to two by then, and the first thing that comes on is Bowen’s voice, declaring his love for her and asking her to join him in Kansas City. Rosa stands stock-still, listening in awed confusion. She is so rattled by what Nick is saying to her that she has to back up the tape to the end of the message two more times before she can be certain she’s written down Ed Victory’s number correctly – notwithstanding the diminuendo of evenly descending figures, which makes the number all but impossible to forget. She is tempted to stop the answering machine and call Kansas City right away, but then decides to spool through the fourteen other messages to see if Nick has called again. He has. On Friday, and again on Sunday. ‘I hope you weren’t scared off by what I said the other day,’ the second message begins, ‘but I meant every word of it. I can’t get rid of you. You’re in my thoughts all the time, and while you seem to be telling me you aren’t interested – what else can your silence mean? – I’d appreciate it if you’d give me a call. If nothing else, we can talk about your grandmother’s book. Use Ed’s number, the one I gave you before: 816-765-4321. By the way, those numbers aren’t random. Ed asked for them on purpose. He says they’re a metaphor – of what I don’t know. I think he wants me to figure it out for myself.’ The last message is the shortest of the three, and by then Nick has all but given up on her. ‘It’s me,’ he says, ‘giving it one last try. Please call, even if it’s only to tell me you don’t want to talk.’
Rosa dials Ed Victory’s number, but no one picks up on the other end, and after letting the phone ring more than a dozen times, she concludes that it’s an old device, with no answering machine attached to it. Without taking the time to examine what she feels (she doesn’t know what she feels), Rosa hangs up the phone convinced that she has a moral obligation to contact Bowen – and that it must be done as quickly as possible. She thinks of sending a telegram, but when she calls directory assistance in Kansas City and asks for Ed’s address, the operator tells her his number is unlisted, which means she isn’t allowed to give out that information. Rosa then tries Eva’s office again, hoping that Nick’s wife has called in by now, but the secretary tells her there’s been no news. As it happens, Eva is so swept up in her Kansas City drama that she will forget to call her office for several days, and by the time she does contact the secretary, Rosa herself will be gone, on her way to Kansas City by Greyhound bus. Why does she go? Because, over the course of those several days, she has called Ed Victory close to a hundred times, and no one has answered the phone. Because, in the absence of any further communication from Nick, she has talked herself into believing that he’s in trouble – perhaps serious, life-threatening trouble. Because she is young and adventurous and currently unemployed (in between jobs as a freelance illustrator) and perhaps – one can only speculate about this – because she is enamored with the idea that a man she barely knows has openly confessed that he can’t stop thinking about her, that she has made a man fall in love with her at first sight.
Backing up to the previous Wednesday, to the afternoon when Bowen climbed the steps of Ed’s boardinghouse and was offered the job of helper in the Bureau of Historical Preservation, I then resumed the chronicle of my latter-day Flitcraft….
Ed buttons up his trousers, stubs out his half-smoked Pall Mall, and leads Nick down the stairs. They walk out into the chill of the early spring afternoon and keep on going for nine or ten blocks, turning left, turning right, slowly wending their way through a network of dilapidated streets until they come to an abandoned stockyard near the river, the liquid boundary that separates the Missouri side of the city from the Kansas side. They
Rosa dials Ed Victory’s number, but no one picks up on the other end, and after letting the phone ring more than a dozen times, she concludes that it’s an old device, with no answering machine attached to it. Without taking the time to examine what she feels (she doesn’t know what she feels), Rosa hangs up the phone convinced that she has a moral obligation to contact Bowen – and that it must be done as quickly as possible. She thinks of sending a telegram, but when she calls directory assistance in Kansas City and asks for Ed’s address, the operator tells her his number is unlisted, which means she isn’t allowed to give out that information. Rosa then tries Eva’s office again, hoping that Nick’s wife has called in by now, but the secretary tells her there’s been no news. As it happens, Eva is so swept up in her Kansas City drama that she will forget to call her office for several days, and by the time she does contact the secretary, Rosa herself will be gone, on her way to Kansas City by Greyhound bus. Why does she go? Because, over the course of those several days, she has called Ed Victory close to a hundred times, and no one has answered the phone. Because, in the absence of any further communication from Nick, she has talked herself into believing that he’s in trouble – perhaps serious, life-threatening trouble. Because she is young and adventurous and currently unemployed (in between jobs as a freelance illustrator) and perhaps – one can only speculate about this – because she is enamored with the idea that a man she barely knows has openly confessed that he can’t stop thinking about her, that she has made a man fall in love with her at first sight.
Backing up to the previous Wednesday, to the afternoon when Bowen climbed the steps of Ed’s boardinghouse and was offered the job of helper in the Bureau of Historical Preservation, I then resumed the chronicle of my latter-day Flitcraft….
Ed buttons up his trousers, stubs out his half-smoked Pall Mall, and leads Nick down the stairs. They walk out into the chill of the early spring afternoon and keep on going for nine or ten blocks, turning left, turning right, slowly wending their way through a network of dilapidated streets until they come to an abandoned stockyard near the river, the liquid boundary that separates the Missouri side of the city from the Kansas side. They
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