Callback Hell

by Alexander Carver

I received my first accidental call on a muggy afternoon in late July. Cassie had apparently triggered the callback button on her BlackBerry. I’d heard from other friends that they’d received accidental calls from her, and that they’d attributed it to Cassie being Cassie.

That day, I knew she was having lunch with her on-again-off-again friend Anna, who had accepted her boyfriend Brandon’s marriage proposal five years earlier, but still didn’t feel comfortable setting a date. The restaurant they’d selected, a tiny little place in Venice called Lilly’s, has a limited menu, little ambiance, and I’ve never understood its appeal.

There I was in my Santa Monica apartment, the cordless phone on the floor next to the couch, tweaking a play I’d written about a previous relationship with a woman who’d told me she was a yoga instructor but turned out to be a dominatrix. Everything I’d written about the relationship was true, except for her being a dominatrix. I threw that in to make it more interesting.

My very first play was set to begin rehearsals the following week at the Unknown Theater, on Seward just off Santa Monica in Hollywood. Out of necessity, I had decided to direct, despite the fact that I’m afraid of telling people what to do. I’d been practicing my initial pep talk to the cast every time I walked by a willing mirror: “Hey, guys, I’m thrilled you agreed to be part of what I know will be a wonderfully funny, hugely successful production! I’m looking forward to working with all six of you and only ask that you promise to stick it out to the end, even though it may seem at times like I have no idea what I’m doing, and you realize that the play has no meaning or literary value whatsoever!”

Back to the accidental call. Cassie’s name popped up on my cordless and I grabbed it.

“Hey!” I said. “Listen to this: Instead of having the neighbor be some loner named Will, I’m going to recast the character as a kick-ass woman who hates men. A big, buffed Roller Derby chick, who intimidates Aaron over parking spots and eventually beats him up in the middle-of-the-night scene! I know the perfect actress. What do you think?”

No response.

Cassie always thought through what she was going to say before she said it. She was very careful not to say something that might devastate you. As a women’s shoe designer, she understood the fragile ego of the artist.

I continued in defense of my idea.

No response.

“How can you not agree with me? It’s a great idea that’s gonna make the play much funnier.”

When she still didn’t respond, I pressed my ear into the phone and listened with the intensity of someone in a movie trying to crack a safe. I heard her friend Anna’s familiar, high-pitched voice say, “Do you wanna sit in here or would you rather sit in the sun?”

“This is fine. It’s hot in the sun and I’m not a big fan of sweating while I eat,” I heard Cassie reply.

It took me a second to realize what was happening. After a few more words, which included the mention of my name, I realized that the call had been placed by mistake, and that my role had been reduced from intended party to eavesdropper.

“So what’s happening with Billy? Anything?” Anna asked.

“He’s got a play going up at this little theater in Hollywood,” Cassie replied.

I could hear it in her voice: She loved me, but she didn’t love my life’s ambition.

“That sounds exciting!” Anna said. Brandon, her fiancé, was an accountant, and she understood that dating someone who works all day with words was a lot more interesting than dating someone who
works all day with numbers.

“It’s all he’s been talking about for months. He’s really nervous about it. I’m scared he’s gonna fall apart.”

“What’s the play called?”

“Naked.”

“Really? Do people get naked in it?”

“Only offstage. He wanted to call his first play Naked so people would wanna see it.”

“That’s smart, I guess. So is it a comedy or a…?”

“A comedy. But not the laugh-out-loud kind. More of the giggle-to-yourself type. Billy’s not a joke writer, he’s better at writing funny situations. The one-liners in the play are actually kinda corny.”

I rushed to my desk, sat down at my computer, and scrolled up to the first joke of the play. Cassie was right. The first joke wasn’t funny at all. It was lame.

In a panic, I yelled into the receiver at Cassie and Anna: “Hey, I can hear you! I’m hearing everything you say!”

No response. I could hear them. They couldn’t hear me.

“Why doesn’t he just write serious stuff?” Anna asked.

“Because he wants to be the next Woody Allen.”

“Is he Jewish?”

“No.”

“Oh. I think you have to be Jewish to be funny.”

They laughed.

“So, what have you been up to?” Anna asked Cassie, finally steering the subject away from me and my play.

“Not much. I’m thinking about cutting my hair shorter.”

“DON’T!”

I clicked off the phone and flung it onto the desk. I sat there deflated. Then I called my mother to tell her what I’d overheard.

“You’re the funniest person I know,” she said in a well-practiced, resuscitating tone.

“You’re only saying that because you’re my mother and you feel guilty for giving me life.”

She laughed generously. “See! That was funny!”

“Thanks, Mom. You always come through.”

She changed the subject to her battle with acid reflux.

I interrupted when she began telling me about her doctor’s exwife: “Does Dad think I’m funny?”

“Your father was born without two things—a sense of humor and a clue.” She laughed at her own joke.

“Mom, this is serious. I sent you my play. Did you read it?”

“No. I have to build up the courage. Did you have to call it Naked?”

“I told you: There’s no actual nudity in it!”

“Is there bad language?”

“Some.”

“Sexual situations.”

“Many.”
“I’ll let your father read it first, then he can give me the G-rated version.”

“Just read it, Mom! It’s not gonna give you cancer!”

The next night, when Cassie and I got together, I was not my usual, animated self. After watching a Brad Pitt movie, she initiated sex, and I successfully faked an orgasm.

Then I went back to my own apartment. But instead of actually sleeping, I worked until dawn, going over the jokes until the monotony made them read with the clarity and vivacity of a prescription for Valium.


Several days later, I received another accidental call.

“Hey!” I said. “Helloooo, Cassie? You there?”

No response.

“Come on, stop fooling around.”

No response.

I could hear what sounded like two people engaged in a violent struggle. Later, I interpreted this struggle as the sound of Cassie searching for something in her carry-all, sending her cell phone rocketing in every direction. She had gone to New York to showcase several lines of her shoes to retailers.

It was after one o’clock in the morning, East Coast time, and I knew that she had met up with a couple of old friends from N.Y.U. The three of them had gone back to Cassie’s hotel room to smoke
pot and chat about whatever X-rated subjects came up.

The first clear sentence I heard came from a voice I was not familiar with, presumably Martina’s, one of Cassie’s sorority sisters I’d never met, who Cassie said was tall, with dark hair, a dark complexion, Italian, but often mistaken for being Hispanic. The voice said: “The top of Kyle’s is so big, it’s painful. Everything else about him is normal, but the head is huge.”

Another voice, that of Adrienne—a tactless party girl whose hand was always wrapped around a Sam Adams, and whom I liked because she was the only one of Cassie’s friends who never got moody in front of me, responded: “I was with one like that—a mushroom top. It’s a little painful at first, but once it’s in, you realize it’s worth the effort.”

Laughter.

“You guys should see David’s balls,” she said, pressing on. “They hang really low. He says he can’t wear boxers because his balls swing all over the place and get sore.”

“Ew! I hate big wrecking balls like that!” Martina said.

Laughter.

“I don’t!” Adrienne yelled. “They’re fun!”

“You’re a pervert!” Martina said.

“I know! Thank God!” Adrienne replied.

Laughter.

One of the girls, I think it may have been Cassie, made the ding-dong sound of a bell.

Laughter. I laughed, too, covering my mouth so as not to be detected in the room with them.

“I like Billy’s balls,” I heard Cassie say. I stopped laughing. “They’re kinda small, but…”

“Kinda small?!” Adrienne quickly responded.

“Yeah, but I like them that way. I hate those big, swinging horse balls. It feels like you’re having sex with some big animal.”

“When was the last time you had sex with a big animal?” Martina asked.

Laughter.

“It’s been a few years, but I remember I didn’t enjoy it,” Cassie responded.


“What kind of an animal was it?”

“What’s the difference? They all fuck the same!”

Laughter.

“Not horses. Horses are very tender lovers. They always make sure you finish first,” Adrienne said, laughing through her words.

“It’s all about good breeding,” Cassie said.

Laughter.

“So is Billy good in bed?” Adrienne asked.

“We’re both clueless,” Cassie responded. “Which I actually like. I wouldn’t want to be with some Don Juan who’s been with a lot of sluts—it cheapens the relationship.”

“While at the same time making it better,” Adrienne added.

Laughter.

I gently clicked off the phone.

This time a call to Mom would not help. I waited until morning and called my therapist, Dr. Martin H. Anderson. I hadn’t needed to see him in all the months I’d been dating Cassie. I’d been feeling good, thanks to the presence of Cassie in my life, and thanks to my first play getting produced. But now an emergency session was in order.

Halfway through our session, as Dr. Anderson sat in his beautifully upholstered wing chair with his long legs crossed casually at the knee, he said: “Regardless of whether they are in fact big or small, she said that she likes them that way. So to me it sounds like they are just right.” Like any normal therapist, he played devil’s advocate with everything negative I said. His low, soothing voice let him get away with it.

“I guess that’s true,” I said.

“And this issue of whether you are a funny writer is also subjective, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, but I’m not sure I can be with someone who doesn’t think I’m talented.”

“But she didn’t say you weren’t talented. She said she thought you were better at writing funny situations than one-liners.”

“She also said that my play was not laugh-out-loud funny. And that the jokes were kinda corny, and that I was clueless in bed.”

“Again, her opinion. And again, subjective. Don’t forget, she also admitted she was clueless in bed.”

“Right. But, the thing is, I don’t like her gossiping about me with her friends. I don’t feel like I can trust her anymore. That’s the big picture.”

Dr. Anderson uncrossed his long legs. “As I see it, you have two possible courses of action. You can either (A) stop listening to these accidental calls, or (B) tell Cassie what you’ve overheard, and let her know you don’t like her talking about you in such a way.”

I thought about these two options for a moment. “But I don’t want to do either one. I like knowing what she really thinks of me and what she says about me when I’m not around.”

“But at what cost?”

“My sanity?”

“Well, certainly at the cost of what you previously described as a healthy, happy relationship with a fun-loving and caring woman.”

“Yeah, but I’m not sure how happy and healthy this relationship is anymore.”

“And don’t you think that’s because of what you have allowed to happen? You see, we all say certain things about our loved ones to other intimates in confidence. Things we don’t necessarily mean, but that come out of the emotion of the moment. I’m sure you’ve said a few negative things about Cassie to your close guy friends.”

“I don’t have any close guy friends.”

“Well, to who, to your…?”

“To my mother.”

“To your mother…and the only difference is that you were able, through no direct fault of Cassie’s, to eavesdrop on her conversations. To eavesdrop on someone you love—to invade her privacy—behavior that seems a bit childish to me, if you want my honest opinion.”

“Hey, who’s paying you, her or me?”

He laughed. I laughed. He used the laugh as a positive place to end the session. “Well, I think you know the right thing to do, and I’m sure you’ll do it,” he said, as he stood up and casually opened the door.


Dr. Anderson was wrong. I waited eagerly for more accidental calls.

During the next month, several came, but there was no juicy dialogue to listen to. Once, I heard the sound of her car door opening, and the beep, beep, beep that the car makes to let you know the door is open. Once, I heard a stereo blaring “The Wind Beneath My Wings.” Once, I heard the sound of someone either laughing or crying. It seemed like the person was very far away, so I decided it was something Cassie was watching on TV.

My play had been renamed Nude and was close to opening. Rehearsals were going O.K., despite the fact that my two lead actors had both gone to Yale and thought themselves more intellectually suited to be the director. At one point, during a tense battle over the funniest wording for a particular line, I yelled, “I will never work with Ivy Leaguers again!” A line that destroyed any trust I’d built up with
the cast.

As far as Cassie and I were concerned, she had become aware that I was more hypersensitive and defensive than I used to be, but of course she had no idea why. Maybe she just thought it was the pressure of the play. One night, when she came back from an evening with a particularly gossipy girlfriend—a French Canadian I didn’t like because she never asked me about me—I asked Cassie what they had talked about at dinner.

“Just girlie things,” she responded.

I made a scoffing sound.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing. I was just curious if you ever talk about me when you’re out with your friends.”

“If I talk about you, I only say good things.”

This prompted another scoffing sound.

“Why do you keep making that sound? Did somebody tell you that I said something bad about you?”

“No, I just find it hard to believe that you never have.”

“Well, I haven’t. At least not that I can remember.”

“Good. I appreciate that. I’m glad I have your loyalty. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, leaving the room, more confused than angry.


In early November, after the play had finally closed and I’d gotten over all the shitty reviews, I went home to Pennsylvania to help my parents move. They had both hit 70 and liked the idea of living closer to my sister’s family, so that if something or someone broke down, help would quickly be on the way. I was carrying a heavy box filled with my mother’s ceramic Santa Claus collection, when my newly purchased cell phone sounded. I had decided to purchase a cell to help increase my chances of my being present when Cassie’s accidental calls came. I was obsessed and didn’t want to miss an opportunity. An avocado-sized, cell-phone-induced brain tumor seemed like a small price to pay for the kind of self-knowledge those calls might provide.

“Hey!” I answered. “I miss you. What’s up, Babe?”

No response.

“Hello...? Hello...? Cassie?!”

I pressed my ear hard against the phone and heard her raspy voice, which everybody said sounded like Demi Moore’s. She was midrant and clearly upset about something:

“…and his mother’s insane! She won’t let strangers near her so-called treasures, so they’re moving all their stuff by themselves, instead of hiring a moving company. She needs to be on medication, but Billy loves her because she always tells him what he needs to hear! She’s got him wrapped around her little finger—the crazy bitch!”

“Well, I hope things go better for you two,” I heard an unfamiliar voice say.

“I hope so, too,” Cassie said.

“And thanks for shopping at Bloomingdale’s.”

A few days after I got back to L.A., I broke up with Cassie. Of course, I didn’t tell her specifically why, just that I felt we had drifted apart. She agreed.

Right now, I’m finishing up a new play I’ve promised myself I won’t direct. The premise has to do with the dangers of eavesdropping on one’s significant other.