The switchboard job also gave her a tingly feeling of independence and possibility, and her first taste of power. For someone like Vivian, that was exhilarating, although “exhilarating” was a word she never would have used. She just would’ve said it was “crazy.”

Vivian could hardly believe that people were counting on her to get their calls through. Little ole her, Vivian McGinty. Middle child. She followed the rules to a T in her first few months. But, once she was trusted to perform on her own, she began to stretch her authority.

“Number, please,” she’d say.

“Gimme MAson-8812, sister, and make it snappy.”

If the caller was like that? All brash and rude, without a “please,” and with a “make it snappy”? Not on your life. Vivian’d flip the switch and yank the cord to break the connection, leaving the caller listening to dead air as she moved on to the next blinking light.

“Number, please.”

“Yes, could you please connect me with GArden-3662?”

Now, that was more like it. A pleasant tone and a “please” meant Vivian would nod, flip the switch back, plug in the cord connecting the call, and then move on to the next blinking light.

Once, when Leona was on her lunch break, Vivian had felt a sudden urge as she looked at the mangled octopus of cords plugged into the board. Ooh, that urge’d been strong. She’d flexed her hands and thought, You really shouldn’t, you know. But then the urge had overtaken her. She’d stood up from her chair and raised her eyebrows at the other girls. She’d bent her left arm and swept it under all the cords in one swift movement, unplugging all those calls at the same time and disconnecting the people of Wooster. Pluck, pluck, pluck, pluckity-pluck, pluck went the cords.

“Hey!”

“Hey, what . . .”

“What’s the idea?”

“Hey!”

The other operators had sounded just like the cords being plucked out of their sockets. Vivian had felt a rush of excitement as the cords popped out and dropped with a clatter over the countertop. The accusing faces had turned to her all sourpusses and surprised Os, and a few with genuine anger. One (Mary Fletcher, that rat fink) had gone straight to Leona and told her what Vivian had done.

She might’ve been fired if Leona hadn’t liked her so much. If it’d been up to Mary Fletcher, Vivian would’ve been out on her can. But Leona’d just taken her off the schedule for the next week, and Vivian’d felt horrible and full of remorse, mostly because of the lost wages.

What that little experiment had proved, though (Tattletale Rat Fink Fletcher aside) was that Vivian finally had some control. Never before in her life had she had such a sense of control. She couldn’t have predicted that, some twenty-odd years later, that sense of control would be suddenly doused, like a flaming match dropped into a glass of water, with one late-night phone call.