Page 2 of Silk and Steel

We watch as Boys R Us make their way out of the studio. As the door closes behind them, skinny little Gopher Jim jogs up to me, his eyes wide as a deer caught in the headlights.

“Ms. Emory,” he says in a thin voice, “you have a phone call.”

“What?”

I dig in my purse until I find my phone. No missed calls.

“I think you’re mistaken, Jim.”

The studio intern shakes his head with such vehemence he almost dislodges his earpiece.

“No, Ms. Emory, I mean they called the studio line. The land line.”

That gives me pause.

“What? Why on Earth would anyone call the studio when they could just…did you ask who it was?”

“I couldn’t. It’s a collect call, and I didn’t want to accept the charges without permission. They’ve called nine times in the last hour…”

He cranes his neck as I hear a distant ring.

“...and I would bet they are calling back again.”

My heart drops down to my feet. My Dad has been struggling to recover from a health scare for months now. Could this be a hospital trying to call me?

Or a morgue?

I practically run to the phone and pick it up.

Hello. This is a collect call from…

Silence, then a brief noise that might be a heavy door slamming. What is going on?

If you agree to accept the charges, press one now.

I hit the one key and wait, silently praying that this isn’t about my father.

“Hey, Honeybunny! How ya doing?”

I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. My body trembles as I struggle to speak in a shivering voice.

“Julian, you are not supposed to contact me. It’s a violation of the court order.”

“Oh come on, are you still on about that?”

Julian always makes it sound like he’s being oppressed.

“Still on about that? Julian, you terrified me for months! You killed my dog and set my car on fire, and you think you can just call me up out of the blue? I’m hanging up.”

“Bitch, hang up on me and I’ll gut your parents like a fish!”

I freeze with the phone a mere inch from my ear.

“Yeah, that’s right,” he continues. “Not just your parents, but your sister, your best friend, everyone who you have ever cared about.”

“Why are you doing this, Julian? It will never make me take you back, and it will never make me love you.”

He makes an agonized sound, and all of the sudden his tone gets pleading.

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