Free Whenever You Call by Anna King

in my brain. Awfully good word choice. I shot a glance at Al. Suddenly his right hand grabbed at nothing in the air, closing into a triumphant fist. He’d caught my look and held it tight.

7
    I DROPPED MY BACKPACK in the living room and ripped down the stairs to my basement study. I’d missed my little house and felt quite nostalgic as I hurled toward the computer. When I clicked on the Mail icon, it seemed to twirl for longer than usual before exploding with a list of 24 unread e-mails. My eye ran down the list, searching for Rabbitfish. There were 3! I jump-started my breathing by giving a small cough. Then, calm, I proceeded to read the other 21 e-mails. Finally, I began to read the Rabbitfish missives in chronological order.
    9:12 a.m. Your e-mail suggests you couldn’t quit writing if your life depended on it.
    I remembered that he was referring to the long e-mail I’d written Saturday night, in which I’d rather endlessly told him everything. I smiled and felt like pointing out his use of a cliché.
    11:15 a.m. You there?
    No, I thought, I’m not. I’m presently learning how to make martinis from a gorgeous hunk named Al.
    3:30 p.m. I’m slightly bored. Maybe I should read one of your novels.
    I flushed, more out of humiliation than pride. My novels were successful with women, but I suspected that even my own sons hadn’t read all of them. There was something about Mr. Rabbitfish that struck me as smart, erudite, intellectual. I didn’t want to hear his opinion of my novels. Many possible replies to his e-mails popped into my head, like a flurry of signposts suddenly appearing on the outskirts of a city. But I ignored them. I headed upstairs and threw myself across the unmade bed, dirndl skirt and all.
    Naps were another major part of a writer’s life. I used to feel guilty about this until I understood that I often solved problems while I slept. In fact, I’d learned that if I was stuck, and taking a pee didn’t help, then perhaps a nap would do the trick. And, it usually did. I was convinced that everyone, including bartenders, should take naps to help them deal with any uncertainties in their lives.
    Sure enough, when I woke up 45 minutes later, I knew exactly what to write Mr. Rabbitfish in answer to his Maybe I should read one of your novels,
    Maybe you shouldn’t.
    I climbed the two sets of stairs to the kitchen and made myself a decaf espresso, which I carried down one flight of stairs and outside to sit on my front steps. A whole host of activities were lined up ahead of me: 25 drink recipes to memorize, phone call to Jen, daily run or some form of exercise, dinner. I sipped the espresso and thought about why I was so lazy. I could show spurts of physical activity when I was particularly happy, but for the most part, I was a catatonic person. I drifted in trancelike states as if I were someone on anti-psychotic medication. This bar tending idea was supposed to wake me up, jolt me into an action completely unlike my usual word-making at the keyboard. But I could see it wasn’t going to be easy.
    For the past week, ever since I’d seen Mr. Rabbitfish at the outdoor cafe—or ever since I thought I’d seen the unknown and unknowable Mr. Rabbitfish, whom he may or may not be —I’d been thinking about, well, breasts . Not his breasts, but my own. This was notably weird. The night before, I’d dreamt I was breast-feeding my youngest son, Noah. The tug at my nipple had been so real that when I woke up, I expected to see milk wetting my nightgown. Now, okay, I get that this somehow correlates with being a bartender, the giving of milk in the form of alcoholic beverages. But even before this latest dream, I’d been aware of my breasts. They actually seemed to be growing.
    When I went on my run, they bounced and jiggled despite the sports bra, which had, in the past, nicely flattened and contained them. They didn’t hurt, exactly, or throb. It wasn’t like adolescence or pregnancy, when breasts