Whenever You Call by Anna King Page A

used to having marathon phone conversations, perhaps even more than other women friends did because of the added difficulties Jen had in getting around. So why hadn’t I simply gone home and called her? In fact, I didn’t think I’d been to her office in more than a year, when she’d wanted to fix me up with another lawyer in the office and we decided I should check him out first (he hadn’t passed muster).
    I’d come to do exactly what I was doing: look at the place where her lower legs would have been if she’d had them. Half-expecting, hoping, surmising, or pretending that her sensation of having legs when she’d made love to Tom had translated into legs. Or maybe even sprouts of legs, like tadpoles that would ultimately grow into legs.
    My eyes rose to meet her eyes. She tilted her head again, looking at me without a word.
    Finally, she said, “What?”
    I swallowed against the sudden thickness in my throat, embarrassed and confused at the same time. “I think something’s the matter with me. I keep indulging in magical thinking. Like, yes, somehow this totally absurd situation with a guy I only know by the name of Mr. Rabbitfish is going to become a great love for me. And I actually thought that when you said you felt like you had legs, you might have legs.”
    “I thought so, too, to be honest.”
    My next words came blurting out. “I just have to get real.”
    “Ummm,” Jen said.
    “That’s why I’ve quit writing. No more imagination. Just pour the drinks, smile, and LIVE.”
    “I don’t know about—”
    I interrupted, “It must be an occupational hazard of fiction writers. We overdose on our imaginations.”
    “Can I say something?”
    “Sorry.”
    “It seems like you’ve been doing this magical thinking, as you call it, since you quit writing, not the other way around.”
    “What?”
    Her eyes twinkled, and she suddenly zoomed her wheelchair into reverse, then zipped back around her desk. She always drove like a maniac in that thing.
    I glared. “I’m determined to be a bartender. I have an interview at The Harvest tomorrow.”
    “And I’m a big-time corporate lawyer who has to get her ass in gear so I can enjoy myself tonight.”
    “Okay, okay, I’m going.”
    I was just about out the door when she yelled. “By the way, I’m coming to Isaac’s going-away party and I’m bringing Tom.”
    “Did you tell Tom it’s a party for a wannabe Buddhist monk?”
    “Are you kidding? We laughed for ten minutes straight, then he—”
    I waved good-bye. “Have pity on your celibate best friend.”
    The next morning, I dressed up for bar tending class because I would go straight from the end of class to my interview at The Harvest Restaurant. I felt strange as I flipped through my clothes. For years, I hadn’t had to prove myself as capable in any way other than how I combined words on a page. It took three different outfits for me to figure out that a female bartender should be all about sex.
    Al’s expression when I sashayed into the classroom ten minutes late made me even more nervous. While running both hands through his mane, he walked over to me.
    I asked, “Too much?”
    “Ab-so-lute-ly not .” Then he leaned even closer. “Start my book by any chance?”
    “Hey, I warned you!”
    Al grinned and shrugged one shoulder.
    I sat down and Al passed out that day’s drinks’ test, which I finished quickly. I didn’t think of myself as particularly smart when it came to memorizing, but for some reason I’d been able to remember the recipes with ease. I’d say magical ease except that I was trying to get away from the magical thinking syndrome of the last week.
    Jelly, at my table, whispered, “Fourth drink, is it vermouth or lillet?”
    Story of my life in school. Soft touch. The geek who so obviously didn’t want to be a geek that she was willing to cheat to prove herself cool. Though, despite the endless, whispery cries for help, I’d never aided or abetted a cheater. Which