92 nine When the phone rang, a cold after noon a few weeks later, I was watch ing the daily White House briefing on C-SPAN. End the death tax. Enemy com bat ants. A hor ror show, but sooth ing—in fact, the only sooth ing thing on days, like today, when I was steamed: a head butt to a wall to cure a head ache. The thing that had me steamed was a spat with Steve, my ed i tor, and his was the phone call I’d been dread ing. I’d writ ten a new les son, on Mar ra nos in Bra zil, the ways they’d sur vived the In qui si tion: their se cret rites and pro hi bi tions—no kneel ing in church, no pork—the dog ged ness of Debora’s brave fore bears. Steve’s re sponse? Anti-Christian. Will never get through Texas. I hated his way, in e-mails, of leav ing out the sub jects of his sen tences, as if he were too busy. Ba lo ney, I shot back. How was it anti-anything to de scribe one group’s strength in the face of un flag ging per se cu tion? Would it be “anti-white” to men tion, say, the Under ground Rail road? Should those facts be stricken from the books? Not ar guing facts, he typed. Just warn ing you: won’t fly. School board’s very touchy about re li gion. I wrote back: As touchy as they’ll be if they dis cover that an open homo sex ual writes their books? 93 My threat (an idle one; I needed to keep my job) pro voked no re turn mes sage from Steve. Which usu ally was the clue that he’d be call ing. I muted the White House fright show, and scuf fled to ward the phone. Steeled my self. Picked up the re ceiver. “I searched,” said De bora. “Oh!” I said. “So happy that it’s you.” By now I was used to her zero-to-sixty style. Used to it but still, each time, enam ored. “Searched?” I said. “Hold on. Searched for what?” “No, no. Not searched,” she said. “Surged.” “But wait, you weren’t sup posed to—” “I know. But, well . . . I did.” Ac cord ing to the pre dic tor kit, the daily tem per a tures charted, we’d thought to mor row was the start of ov u la tion. We were sup posed to have an other day! “Maybe I was mak ing er rors, using the kit,” she said. “But now I looked an other time: the sec ond line, it’s dark.” “Okay, then,” I said. “Fine. I mean—great!” Blood pulsed on both sides of my throat. “Stu’s not here. He’s, I don’t know, prob ably over Cleve land. He gets home at seven ish, I think.” I felt dipsy, bound less, as though I’d guz zled gin straight from the jug. “I’ll call the Salt winds and see if they can bump us to to night. Shouldn’t be a prob lem, it’s off-season.” The Salt winds was the B&B where we held res er va tions, the re sult of a care ful com pro mise. After we had all agreed to do in sems at home— pleased for hav ing hit upon this plan—only then did some one think to ask: At home, but whose? Ours, we had as sumed. But they’d as sumed theirs. Each side made a cred ible claim to rea son: Shouldn’t the baby, being ours, be made in our own house? Yes, but if one goal of DIY was Debora’s com fort, shouldn’t the deed be done in Debora’s bed? Be fore the tiff could es ca late, Stu got all rab binic and de vised a way to thread the quarrel’s nee dle. What we’d do was book ad ja cent rooms within a guest house. Neu tral turf for all of us, a break from our rou tines. Comfy, yes, but spe cial, too. A treat. [18.207.126.53] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 08:01 GMT) 94 So now I had to phone the place and change our res er va tion. The thought of hav ing a do able chore re laxed me. “But Pat...