They'd
exchanged phone numbers at school. Ittybit promised to call later
that night.
Which
she did. After dinner and before homework.
It
was a big deal. ...
To
me.
The
telephone was my first, tenuous, connection to independence. It
offered my mind a mode of transportation and a mechanism for planning
that started simply enough with a single universal question: "What
are you doing?" followed by the closed-circle response:
"Nothing. What are you doing?"
Boy?
Girl? It didn't matter who was hanging on the line, it only mattered
that the line existed and that it connected me to a disembodied
voice.
For
the primary school set -- too young for Twitter and Facebook --
Alexander Graham Bell's invention as relevant as ever.
The
rules of communication haven't changed much, either.
"Smile
when you talk," I tell her. "They may not be able to see
you, but they will be able to hear the smile in your voice.
"Remember
to be polite: tell whoever answers your name; ask if you may speak to
your friend; always say please and thank you."
Phone
etiquette isn't innate. It takes practice, and recently we'd been
having our share of practice.
Still,
I couldn't listen as she dialed the boy's number and waiting for
someone to answer.
I
clanked around the kitchen, trying to buffer the exchange.
It
reminded me ... a little too much ... of my own first phone call to a
boy.
I
had been in second grade, too. I didn't even know to be
nervous. He was, after all, a friend I spoke to each day. A boy whose
name happened to line up next to mine in the alphabet, as did his
chair in our teacher's similarly ordered classroom.
To
be able to continue the conversation at home, after school, is a
strange magic not dissimilar to running into your first-grade teacher
at the supermarket and feeling as if your world had been turned
inside out. The first time it happens it's disorienting.
Some
of that was happening as I ran through my the script I'd practiced.
Hello,
I am … , may I speak to … ?
Silence.
The
boy's mother wasn't impressed. Her voice, quick and sharp, told me
all I needed to know about my mistake. And she wasn't going to let
her son talk to any girl so forward at the age of eight.
More
than three decades later, I have to wonder if David Sedaris' witty
and scathing review of an elementary school nativity play wherein he
writes: “6-year-old Shannon Burke just barely manages to pass
herself off as a virgin,” could have been inspired by a similar
experience.
Honestly,
though, I hadn't thought of that moment until this one, in which my
daughter was chirping away into the handset asking a boy questions I
didn't get a chance to ask.
“What
are you doing?”
My
stomach tightened even more as she charged my way with the phone.
“Ok,
I'm going to get my mom and you put your mom on the phone, too.”
I
stretch a tight smile across my face, holding the phone and waiting
for a stranger's voice to come on the line.
This
is awkward.
Hello?
Her smile is stretched, too. I can hear it.
“Hi,”
I inject a small laugh into my voice for effect. “I think our kids
are interested in setting up a play date.”
Without
much fanfare we set a date and exchange information. And within a few
days a boy from school is playing in the backyard with our daughter,
collecting specimens of rare weeds and putting them in an old
umbrella for some convoluted purpose.
A
broken bumper shoot is a typical centrifuge for whatever
pseudoscience my daughter has devised.
Together
they battle a rising wind and a meddling brother until the boy's
mother comes to collect him a couple of hours later.
By
all accounts it was a success. Plans are made to play some more
another day.
He
climbs into the car, she bounds into the house.
The
phone is ringing.
“I'll
get it,” she hollers.
I
open my mouth to holler back, but stop mid objection. It's probably
for her, anyway.
