The Toynbee Convector

“Apologize for making up Constance. You’ve got me in a real pickle. She actually thinks the woman was real.”

“Constance does?”

“Annette. Anne. Anne! I’ve already said—”

“There is no Constance, I get it. Hold on.”

He heard more liquid being poured at the far end.

“Are you pouring gin instead of listening to me?”

“How did you know it was gin?”

“Shaken, not stirred.”

“Oh. Well. Do I or do I not write the letter?”

“What good would it do? My wife would only think you were lying to save my skin.”

“Yes, but the truth—”

“Is absolutely worthless with wives!”

There was a long silence from the far end in the villa up by the edge of the lake.

“Well?” said the husband.

“I’m waiting.”

“For what, for God’s sake?”

“For you to tell me what to do.”

“You’re the psychologist, you’re the expert, you’re the adviser, you’re the guy who puts together mystical bathe-ins for unwashed minds, you’re the chap with gum or something on the bottom of his shoes, you think of something!”

“Hold on,” said the voice up at Lake Arrowhead.

There was a sound like the snapping of fingers or the adding of more ice.

“Holy Cow,” said the psychologist. “I think I’ve got it. Yes. I have! I have. My God, I’m brilliant! Keep your pants on.”

“They were never off, damn it!”

“Be prepared. I am raising the Titantic!”

Click.

There was a sound like more fingers being snapped or more ice added or the phone being hung up.

“Junoff!”

But he was gone.

The husband and wife battled through the morning, yelled at lunch, shrieked over coffee, took the fight to the pool around two, napped briefly at four to waken fresh with vitriol and drinks at four thirty, and at five minutes to five, there was an imperious ring of the front doorbell. Both of them trapped their mouths, she on her righteous indignation, he on his now increasingly maddened denials.

They both stared from the bar to the front door.

The royal ring came again. Something mighty and majestic leaned against the bell not caring if it rang forever to call an entire peasant countryside to kneel. They had never heard such a discourteous ring before. Which meant it could be a lout messenger who knew nothing, or a person of such grandiosity as to be forever important.