Jared didn’t pretend not to connect this call with the last. “How did you get my number?”
“By accident,” she said in the same fragile but hurried way. “No, that’s wrong. I meant to get it. It wasn’t hard. With a little ingenuity, most things aren’t hard to get. It’s knowing what to do with them that’s hard.”
“You knew what to do with my number,” Jared reminded her.
“But I lost my nerve and hung up.”
“And now you’ve called back.” He didn’t want to ask her name lest she hang up again. She was clearly upset about something. He felt an odd responsibility to draw her out. “Do you live here in Providence?”
She paused, letting a moment pass before asking, “Are you really as calm in real life as you sound on the air?”
“This is real life. What you hear is what you get.”
“I wish I could get it,” she said wistfully, and more slowly now. She’d apparently realized that she wouldn’t lose her nerve, which, Jared assumed, was why she’d been rushing out her words. “I could use a little of that peace.”
“Have things been rough for you lately?”
“Lately? God, yes. But it’s not only lately. Things have been rough all my life.”
“Want to tell me about it?” Jared surprised himself by asking. He wondered what he was letting himself in for, but wouldn’t have taken back the question. He wanted to know who she was and where she’d gotten his number. For that, he was going to have to establish rapport with her.
She hesitated for a long time before saying, “I can’t.”
“And you won’t tell me your name?” When she said nothing, he asked, “What will you tell me?”
She hesitated again, then, sounding confused, even distracted, asked, “Have you ever been in a situation where you planned something out and thought you had everything right, and then things backfired?”
Jared thought of his marriage to Elise. “I’ve had that happen.”
There was a minute’s pause, then a surprised, “You have?”
“Yes. Is that what’s happened to you?”
She answered his question with another. “How did you handle yours?”
“I took a good look at where I was vis-à-vis where I wanted to be. In my case, I’d been mistaken about that goal. Before I could do anything, I had to decide where I was going.”
“Did you?” She made a noise. “That was a dumb question. Of course, you did. You’re there now.”
“Almost,” Jared said, thinking of Savannah.
“Almost? Do you think you’ll make it all the way?”
“I don’t know. I think so, but there aren’t many sure bets in life.”
“I know,” she said sadly. “I used to think there were. I was wrong.”
“Are you married?” She didn’t answer. “How old are you?” At times she sounded eighteen, at other times fifty. She vacillated between the vulnerability of youth and the disillusionment of middle age.
She wasn’t telling her age, either. So he took a different tack.
“Things can’t be as bad as you think. Maybe it’s the night. Problems always look worse when you’re tired. Have you slept?” It was nearly three in the morning. His system was used to it; his schedule accommodated it. But he was in the minority.
“I slept a little.”
“Why don’t you try for a little more?”
“I want to, but when I lie down and close my eyes, I start thinking about everything that’s gone wrong, and I realize that things could get even worse, and I don’t know what to do!”
