phone
[note #32]
[image: Abelardo Morell]
I’m somewhere in Brooklyn, waiting for my daughter in a place called Cropsey Bagels— its window overlooks Cropsey Avenue. I’ve never been here before. She’s doing community service next door at the animal rescue league with her soccer team. A couple is seated in the window next to me, looking out at the traffic on Cropsey. My computer is open, I’m working on something about living on a boat. I look up and they are gone. A phone rings. The counter is black, the phone is black. Either the man or the woman left their phone. I look around the shop—the couple is no longer there. I pick up the phone. The name on the screen says Angel. Hello? I say.
Angel starts to talk, I interrupt her. I just picked up a phone that was left behind.
Angel pauses—This isn’t Andre?
No, I say, I just found the phone.
Angel asks who he was with.
A woman, I say.
His wife? she asks.
I guess so, I say.
She tells me she’ll call his wife to let them know I’ve got the phone. A few minutes later the phone rings—the screen says Gypsy.
Hi, I say.
Gypsy says, I hear you have my husband’s phone.
I guess so, I say.
Where are you? she asks.
I’m at the bagel place on Cropsey.
Cropsey? she says. That’s across town.
It’s clear this is not the woman Andre was with.
I tell her I’ll leave it with the cashier.
UPCOMING WORKSHOP
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UPCOMING EVENTS
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