Landline

Shaelin Bishop

>> I am interested in purchasing a lawnmower.

>> Is your husband aware of this?

>> He’s aware of the poor state of our lawn, which has led to a poor neighbourhood outlook on our home, which has led to a poor neighbourhood outlook on our marriage, which has led to the poor state of our marriage, and therefore the poor state of my wellbeing.

>> And how does that make you feel?

***

She calls again while Ethan is in the shower.

>> Hello, this is Hester from Garden Supply. Is this Audrey on the line?

>> Yes.

>> Hi Audrey. How are you today? (pause) I’m calling because as a home owner, your lawn should be—but likely isn’t—a priority for you. I’d love to talk to you about a solution that will save you time, is more eco-friendly, and will have your yard looking lush and verdant like the lawn of your dreams. Do you have dreams, Audrey?

>> I do. I do have dreams.

>> Tell me about these dreams.

>> Wow. I don’t even know where to start. No one’s ever asked me that before.

***

Ethan says I shouldn’t answer when telemarketers call. He says if you answer, they’ll put your name on a list and sell it to other telemarketers who will sell it to megacorporations who will sell your data. They’ll know your social security number, your DNA profile, your search history. They’ll know everything from the brand of toothpaste you use to the porn you watch. He saw one documentary on it so now he thinks he’s the expert. I like answering for telemarketers because I like to be polite. I want the telemarketers who call me to have the best stats so they get promotions and hot spouses.

>> Hello, this is Hester from Garden Supply. Who am I speaking with today?

This is what Hester said the first time she called.

>> This is Audrey speaking.

This is what I said the first time I answered.

>> Audrey, are you a lawn owner?

>> I am, Hester. Thank you for asking.

>> Then you must know how hard it is to find time for proper lawn maintenance in our fast-paced, modern lives. But, if you’re interested in a short product demo, I have a solution that will save you both time and money money, while also being a more eco-friendly solution.

>> It sounds too good to be true.

>> I know, I know. Just wait until you hear about our soil PH testing kits!

***

Ethan asks me who’s on the phone so I walk onto the balcony and pretend I didn’t hear him.

>> Tell me about your current lawnmower. Has it been satisfactory for you?

>> I’ve had it for over a decade. I got it back in college. It used to be my roommate’s. I wasn’t friends with her, of course, or else the transfer of ownership likely would have ended the friendship.

>> Did you steal it from her?

>> I inherited it. She wasn’t using it anymore and I needed something to mow the lawn.

>> It seems you got a starting model that doesn’t suit your current lawn care needs. Why have you kept it all these years?

>> I suppose I didn’t realize there were other options.

>> What problems are you having with this old model?

>> Where to start? Most of the time, it just sits around my house. It makes a lot of noise when I’m trying to work or learn new hobbies. I’ve tried to take up so many hobbies. Meditating. Fencing. Calligraphy. I want to learn new languages. I want to be a polyglot. I want to start writing film reviews. Silent films, experimental ones. The strangest films you can find. I want to dissect them and make sense of them. I want people to come to me when they don’t understand a film, so they see me as both enlightening and intelligent, and I wouldn’t even mind if they used my analysis to seem smart to their friends or when on a date and passed it off as their own. In fact, I hope they would. But I never get that far. The lawnmower always interrupts me with some inane problem that, by this point, it should be able to solve on its own. It somehow manages to take up so much space without doing anything at all.

>> Does it even mow the lawn?

>> I’m not sure it does anything.

>> When’s the last time your lawn was mowed, Audrey?

>> Oh, it’s been a very long time.

>> That’s a very unfortunate circumstance. But Audrey, I think I have a solution to your problem. Garden Supply offers lawn care services that are budget friendly, and we specialize in a range of different lawn care techniques to suit your unique yard and landscaping needs.

>> Tell me about these techniques.

>> There’s edge trimming, pruning, fertilizing, lawnmowing, landscaping, junk removal, aeration, moss treatment, lime treatment, power washing, and gutter cleaning. Do any of those sound like something you’d be interested in?

>> That sounds like a very pleasant evening.

***


Ethan makes salmon en papillote for dinner, because he is the type of person to be allured by the lyrical sound of a dish’s name despite not knowing what it is. His palate is actually quite sensitive. He likes oatmeal with exactly one teaspoon of honey for breakfast and rice with a lightning bolt drizzle of ketchup for dinner. This is why whenever we go to restaurants, he ends up with an untouched plate of ossobuco or okonomiyaki or moussaka, and I end up eating the gummy remains of ossobuco or okonomiyaki or moussaka out of a take-out container for breakfast the next morning. As I excuse myself, he calls, “Audrey, is this a pin bone or a piece of dill?”

>> I don’t know. Is it green? Sorry—one moment.

>> I know you’re a busy woman. Thank you for taking the time out of your day.

>> Tell me about lawnmowers.

>> What do you want to know?

>> I want your opinions, Hester. Your thoughts. Your most daring, unconventional, unexpected thoughts. The things you know to be true but that the world isn’t ready to hear. Tell me you think lawns are an environmentally disastrous colonial construct and we should all be reallocating the space to feed the world. I want to hear your thoughts on white clover instead of grass. Does artificial turf really save water, if you factor in the plastic production? Tell me about biodiversity, Hester, and how my very lawn is contributing to ecological homogenization. Tell me about ground cover alternatives. Tell me about chamomile and creeping thyme and bearberry. Tell me that I don’t even use my lawn and it’s just a redundant class symbol used to maintain the aesthetic ideal of suburbia that wastes both space and water. Tell me about fertilizers. Tell me about pesticides. I want to hear it—no, I need to hear it.

>> Are you alone right now?

>> Yes.

>> I think you should leave him.

***

The next morning, I eat leftover salmon en papillote for breakfast, even though it tastes like cat food. For breakfast, I always eat whatever Ethan has left behind: a peach he found too mealy, jam he found too tart, failed attempts at macarons or ratatouille. I can’t wash the fishy oiliness from my throat and I don’t want him to make it again, but Ethan walks into the kitchen as I spear the last bite. “Good, right?” he says, pointing to my empty plate.

***

>> Have you given any more thought to my proposal?

>> I do think the right move for me is to invest in a new lawnmower.

>> I don’t mean this metaphorically. I am speaking quite literally.

>> Then yes. I would like to purchase a new lawnmower.

>> Do you mean that literally or metaphorically?

I’m not sure if I do mean that literally or metaphorically, but Ethan comes to get me because he’s taken a second attempt at salmon en papillote so I have to hang up. He thinks it’s too lemony. “You made it,” I say. “Is it supposed to be lemony?” He wants me to be honest with him. “Be honest with me, Audrey. Do you think the zucchini goes? I just don’t think the zucchini goes.” I tell him it sounds like he wants me to say that the zucchini doesn’t go, but that this seems like a critique of French cuisine and not his cooking skills, but if I say it doesn’t go, he’ll take it as a personal attack even though it’s what he wanted me to say. “It just gets soggy,” he whines. “I don’t get it.”

***

Ethan is trying to teach himself to play solitaire when she calls. “What am I doing wrong? Audrey, help.” He furrows his brow as he examines the cards fanned around him. “Ethan, I’m on the phone. No, the king goes last.” I turn my whole face into the speaker.

>> I’ve figured out the problem.

>> Is it that you have commitment issues?

>> No, Hester, it’s not that I can’t commit to purchasing my own lawn care equipment. I have the desire, the funds, and the follow through for such a dramatic life change.

>> You’re still thinking logistically. Think about this from a spiritual perspective. Forget about what you have or don’t have. Think about what you want. What calls to you?

>> You know exactly what calls to me.

***

After Hester hangs up, I demonstrate a hand of solitaire for Ethan. “Just watch, it’s not that complicated.” I lay out the cards and shuffle through the game. “See, easy.” He pokes one of the piles and the cards slip across the table. “But, how did you get from that, to that?” “I just showed you.”

***

I don’t know when she’ll call again, so while Ethan watches tutorials on how to play solitaire or make salmon en papillote—I don’t know, I decide right then that I don’t care anymore—I pack the things I care about most in a single suitcase. I don’t care about the furniture Ethan and I thrifted or assembled together even though I’m the one who thrifted and assembled all of it. I pack the notebooks I bought and never wrote in, the paints and spices and perfumes I bought and never opened, and they leave my bag smelling like acrylic and sumac and tangerine. My new life will be colourful and delicious and fragrant. I don’t pack any socks because I imagine we’ll live barefoot. I pack the tent Ethan and I bought because we wanted to go camping, even though we never ended up going camping, but then I unpack it because I imagine the ground will be soft enough beneath our shoulders to sleep on. I wonder if I should wear something sexy, but I don’t even know what that would look like. All I can think of is green and nakedness. I should bring a gift for her. I consider gardening gloves (but she probably owns them already and they may make her feel like I don’t see her three dimensionally), or a candle Ethan’s mom gave us for our anniversary (but her home is probably adequately floral), or a birdcage I got off the roadside and planned to remodel into a floating bookshelf yet never did (but it’s merely evidence of my lack of follow through, and maybe she’d find it symbolically unappealing). I find a lavender sprig preserved in resin that I got at a souvenir shop. I’d been on a road trip up the coast with my high school best friend the summer after graduation. I’d forgotten all about it—the lavender, the road trip, the friend. We’d eaten soft serve ice cream then ran down the boardwalk and right into the sea. We slept in a motel room bed the colour of a sand dollar, salt flaking off our skin. We whispered through the dark, our voices made soft and intimate by the waves. I put the lavender in my pocket so it presses into my hip with each step.

***

She waits until very late to call. Ethan brushes his teeth while a documentary he’d been watching about coral reefs plays on the TV. It flickers aquarium blues onto the walls and windows. Through a mouthful of toothpaste, sounding as if he too is underwater, he asks who’s calling at this hour, but I ignore him.

>> Hi, this is Dolores from Garden Supply. Who am I speaking with today?

I know before she even says her name that everything is wrong. Her breath is wrong, a haughtiness there instead of the compassionate hum Hester makes while I speak. Hester always sounds like she’s speaking with the tips of her teeth, like every word is a bead of glass.

>> Is Hester there? She used to call. Is she there?

>> Oh, Hester. She was transferred. Big promotion.

>> Promotion. Is it because her stats were the best? She must have had excellent stats.

>> That’s probably why.

>> Can you put her on the line?

>> Is there a problem?

>> I’d really like to talk to her.

>> If you could explain the problem, I can take it from here.

>> Can you give me her number? Or email? Or last name?

>> I’m not allowed to give out an employee’s private information. Could you explain the problem?

>> It’s just, I was about to go through with a big purchase.

>> I’d be happy to take over. Had Hester told you about our new fertilizer plan? Just one treatment will meet all your lawn’s yearly nutritional needs and has a 20% better long-term effectiveness than other leading brands. Would you like me to tell you more?

The TV reflects a moray eel onto the windows. It wafts through the night like the ribbon of an air conditioner. Ethan shouts from the bathroom that he thinks it’s time we replace our toothbrushes. You’re only supposed to use them for three months. I press myself right up to the blued window. On the street far below, a taxi idles at the sidewalk, waiting for a passenger.

>> That won’t be necessary. I actually live in an apartment.

Shaelin Bishop (they/she) lives and writes on unceded Songhees, Esquimalt, and WSÁNEĆ land. Their work has appeared in The Fiddlehead, The Ex-Puritan, The Common, Room, CAROUSEL, Plenitude, PRISM International, The New Quarterly, Augur, and elsewhere, and was longlisted for the 2021 CBC Short Story Prize. They are currently pursuing their MFA in writing.