In the Middle of the Night Read Online Free Page B

believed in a cause, who never took no for an answer.
    “Okay,” Denny said, knowing his answer would not change.
    Later, on the bus going home, he wondered whether he really wanted a separate peace, after all. At Norman Prep, maybe. But not at home. Not with his father, now that the telephone calls had begun.
    The opposite of peace was war. Maybe that’s what he wanted—a battle against whatever or whoever had thrown a shadow over his family. But, he wondered, how do you start a war?

 
    H
e entered the apartment to the sound of the telephone splintering the afternoon silence of the rooms. Closing the door behind him, he put down his books and stood in the small foyer, waiting for the phone to stop ringing. Five, six, seven.
    Shrugging, he practiced his old method of ignoring the sound, making it a part of the atmosphere, accepting it and going about his usual routine.
    In the kitchen, he poured himself a glass of orange juice, spilled a bit on the floor, wiped it up with a paper towel. Twelve, thirteen.
    He dug some chocolate chip cookies out of the porcelain jar that said “Coffee.” His mother had a strange approach—fourteen, fifteen—to labeling. Her own little codes.
    Maybe I should answer it.
    He knew the rule.
    He stood there with the glass of juice in one hand, the cookie in the other. Did not take a drink, did not take a bite.
    Seventeen, eighteen.
    He remembered confessing once to a friend, Tommy Cantin, in the seventh grade that he was not allowed to answer the telephone. Tommy had stared at him in disbelief, as if he were a creature from an alien planet. Everybody in America answers the phone, Tommy had said.
Not me
, he had answered. But he was sixteen now—that made a difference.
    He went to the bathroom. Closed the door and flushed the toilet, watching the swirling water, the sound obliterating the ringing of the phone. He had used this ploy before.
    Emerging from the bathroom, he swore softly—“son of a bitch”—as the phone continued to ring. He had lost count. Must be up to twenty-nine, thirty by now. Still going strong, the sound ominous and threatening.
    The record for the afternoon was eighteen rings last year. This was absurd. Thirty-eight? Thirty-nine?
    Maybe it was an emergency.
    His father injured at work. Or his mother in an accident.
    An urgency now in the ringing, filling the rooms, filling his ears, vibrating throughout his body.
    He had to stop this crazy ringing.
    But he knew the rule. His father’s rule:
Do not pick up the phone. Let your mother or me answer it. If it’s for you, I will hand it over. Alone in the house, you do not answer.
    Emergency or not, he had to stop the ringing.
    More than that: he wanted to start a war,
do
something. Maybe this was a place to begin.
    He snatched the phone from its cradle, glad for the sudden absence of ringing, and was astonished to hear his name coming from it.
    “Denny … Denny … is that you?”
    He pressed the receiver against his ear.
    “Hello … hello,” the voice said.
    He listened, didn’t know what to say.
    “How are you today, Denny?”
    Today?
As if they had been speaking yesterday.
    “I know you’re there, Denny …”
    A funny voice. Not funny really, but strange, the voice almost familiar, a low smoky kind of voice—a woman? a girl?—intimate, secretive.
    “I’d really like to know, Denny: How are you?”
    “Fine,” he said, having to reply, to say something, but his voice suddenly hoarse.
    “Gee … that’s nice. I’m glad you’re fine …”
    Definitely a woman’s voice. Not an old woman but not a girl. Or maybe a girl. He was confused. Confused also because her voice seemed to be mocking him, suggesting that he wasn’t fine, not fine at all. Which, at this moment, was true, of course.
    Clearing his throat and swallowing hard, he asked: “Who are you?” Blunter than he intended. “I mean—who is this speaking?”
    “Somebody,” she said. “A friend, maybe. But we don’t know each