25/11/2001 - 2:01 p.m.

Part 11

He glanced at it, watched it ring two or three more times. Should he answer it, or let it ring? It was definately Lisa or Paula, and the odds were it was Paula, but... With a leap of faith, he answered the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hi Mike, listen, I got Jeff earlier, and I didn't know whether he gave you my message or not, I know how Jeff is, but I thought I'd call up and try to get you this time. Anyway, I thought we'd go out for dinner sometime next week, just as friends you know, it could be fun. I know you haven't got any animosity for me or anything and so I just thought we could go out for old times sake. What do you think? That's great, how about-"

He hung up on her, set the receiver down with a resounding click and left the room. It rang repeatedly for the next five minutes, and at that point he unplugged it. Obviously, Greece had only left her with the need to see him.

After a few hours more of listless roaming around the apartment, he plugged the phone back in. He sat on the floor and opened the phone book, toying with the idea of trying to find her based on her first name and address alone. He closed the phone book again.

Outside the shrouded window, a rain had begun to fall. He opened the window and glanced out at it. Spitting drizzly autumn type rain that simply made everything wet, never puddled. The worst sort of rain out there, Michael thought, closing the window with a bang. He was extraordinarily restless. He glanced at the space in the wall where the television had been before he had sold it. Back in June, it had seemed like it would be a good idea, now, in October, it seemed like it had been a horrible idea.

June had been Michael's month of change. He had broken up with Paula, sold the television, gotten past the first ten pages of the book and decided that things were going to change in his life. He looked around at the computer, with the screen saver churning away, looked at the telephone, where Paula had called him up, looked again at the television's old repose- what had changed? He'd gotten rid of the old, but hadn't bothered to replace anything- that was the problem.

The door slammed and Jeff came in, bearing a Target bag which he dropped next to the couch.

"Any calls?"

Michael shrugged. "I just now plugged it back in."

"Explain."

"Paula called, I took your advice, I hung up on her."

"And you've been sitting here moping ever since, haven't you?"

"Yes."

Jeff sat down on the couch. "That's one hell of a life you've got going for you there, you know that?"

"Yeah."

Go to Part 12

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