Phone Calls

The strangest part was that somehow, i already knew. On the train from New York the day before i had felt strangely distant as i watched the trees flash by, and that night in bed at my grandparents' house, i cried because of an unexpected loneliness.

I shouldn't have felt lonely. I had just spent a crazy fun week in New York with my two closest friends, Katie and Jeremy, and now i was at my grandparents' house in Bethesda where i spent much of my childhood. I used to eat orange popsicles and play marble games with my cousins there. I should have felt fine. Instead, i was crying.

At first i didn't know why i was crying, and the sudden realization that i was crying from loneliness startled and unnerved me. Loneliness has always made me nervous.

Jeremy never seemed lonely. You know how some people always seem alone, no matter who is around, like they're stuck in a sadness they can't, or don't want to, get out of? Jeremy was the opposite. He couldn't stay sad for long because he knew there was always more fun to be had.
We were both living in Chapel Hill when we met, and he had the most dreadful roommate. When she kicked him out of their apartment for no good reason and he had nowhere to go, he just called her names like "that tawdry witch," and laughed about her horribleness. I was probably more upset than he was.

Jeremy's presence just made you feel content, happy just to be with him, and laughing, always laughing. I don't think i was ever around Jeremy for more than five minutes before i began laughing. If you went to a party and he was there, the party was perfect; if he wasn't, then you wanted to leave. He was someone you always wanted around; with him, there were never any feelings of competition or inadequacy, as so often happens among friends. He made you feel like you were the very person he wanted to be with at that moment, no matter where you were, and no matter what you were doing. He was the best friend anyone could ever hope for, and i had hoped for such a friend for a long time.

He had seemed different that week in New York, though, in an almost imperceptible way. When i arrived in the city with Katie i called him, and he sounded anxious and unhappy. He was devastated over the deaths of Gianni Versace and Princess Diana. During the conversation, he said, "You know, these things always come in threes--who's next? Madonna?!" I wondered at his strong emotion-- it was unlike him. He seemed unfamiliar, like i was talking to someone i didn't know and who didn't know me. I just assumed it had to do with the influence of the bitter old drag queen, Montana, that he was living with. Montana had an air of death around her. I hated that Jeremy lived there.

When i received the phone call, i was in the shower. I couldn't believe that my grandmother hadn't taken a message, but was actually handing me the phone through the shower curtain. Todd, my boyfriend, was on the other end, calling from Chapel Hill where we lived.

"Hey honey, what are you doing?"

I answered, in my most annoyed voice, "Taking a shower." What was wrong with him? Couldn't i take a shower in peace? I remember so clearly his next words:

"Honey, i have some bad news. Um, apparently, Jeremy has died."

Apparently?

What a strange thing to say--"apparently, Jeremy has died."

"What? What are you talking about?" I said, as i stood there under the water, getting soap all over the phone. Why was Todd telling me this ridiculous and obviously wrong information? I had been with Jeremy just two days before in New York, and Todd was all the way in Chapel Hill--what could he possibly know about Jeremy? Jeremy wasn't dead--what a silly thing to say and what a silly way to say it! "Apparently" his sources were wrong. I just knew that someone like Arthur, who liked to call himself Beven, had created this story just for some drama. He always made up stories that were completely ludicrous and yet expected people to believe them. This had to be his doing. And anyway, what does "apparently" mean? "Apparently" is a word you use when it seems as if something might be a certain way, but you're not quite sure. Todd must not have been sure--he must have heard this story somewhere but not been sure of its truth.

I thought to myself, "He sure jumped the gun in telling me this. He should have waited until he found out what was really going on. Why is he saying this? Why is he trying to upset me?"

I must have said all of this out loud to Todd, because he softly but persistently told me the whole story and tried to convince me that it was really true. He said that Jeremy had died early the same morning that i had left New York for Maryland. I remembered suddenly the strange distant feeling that day on the train and the loneliness that night. At that moment I hated Todd for telling me this horrible absurd news that couldn't possibly be true. But with every second that passed the news was seeming more horrible as i realized that perhaps it was true, and yet still just as absurd.

I felt completely unreal as i got dressed, like i was suddenly a character in a movie in which i didn't know the plot or even the language everyone was speaking. Very slowly, though, i began to understand the plot, as well as the language. It was the worst plot ever concocted and the most complicated language i'd ever heard, with no formulas for conjugations or tenses to help it make sense, but a language with meaning just the same. I kept expecting to hear the phone ring again and to hear Todd telling me that i was right--it was just a mistake and Jeremy was fine and Arthur/Beven was just up to his old tricks again.

When the phone rang a few minutes later, i knew it was Todd.

But it wasn't.

It was my Aunt Lisa, who was thrilled that i was there visiting and started talking very fast right away and asking all sorts of questions. I suppose i answered them all sufficiently because she kept on talking and never seemed to notice the fact that the world in which we all live had just fallen entirely apart.

I didn't have any idea what we were talking about as i sat at the top of the orange shag rug stairs, holding the old black rotary phone receiver to my ear.
Suddenly, i heard Lisa say, "Well, you know what's wrong with most people's cheesecake, don't you?"
Startled, i said no, i didn't.
She said, "It's flour. Most people put flour in their cheesecake and it just ruins it."

I was in shock. I had just found out that Jeremy, my best friend, was dead at twenty-four years old, and my Aunt Lisa's deepest concern is that people stop putting flour in their cheesecakes. Jeremy is dead--he is never coming back and i will never see him again and he will never get up and walk around again and he will never make me laugh again--don't you know we can't talk about cheesecake? This surreal conversation told me something i did not want to know about how the world reacts to tragedies it is unaware of. It does not react at all. How can it if it is unaware? So the earth was still turning....

I don't remember my response.

Later that day i went for a walk and tried to cry, but i couldn't. If i had known how much crying i would end up doing that next week, perhaps i would not have been so anxious to start. As i walked, i remembered how Jeremy looked the last time i saw him. He was running into a hotel wearing only a t-shirt and a friend's coat, which he had wrapped around his legs instead of actually putting on, and it kept slipping, showing peeks of his white underwear. He had waved at me and Katie hysterically, knowing he looked ridiculous, and Katie and i had waved back, laughing, from the car.
Maybe if he had lived longer, some of what i saw as his perfections would have changed into realism, and i would have had a chance to see his flaws. I suppose I could be grateful that this way he will remain perfect forever.

At some point during the next week before his funeral, while i was trying to convince myself that i would somehow have to go on living, someone said something about the death of Mother Teresa. Suddenly, i remembered that conversation on the phone with Jeremy when he talked about these things always coming in threes. Isn't that strange, i thought, that everyone thinks that Mother Teresa was number three?

How could they not know that it was Jeremy?


But i think the strangest part is that, somehow, he already knew.