Before he knew it he was hearing about Jack Russell terriers. He was on the seventeenth floor of the Detroit office, Friday the 18th, his mother’s birthday.
“Did you know I bought one?” she asked.
“I didn’t,” he said. “I didn’t know that.” His eyes ached.
“I did!” she said. “First thing I had him fixed. It is so beautiful. It makes this little noise when I come home — this little noise like” — and the yip of an excited animal came through the phone.
He was looking across the desk at a picture of a brunette, surrounded by three men in their twenties, all three of them smiling and holding drinks.
“And it claps, too,” she said. “If you bring chew toys home. He loves Topeka! He loves it here. He makes a noise and then he claps like a little man! But I’m not calling about that.”
“Oh?” he said.
“Yeah, no but I do want to send you the pictures. You should see the way he plays with Muffin and Scooter. Brother and sister! No, I need to talk to your mom actually.”
His mother lived in Newburgh, Kansas, and it was now eight o’clock there. She interrupted the thought.
“Because we’ve always had a bond. Your mom. Your mom and I! We’re like soulmates. We’re like sisters. I just think like you think about her believe me I know I do. Did you know we were in the same sorority?”
He remembered the ugly sofa in the front room of the fraternity house and the leather sofa he owned now.
“And I’m at work and everything but I still have to clean the second floor. I do need to get her number though. We’re holding a cakewalk on the third, and I thought she might be interested in helping, and I wanted to give her a call.”
He repeated the number dutifully.
“So I just talked to Annette Graham and we’re going up to Englewood next weekend to go out with the Luthers. Remember the Luthers? I bet you have all kinds of parties up there though.”
“It’s not bad here,” he said. “Glad to be out of school, at least.” Through the glass doors Martie waved goodnight and he blinked back.
“Yeah well everybody is so proud of you,” she said. “Everybody at home. We all just can’t believe little Blowie. Out in the big world. Big important guy now,” she said.
“Jonette is really happy here. She loves the city.” he said.
“Oh, getting another call,” she said. “Probably Rachel. Call me later?” she said.
He hung up the phone and the office was still dark and he thought about the fringes and he looked out the glass over the city. There was a small windowsill and on it he noticed a praying mantis cocking its head. He wondered if they had eyes. Whatever it was on their face certainly looked like eyes. Being in mutual funds was a job he loved. But there were times when he wished he had taken some sort of biology course, even in high school.
He thought of turning on the lights but did not. His mind was tied like a Kansas mule to the thought of a Jack Russell terrier and Derek Sullivan’s arms and a pair of small grapefruits and the ice cream cone he had once paid seven dollars for and the tickets were twenty dollars too. His marriage and his wife and new five hundred dollar granite countertops, this call that came once a year, no comment, not once had she invited him upstairs.