3
It always starts with burnt toast
[Hank]
“I burned the toast.” The hysterical female voice drowns the line with her sobs after this statement.
“Ma’am, this is the Central Valley Crisis Hotline.” I pause. “What seems to be your issue?”
Through hiccups and sniffles, I hear her blow out her breath. “I burned the toast.” A sniffling snuffle ripples through the phone, and I hold the device away from my ear for a second. She’s a hot mess of tears and hacked crying.
“Want to tell me what happened?” I’ve worked at Central Crisis for more than four years. After serving my time in a mandatory service program, I volunteered to stay on to help people, thinking I could make a difference to someone. The thought saddens me for the briefest moment before I return to the woman at hand. Crying over burnt toast stems from something deeper, and my job on the hotline involves getting to the root of such things.
“I’m at the end of my rope.”
“You don’t sound like you’re at the end.” She doesn’t actually. Something about her voice sounds familiar and a touch more confident than a woman frazzled by life. Typical callers to the center include punk kids wanting out of school. Sometimes a veteran who needs more than the crisis hotline offers. An occasional druggie who is beyond help. Those calls leave me feeling hopeless. It’s easier to connect with people when I can see them, place a hand on their knee, and assure them there are other avenues in life. Manning the phone lines is the worst part of volunteering for me, but I made a promise to myself—help those in need—because I was once one of them. Volunteers each take a night or two a month, and tonight is mine.
“You don’t know me. How can you say that?” She’s right—I don’t know her—but between the familiarity in her voice and a kindred knowledge of what the end of a rope feels like, I have a good idea of how she’s feeling. Despair. Desperation. Downtrodden.
“Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself? Tell me about your day.” It helps to be pleasant, encouraging, and for some reason, I want this voice to keep talking to me. It’s the hint of recognition. I need more.
“My d-day?” she stutters. “No one asks about my day.”
Ah. Piece number one.
“Well, I’m asking. Tell me. How was your day?” My lip curls as I realize I kind of do want to know about her day.
“My children forgot.”
“Forgot what?”
“One son needs a suit for the spring dance.” She deflects as if she didn’t hear my question. “Another needs some last-minute Hawaiian t-shirt for a concert. And my youngest. He’s just lost, not certain who he wants to be, even though I keep telling him to be himself. Being ten is difficult.”
I sigh, nodding my head. Picking up a pen, I start to doodle on the desk pad calendar. My designs add to those already scribbled here. I wish I was a sketch artist. I’d be able to capture her eyes. Not the woman on the phone—I can’t see this lady—but the eyes that stared back at me a few weeks ago. The ones in the mirror, dancing in the candlelight as I stood behind her.
“And I don’t know how I got talked into hosting this event. Although, actually, I do because I can never say no. No. How hard can it be?”
She takes a deep breath, pausing. I imagine the tears have dried, and she’s working up the steam for annoyance before the anger strikes. I’ve seen this in many women. Especially the ones who expect something of me after I’ve given it to them. Given them me. They want to fuck the infamous Hank Paige. I’m not always going to complain but don’t expect anything from me afterward. I gave my heart once, and it was the biggest mistake of my life.
“Honestly, how hard?” Yep, annoyance to anger in sixty seconds. I don’t have to see this lady to envision her shifting expression. Her question snaps me back to the conversation but she plows on in her growing irritation.
“I said no a few weeks ago. It was the only time I wanted to say yes.” Her voice lowers on the second statement, a dip in the octave as it grows huskier.
This stops my scribbles on the pad.
Piece number two, possibly.
“What did you say no to when you wanted to say yes?”
“Him.” She sighs—breathy, deep, wanting—and something stirs in me that shouldn’t on these types of calls. “I’m divorced, and there was this man,” she clarifies. “It’s been a long time since someone looked at me like that, you know. But then again, I don’t suppose he was really looking at me.”
This has me sitting upright, stretching my back with a twist as I sit in this too-small rolling seat. I’m a larger man, and this donated piece of shit chair can hardly hold me. I should do something about it, but I promised myself I wouldn’t throw money at this place. It needs my time, not the green stuff.
“Tell me about the man,” I prompt. It’s part of our training. Keep ’em talking. Though, I admit, I’m curious.
She sighs again, and for a moment, I imagine a dreamy gleam in her eye. Maybe a sparkle of desire. A hint of unbridled passion. A need for someone to take the lead. The thought circles around to the eyes haunting my dreams every night; the ones from the mirror, reflecting back at me as I tell her what I’d like to do to her and the ways I want to pleasure her.
“He was so different.” It’s as if she’s stolen the words from my mouth. The woman was different. I felt it in the way she leaned against me. The way she said my name; as if it was an ordinary name and not a symbol of who I once was. The way she looked at me. She wanted me.
“He touched me.” A nervous huff fills the phone. “Not in an inappropriate way, but in a way…his touch still lingers on me.” She giggles. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Try.” My throat clogs, and a croak mixes with the typical smoky sound of my voice. I swallow, wondering when her tone softened and took on a purring lilt. When did this call to a crisis line turn into phone sex for me?
“I’ve never done this before.” A sultry dip in her tenor has my brows pinching. I’ve heard this statement before, like déjà vu knocking for me to remember. The familiarity of her voice ratchets up a notch or two, and recognition seems just a whisper away.
“Done what?” Something in my chest pinches.
“Called into a crisis center. You must think I’m crazy.” Her voice returns to a more even tone, and I’ve lost the connection. I blink, aware I was searching for something, hoping, at least.
“No, I don’t.” I mean what I said. I honestly don’t think people who call in are mentally imbalanced. It’s a cry for help, and it’s what I want to do—help. “Tell me more about the man.”
“He didn’t do anything. But it’s what he said he wanted to do. And then I told him no.”
I swallow. “Why?”
“Because I’m stupid.”
“Don’t say such things about yourself.”
She exhales sharply. “What woman—who hasn’t been touched in ages—denies a man who wants to touch her? I mean, maybe it wouldn’t have meant anything to him, but it doesn’t have to, right? It could have just been sex. It could have been for one night, right?” She sighs. “Why can’t I have a one-night stand? Just let loose. What’s wrong with me? Why couldn’t I say yes to something I wanted instead of telling him no?”
I don’t really have an answer here, and my job isn’t to dispense advice. I just listen. We’ve come a long way from the burnt toast, so maybe we are getting somewhere.
“Why did you tell him no?”
“Because I’m old.”
I bite my lip, trying not to chuckle. Her voice doesn’t resonate anywhere near an advanced age, but voices can be deceiving. My lip slides free of my teeth, and I ask, “How old are you?” It’s not really proper to ask these things. No identifiers of any type allowed. Pure anonymity.
“I’m forty-one. Today.”
Ahhhh. Here we have it.
“Happy Birthday.”
“I wish I was happy. I mean, I should be, right? I have a decent job. I have a roof over my head. I have three amazing boys.” I hear her pride in the last remark. She’s a good mother.
“But you want a little more,” I offer, sitting back in the swivel chair. I don’t know where the words come from, and I shouldn’t be prompting her like this. Yet somehow, I know the feeling. I’m still waiting for something more myself.
“Yes.” She sighs. I bounce back and then sweep forward, sensing I’m about to tumble from the seat at the purr in the word. The hint of recognition rings again.
“Excuse me.” I’m a musician at heart. Sound is my trade. I remember rhythms and beats, and the linger in her -s reminds me of something, someone.
“Excuse me?” she repeats as if she misunderstood me.
“I’m sorry. Could you repeat…” I swallow. This is so unethical. “Could you say yes like you just did?” I pause another beat. “I mean, didn’t it feel good to say yes?” There. Nothing wrong with prompting her in a positive way. Nothing suspicious here.
“Yes.” Huh? I fall back in the seat. The answer is too sharp, too direct. I must have misinterpreted her, and I shake my head, telling myself I’m an idiot. I’m imagining the lingering lilt to be what I want it to be—the desperate plea in her voice, my pretty eyed lady—but it isn’t her.
“Are you still there?” she asks. We’ve remained silent too long.
“I’m here for you,” I assure her, reaching for the pen again. I think of those sparkling, gold-speckled eyes one more time when her voice hitches. Another sound. Another trigger.
“Um...” I begin.
“Oh, God.” She draws out with a breath.
Shit. “Midge?” I question.
And the line goes dead.