, well, I was trying to call someone else.”

“How did you get the number?” she asked. Damn, Lydia was relentless.

“I didn’t. I mean, I must have misdialed. You know? Like . . . a wrong number.”

“Okay then,” she said, and it sounded like she did not believe me.

“Well . . . ,” I said, because I needed to be sure, just so I never had to call Lydia again.

“Yeah?”

“Is there a Zeke that lives there? Or a Ben?”

“Zeke and Ben?” she asked, sounding so wary of me. Why didn’t she just hang up the phone, for crying out loud?

“It’s the same person. They might go by Zeke or they might go by Ben. Or Benjamin, I guess.”

“No, there isn’t a Ben or a Zeke or a Benjamin or anyone like that here,” she said. “It’s just me.”

“Okay, well, sorry about that.”

“Who gave you the number?” she asked.

“Lydia? What’s going on? No one did. I must have misdialed. So sorry.”