This is what Charlotte writes.

03.07.08

The phone broke the silence in the flat and Claire held her breath to listen, counting the rings. One, two, three, four…on the fifth ring the answering machine clicked on, just like she knew it would. She listened to her own voice telling the caller to leave a message, name and number, please, and she’d be sure to call back. When the recording ended, Claire realized that she was still holding her breath, and let it out slowly. She had amazing lungs, one of the few things about her that had not been fucked up in some way or another.

“Hey, Claire,” the caller began, with that strange familiarity with which people speak to answering machines, an uncomfortable mix of talking to a person and a machine and not really knowing which to address, “it’s me.” – as if not other identification was needed– it wasn’t, but still Claire resented the assumption – “I can’t make it, I’m sorry, but something came up, Katie got sick, you know how it is, I need to take her in for some sort of test or–” he continued talking but Claire had stopped listening about twenty-six words ago, the machine could cut him off and she would neither notice or care, though that might tempt him to call back to finish the message, or maybe he wouldn’t, maybe he wouldn’t care either, maybe he had stopped listening, too

Claire was hopping about her flat with one shoe on, trying to get the other buckled one handed, standing on one leg, trying to save time but then she had to stop and do it normally because time was slipping by and it wasn’t working. She raced out the door, not stopping to grab her purse or keys, not that it mattered, she never locked the door anyway, and the last thing she needed to have on hand was her cellphone or iPod, and nearly fell down the stairs– more treacherous than ever with the spring rain and her in high heels, besides.

The rain was pelting down in sheets, everyone with half a brain was all bundled up in rain gear with boots and a coat and umbrella, but there Claire was, squinting to see through the water falling from the sky, and she was crying too, maybe, but she couldn’t be sure, water was everywhere, and she couldn’t be certain of all its origins. After a minute her dress was soaked and stuck to her legs as she ran, her hair was flying and she pushed it back away from her face but that didn’t help, she couldn’t see anyway.

When she got to her destination Claire collapsed in the corner, all dripping blonde hair and dripping clothes and dripping eyes and makeup that had given up being waterproof after the first minute of rain. People stared at her like she was a ghost or otherwise unworldly apparition but when he came down the stairs with his fishbowl in his arms he saw her for what she was, just a real girl with too many tattoos but never enough, too much love and too much pain and somehow always coming up short. Claire stood up and she and he walked, carrying Katie in her glass bowl, out into the rain and into the car and drove to the vet’s office to see if Katie had the chicken pox or not. Afterwards they would go out for ice cream sodas but right now they were wet and happy and even though Katie was covered with spots everything was OK.