It wasn't that clear Hello Darling, like a star in clouds, a landfall
in unknown, tedious seas.
"Hello. Phil Wylie?" A pleasant voice. Yvonne, perhaps.
"Yeah-me." I wasn't very civil since it wasn't Ricky.
"This is Gwen. Can you talk?"
"Gwen?"
"We met last night. If you've forgotten so soon, it's not my fault."
The redheaded girl at Hattie's--the one who looked studious and
unaffected--the one who had made me think of the handsome wife of some
fortunate professor. An interesting one.
"Oh," I said. "Sure."
"I'm not--interrupting--anything? Hattie said you were being a
bachelor--and you sat up late. I just asked her."
"I was working."
"And I was hoping you were lonesome."
"Well, I am, as a matter of fact."
"Goody! I'll take a cab."
I was going to tell her to do no such thing. I sat down on the sofa to
explain my intention of working until the words ran together and all I
could manage was a dozen steps to bed sometime, probably, before dawn.
But I leaned back and, in doing that, I looked into the other room. I
saw myself sitting there, trying to read myself to sleep, eating some
of Tom's barbiturate to help--and solitude eating me.