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"We actually do brunch at my place on Saturdays. Katie and I both usually whip things together. You are more than welcome to come."
I tried to shoot her "What are you doing?" eyes, but her gaze was stubbornly looking in any direction than at me.
"In fact, I think she should be up and running by this next Saturday. You should come. Give me your number. I can send you the address."
Accepting I was no longer a part of the conversation, I took my soup out of the microwave, and started to eat, standing there in my kitchen while my mom schmoozed Rush on my behalf.
Just when I finished, she was walking him to the door, thanking him for checking in on me, and reminding him that she expected to see him for brunch before closing the door, and turning back to me with an arched brow.
"I can't believe you invited him to brunch. You don't even know him."
"Honey, you get to know people by spending time with them," she reminded me. "Besides, he seems like a perfectly nice man."
"I don't need you to play matchmaker, Mom," I told her, putting my bowl in the sink, turning to flick the electric kettle on.
"I was just being friendly. Clearly, you know him better than you let on. So I assumed something was going on with you two. You didn't tell me anything about board games and book discussions. Or how handsome he is."
"We were looking for ways to pass time at the cabin," I insisted.
"And the handsome part?"
"Seemed inconsequential."
"Oh, honey, a man who looks like that is never inconsequential. I know, I know, it's not about looks. But he is also charming and sweet."
"You talked to him for fifteen minutes."
"Which was long enough to know what I know. And inviting him to brunch will only allow me to get to know him better."
"To what end?"
"To make a new friend."
"Mom."
"Fine," she said, sighing. "You two kept looking at each other like you had unfinished business."
"Well, we don't," I told her, shrugging. "It's finished. It is all finished."
And that was my intention.
Life, it seemed, had other plans.EIGHTRushWork was slow.
I mean, my job had been slow a lot lately.
But it was especially slow now.
Meaning I hadn't had a call in days, not since I came back from the woods.
I would sit at my desk at night waiting for a phone that never rang, a call that never came.
Not even her.
My regular.
A woman who called, but rarely spoke. If she did, she did so in a small voice, barely audible. Instead, she had specified in her notes that we asked callers to fill out, describing their preferences, that I talk to her. About "anything" she'd said. So, sometimes, I talked to her about the weather, something I was watching on TV, some news story I'd heard about that wasn't too controversial. And she just listened.
I guess that should have been weird. But lonely people just wanted to not be so alone sometimes, to hear a voice. Some people could go whole days without speaking to another human being. It was good to get relief from that. Even if you had to pay for it.
Sure, there were nights when I was a little heated from some book I'd been reading when the call came in. And those nights, the stories turned into dirty talk.
She would be on the other line, quiet for a while, but her breathing would get fast, ragged. Then, as things got hotter, she would make these quiet little mewling noises.
Now, the nature of the job was detachment.
The women did it with ease, knitting while taking calls, doing color-by-numbers, painting their nails.
I figured, when I first started, that it would be difficult to detach. Sex was sex. Hell, even phone sex counted. It could get steamy. The body reacted.
But, in the end, Fiona had been right about there being a wall, that it wasn't like real life. Because you knew it was a job. Because you knew you were getting paid. Because you knew at any point in time, someone at the company could listen to your call for quality control, to know things were appropriate.
All that helped.
I never did get turned on during a call. Not even when the older women with a shitton of sexual confidence got on the phone and said filthy shit I wasn't sure I'd ever heard a woman say before.
But then there was my regular girl.
She'd put her name as Katherine, had given her age, but hadn't given out any other personal information, not even interests for me to play off of when we talked.
But even knowing less about her, something about her calls did something. They penetrated the wall of professionalism.
Maybe it was just because she was such a regular caller, on the other end of the phone often enough that I felt a connection with her.
