What Do You Do?

I stop staring at the door. I wonder around the house, moving from couch to computer desk to kitchen and to bed.

I get up and put in Costello’s My Aim Is True on the stereo.

I go back to bed. I fidget. I get the phone and open it, scrolling through the names. Once, before phonebooks were digital, I told someone ‘every time I go through my phonebook, my fingers always seem to land on you.’

Tonight they land on ‘send,’ and I press it, though it’s after midnight.

I hear the voice inhaling as the phone picks up, and hear the last half of a groggy hello.

‘Hey there,’ I say, ‘what are you doing?’

‘Nothing’ Birmingham says.

‘I didn’t wake you, did I?’ I ask, but head off my own question. ‘I was just thinking about you.’

‘That’s nice,’ he says, still half-asleep. ‘You wanna come over?’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Okay,’ he says.

‘Are you going to remember this or should I remind you?’

‘Better give me a reminder.’

‘Sleep well,’ I say and hang up. I lay down with happy anticipation for tomorrow night.