Half of the time we're gone but we don't know where,
And we don't know here.
--Simon and Garfunkel, "The Only Living Boy in New York"
She pulls weeds in her garden with a ferocious and nasty speed. If she destroys them she can finally rest for a moment. It's early, but there's no other time to do this dirty deed. In the morning there is promise unspoken—life will be borne again. By noon hope finds itself fading and by evening it is but a distant memory.
She's brought this house because of this little spot. The house is close to work and in the city (not the suburbs—she could never deal), but it's this special plot that provokes her most tender thoughts.
And then the phone trills its usual message. Someone is calling.
Screeching patients and dying dogs sound better than the damnable phone's annoying brrrrring. With lack of couth, but dogged vigor, it rings and rings.
She doesn't answer the phone because atheists pull weeds on Sunday mornings. Emergencies are rare—God likes to take the day to refrain from murder on His Sabbath day. If it's an emergency, she figures, they'll keep calling. And then she'll have to pick up and go from there.
"Riddle me this, whom do atheists worship on Sundays?"
There is no name attached to this sentiment and she hardly has time to recollect and reconcile the fact that she clutches a bundle of dirty weeds in one hand and a lost expression in the other. House?
She stumbles blindly and wildly onto her kitchen counter stool. Does he want her to think that she'll call back and then look like a fool?
With a dirty-gloved hand she wipes her face. There are traces of earth left on her cheek, across her nose, and a line on her chin. Should she call him back? The answer she fears is not in this mound of earth's unwanted children.
She has his number lying somewhere near. She sees it in her mind, floating in the blackness of her frontal lobes…but the numbers aren't clear…
She asks a Shakespearian question of no importance and finally realizes that there are weeds still in her hands. So she resolves herself, stands up, and walks through her kitchen door. She walks across her living room floor and into the foyer where she exits the house and deposits the weeds into an undignified pile.
So she rushes back into the house with an unusually purposeful gait. She walks to reach and to fulfill a seemingly bright fate.
His number has to be floating around upstairs—she thinks it may be in her address book. It's only when she is six out of ten stairs up when she realizes the obvious. She has caller ID.
As she flies down the steps, she berates her stupidity. At least this brings some of House's taunts validity.
She presses buttons on her wireless phone until his number emerges. She thinks briefly of numbers and the universality. It's a comfort for her in so many areas of her life. Mathematics always brought her unbridled safety. 'X' is always discerned as a number and one plus one always equals two. No interpretation or variation.
Well, at least she likes to think math is devoid of interpretation. Whenever House is in the room anything is open to argumentation.
Her glove remains on her hand and she knows there are streaks of soil left on the white phone. But she doesn't care, even if the excess fabric makes her thumb clumsy and she must dial extra slowly. Carefully.
When it rings four times she fears the worse. But she'll face his answering machine with a reply to his question that is equally as terse.
She has thought about this quite a bit, for she is practiced in planning ahead. Even if she forgets that her phone is equipped with caller ID, she knows what she is going to say. She always knows even when she never speaks what she thinks.
It's not his gruff words spewing from the phone, but a robot's diction and odd voice. She smirks because she had an inkling that this would be his message of choice.
"This atheist worships a cowardly bastard who refuses to pick up the phone. I—"
She's hears the breathing on the other end of the phone. All she's ever known is slowly disappearing, as is her certified safe zone.
"Let's do coffee."
It's his voice that slinks through the receiver. She doesn't think there is a god, but slowly she thinks she could become a believer.
"Where?"
"Northern Light Café. Suitably New Age. Ten minutes will be okay."
She gulps for salvia and air. She doesn't hear the trumpets she expected—there is no fan fair.
"Alright."
There's a pause on the other end. She waits to see if he will amend.
But then there is silence, static, and dial tone. So she clicks the off button with a silly smile on her face. It's a comical picture. She reaches for her dishtowel and wipes away the dirt that resides on her face. She still wears the gardening gloves.
And it all feels like a dream. She trails a gloved finger over her arm and she knows it's not a dream because left in the finger's place as it recedes is a dirty stream.
She can't shower because time does not permit it, so she rushes upstairs to change into something more appealing.
Ten minutes.