By Aarushi Bahadur

The boy is in the living room and he has a telephone in his hands. The phone: eggshell blue, cord stretched, ribbonlike. His ear is pressed to the receiver and he is rocking back and forth on the couch and the room is wallpapered with gray roses that he does not care for much. The phone goes to voicemail and he calls the number he knows by heart again. 

The boy is waiting. He has been waiting for a while. He is waiting with the weight of the phone clutched in his hand and the little freight trains running through his head. He thinks absently there are always people on the other end of the phone but maybe they are afraid to pick up or maybe the line is busy or maybe they are busy but at some point they won’t be and then he dials the phone because it has gone into voicemail again. 

He scans the room. The windows are drawn heavy with velvet curtains and the roses are still. Maybe it is late. Maybe it is early. His feet do not reach the carpet. 

A girl enters the room and after a moment of hesitation sits down next to the boy on the couch by the wall with the phone. There is a cigarette between her fingers. She has been told not to smoke but she likes it and the younger boy can’t stop her. He looks at her reproachfully but says nothing. She hasn’t mentioned the phone, after all. 

The girl sits for a moment and then walks across the room. A radio is sitting on the media cabinet. She turns it on and it begins playing a song that the boy does not know but the girl seems to because she scoffs and switches to another channel. This one she likes better, abstractly jazzy and wordless, and the boy watches mesmerized as she moves to the center of the carpet and begins to sway by herself. The song ends and she walks back over to the radio and switches it off. The boy dials again. 

In some time a man enters the room, coming to settle against the doorway. Both the boy and the girl turn to look at him guiltily and the girl pulls her skirt over her knees. The man is smiling. 

He looks at the girl. Put out that cigarette. 

She meets his eyes and taps the end. Ash freckles the carpet. She turns and snuffs the cigarette on the coffee table because they have no ashtray because people are not supposed to smoke in the house. 

The man lingers. The boy and girl exchange a look. The man does not do much other than straighten his suit and look at them and examine them but the boy wilts under his gaze and the girl crosses her legs. He knows they are waiting for someone to call back and he has come to pick up a phone book. 

The girl puts her hand over the boy’s. The girl knows the man is looking. His book is on the table. 

The man checks his watch. He looks at the telephone again and the cord that is stretching half the distance of the room, eggshell blue, and he sees the time is getting late and smiles and excuses himself. The boy and the girl watch him go in silence. He has left his book. 

They sit for a while. After the man has left, the boy speaks. Quietly and with effort he says, “I just want to say something to her.” 

The girl picks up a coaster from the coffee table and turns it around and around and around. She wants another cigarette but they are all hidden in her bedroom. “What?” she asks. 

There’s a long pause that unsettles the girl and the boy takes the coaster from her hands and sets the phone back in the holder and says, “I don’t know. Just something.” 

When they are all gone, the phone rings. 

                                                                   *    *    *

Aarushi Bahadur is a senior at St. Paul Academy in Minnesota. She’s a Scholastic writing award winner, a student journalist, a theater kid, and an ardent vinyl collector. Her work has previously been featured in Iris: Art + Lit Magazine.