this is she

we were laying on our stomachs, propped up on our elbows, in dorothy's bedroom with the plastic miniature horses and the posters of jerry garcia and the twin beds. years before the horses would have been strewn about, a result of us actually playing with them, but now they sat on her wicker and glass shelves, staring down at us like taxidermied reminders of who we used to be. we were listening to jewel and waiting for jared and ian to call. we had told him a specific time, 1:00 am, in hopes that dorothy's mom, ms. wallace, would be asleep enough by that point not to hear if the phone rang just once. we knew it was risky but she was generally very relaxed about things like this, and it was a friday so we thought even if she did wake up she wouldn't be terribly mad. in the meantime we were making them collages with lyrics from phish and grateful dead songs written in loopy handwriting, construction paper cut outs of flowers and stars. i had kissed jared the night of homecoming two weeks ago on the track by the orange cushions that the high jumpers once used, before our tiny private school stopped participating in the sport. we had been dating for a month but this was the first time we actually kissed, this was my first kiss ever, and i was sure that no one had ever felt the way we felt that night as the parents and the seniors made their way down to the lower parking lot, laughing and oblivious to what we were doing. he had put both his hands on my waist and came towards me with what looked like sadness but what i knew to be the greatest anticipation he had ever felt. his lips were soft and he wore old spice deodorant and for years afterwards, every time i kissed any boy, i was disappointed that it wasn't the same taste.
ian was jared's best friend, and clearly we wanted him to like dorothy. dorothy wasn't pining for him- the boy she really liked was two years older and teased her to the point of cruelty, so she was determined to show him that he didn't matter. she had decided after homecoming when he said she looked like a sailor in her favorite new dress that she would no longer speak to, look at or even think about him until the end of the year, when she would write him an epic letter defending herself. we were doing that a lot then, making bold plans and deciding what we would do, how we would seem, what we would or most certainly would not put up with. we were thirteen years old and thought that we were living in the crux of it all, the crux of the world itself and the crux of our lives, that every action and every relationship and every word would be the one that defined us forever. we lived with an exhausting sense of urgency that eventually simmered after we had sex, after we moved away, after we stepped through the door and saw the long road that lay ahead.
"do you think its cheesy to write 'love ya!' on the side?" i asked dorothy, who had put the collage aside to paint her toenails a bright purple. "just real casual you know. with an exclamation point of course."
"don't do it if you don't mean it," she said and looked up at me, her face stern looking beside her bent knee. her short brown curly hair was pulled up in a ponytail and it made a little puff that we called the kumquat because when i had said it the first time we laughed so hard that dorothy peed in her pants a little and had to run from the kitchen to the bathroom holding her crotch. "seriously suze, you don't want to say it and then have to backtrack. do you love him?"
i laughed, not out of nervousness or fear, but because i had no idea how i would know that, and it seemed like such a silly and futile question, even at the time.
"who cares! maybe!?"
and then the phone rang and at the same time we both looked at the digital clock that sat on the stand in between the two twin beds- it was only 12:15! they were early! we each made our own short, high pitched sound and dorothy flapped her hands so hard it made a clapping sound and i covered my mouth with my hands to suppress the giggles and then dorothy swooped her hands in front of us, meaning keep it together. she picked up the phone and i scooted over right next to her to be able to hear too. she started to say hi but heard that her mother had already picked up the phone. fear sunk from my throat to my stomach like an anchor. we stayed completely silent:
"hello?" ms. wallace said slowly, sounding like a different person, like a grandmother with her dentures out or someone who had just woken up from amnesia.
a man's voice said "sarah beth?"
it was eerie to hear ms. wallace's first name, especially coming from a stranger's voice. the fear was still there, stuck in the sand of my stomach, refusing to budge. i squeezed the skin on dorothy's thigh so hard she punched my knee and then wagged her hand back and forth as if to say, stay calm and don't say anything.
"mmmmyes..." it sounded like ms. wallace was propping herself up, looking at the clock, putting on her funky green tortoiseshell glasses with groping, weak hands.
"sarah beth!?" the man said with more urgency.
then, in a tighter, more controlled voice: "this is she."
"sarah beth are you ok?" he sounded desperate, drunk, on drugs. whatever it was it scared me.
"who is this?" ms. wallace said and i was sure sitting fully up on her king sized bed, or maybe even pacing on her feet.
i looked over at dorothy but she wouldn't look back at me. i felt like he was in the house, i had seen a movie like that, maybe somehow he was in the house...
"its andy johnson."
i knew this wasn't dorothy's father. i had met him, he lived in florida and his name was dave and sold boats and had a girlfriend named tanya that we hated. i needed to rule that out, but i wasn't sure what would be more scary- it being dave or it not being dave.
i could hear breathing on the line and i wasn't sure who out of the four of us it belonged to.
"andy johnson?" she repeated, and in her voice i understood that he wasn't a stranger.
"andy johnson from salem hill."
i looked at dorothy, this time with more urgency. i had a right to know- what was salem hill!? she looked at me exaggeratedly mouthed the words "HIGH. SCHOOL."
"oh...andy. how are you? why are you calling? its the middle of the night."
"i hadn't talked to you in so long." he had been crying. he might still have been crying, those helpless lonely sobs that you can hide.
"its been years andy. since our reunion. are you ok? do you need help?"
"no, i wanted to know that you're ok."
"um, yes andy. i'm perfectly fine. everything is alright. i was sleeping, that's all."
there was a moment of silence in which i thought that either the chainsaw man would pop out of dorothy's dresser drawers and mouth the word "surprise," or that andy johnson would hang up and we would be faced with the task of deciding what to do now that we were all still alive.
"ok" he said. "ok."
"you have my number...so call me if you need anything. i'm going to go back to sleep now." she said, though she sounded as awake as she is when she picks us up from school in her saab.
"ok" he said again. "thanks"
"take care of yourself andy."
"yeah."
"bye now..."
"ok. bye."
she hung up first and for a split heart stopping second we realized that we were still breathing on the phone with this man, that it was us who were keeping him connected to this house and to ms. wallace. dorothy hung up the phone like it was a squirming roach.
i looked at her and started to cry.
"oh my god"
and she looked at me with fear and confusion and started to cry herself. she stood up and almost tripped over the phone trying to get out of her room and down the stairs. i was still sitting on her carpet cross legged, surrounded by cut out hearts and stars and jewel had stopped playing by now and i was still crying. she yelled "come on" as she was halfway down the stairs and knowing i was to be included in whatever sort of comfort she was about to receive was pure mercy. we ran into ms. wallace's wallpapered cool bedroom that smelled of pond's cold cream and dorothy through her tears said it all
"wewerewaitingonjaredandiantocallusandwepickedupthephoneandiheardthewholething"
ms. wallace was standing by her bookshelf looking at a photo album. she looked at us at first like she had forgotten who we were, she looked incredibly calm, and then she came over to dorothy and hugged her and said "i'm so sorry, he was an old boyfriend and he's clearly a little crazy now."
she saw that i was crying too and opened her arms to include me.
"i've unplugged the phone. lets just have some hot chocolate, or a ham sandwich or something and go to bed."
and so ms. wallace made us instant hot chocolate and ham sandwiches that she sliced using star shaped cookie cutters, the way she used to make it for us when we were in elementary school, and we ate them in her bed and fell asleep.