disco queen, is in the kitchen with the Village People turned up, dancing around with
the O-Cedar in one hand, looking like a chick in a TV ad. She missed the bakery
explosion, too, although their building is even closer to Zoltan’s than Froger’s.
Annie checks the answering machine, but there’s a big red zero in the MESSAGES
WAITING window. That means nothing in itself, lots of people call without leaving a
message, but—
Star-sixty-nine reports the last call at eight-forty last night. Annie dials it anyway,
hoping against hope that somewhere outside the big room that looks like a Grand
Central Station movie-set he found a place to re-charge his phone. To him it might
seem he last spoke to her yesterday. Or only minutes ago. Time is funny here, he said.
She has dreamed of that call so many times it now almost seems like a dream itself,
but she has never told anyone about it. Not Craig, not even her own mother, now
almost ninety but alert and with a firmly held belief in the afterlife.
In the kitchen, the Village People advise that there is no need to feel down. There isn’t,
and she doesn’t. She nevertheless holds the phone very tightly as the number she has
star-sixty-nined rings once, then twice. Annie stands in the living room with the
phone to her ear and her free hand touching the brooch above her left breast, as if
touching the brooch could still the pounding heart beneath it. Then the ringing stops
and a recorded voice offers to sell her the New York Times at special bargain rates that
will not be repeated.