| About the Author |
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Born and raised in Sweden, Louise Ostling lived there until she was nineteen when she moved to the United States to pursue her education. Currently a freelancing journalist and a tennis coach in El Paso, she has finished her MFA degree in creative writing at the University of Texas at El Paso. She has previously published short stories in CrossConnect, BorderSenses, and has forthcoming work in Lifeboat: A Journal of Memoir, and EWG. She's a regular contributor to The El Paso Times, What’s Up, and Sun Tennis. Hello? is her first story in Nuvein.
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Anne lay on her bed and stared up at the wall-papered roof, bubbles in groups of two, a lone bubble pushed into each corner. She sighed. She had called and asked him, having planned to call and ask him the whole day. At five, she had promised herself. She would call him at five.
At 5:02 p.m. he picked up the phone after only one signal. Anne stood in the bathroom shower with her clothes on, the curtain drawn, the light switch off, embarrassed, hiding her embarrassment, forcing herself to speak. But already his initial, Hello, told her he was cranky, irritated, even angry, and maybe he had a right to be?
“Hey, it’s Anne,” she said.
“Uhuh,” he said, irritated, as if already knowing this fact, and she knew he knew, him having caller ID. “What’s up?” he said, still irritated, urging her to say why she called, why she dared to disturb him. She had rehearsed to ask him how he was before asking, but she forgot and his irritated “What’s Up?” didn’t allow for any formalities.
She wasn’t nervous anymore, only scared of what he was going to say, maybe tell her to buzz off, maybe tell her to leave him alone. She caught a glimpse of a lone cloud in the otherwise blue sky through the bathroom window and asked, “Are you going to walk Holden?” She closed her eyes in the dark, knowing this attempt to see him just for a few minutes, walk with him while he walked his dog the ten minutes around the block, allowing her to spend time with him, the highlight of her day, until they got to his front door and he would say, Well take care. Thanks for walking us, was doomed to fail from his first irritated Hello?
“Am I going to walk Holden?” he said. “Already did,” rejecting her for the millionth time.
“All right,” she said.
“All right. Bye. Take care,” he said.
She lay on the bed, staring at the roof, bubbles in group of two, one bubble pushed into each corner.
The End
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