Excerpt 82

She hung up and turned around.  He was leaning against the archway.

Heat seemed to seep from her pores out of embarrassment.  She tried to think of a way to explain that she was being checked in on by her mother.  The look on his face did not seem to have concern for that issue, however.

“Ala, is there somewhere I can make a phone call?”

“Sure,” she said, realizing she had no idea which rooms had phones.  She started to lead him down the hallway. There was a small den to the right that had some beige armchairs and an acrylic coffee table in it with a phone resting on top of it.

“Thanks,” he said, “Something just came up.”

“Of course.”

She walked back into the kitchen and waited.  This was it.  His way out.  He was surely talking with a dial tone right now, making up some story, just in case she was standing outside of the door listening in.

Of course the whole situation could not have been real.  She was the person who followed a line, did not go on either side of it, jump ahead or lag behind, just stayed on the line.  And normally it felt satisfactory.  She could not get hurt by staying on the line.  But nothing like him ever happened on the line either.  He would be hard to forget.