Landlines

Jenna Kay Duxbury

Short story

“Landlines” is a short story about a childhood friendship that faded away. I am fascinated by how shifts in technology shape human relationships, wielding the power to keep us connected and isolated at the same time.

Our mothers taught us how to show hospitality, how to attack, how to reconcile. We compared the size and shape of their breasts to make predictions about our own future adult bodies, and we whispered together about their fights, quietly forming judgements about who was right and wrong. They went for long walks together in the cool of morning, with sun dappling the green leaves and mist rising from the side of the road. They walked until they touched the stop sign at the end of the street. When we were little, they pushed us along in our strollers, sharing everything from funny stories to private shames to hopes and plans for the future. Even before we could speak, we learned to do the same.

Our mothers let us ransack their closets to play dress-up, offering their opinions on our zany outfit choices only when asked. Your mother smartly told me once that my color profile was a true summer, which delighted me to no end. She let us try on her long necklaces and clomp around in high heeled shoes we could never hope to fill. We fought over who got to wear her luxurious faux mink coat, which ultimately was lent to me because I was the guest, and she taught us that the guest was to be treated with honor and given the best portion. (You only conceded through tears after she also promised that you could wear it later, after I went home.)

We were sisters in every fantasy: princesses living in exile, mermaids guarding an underwater treasure, druids who dwelt in the forest amongst fairies and fireflies. I always assumed the role and greater responsibilities of the elder sister – for example, it was upon my heavy head the crown rested after our father the king was assassinated, while you were the people’s princess, waving from our castle to an adoring public. It was I who understood the secret language of the trees and decoded the wind’s whispers into mystic messages from Mother Earth. You dutifully listened, concurring that the messages echoed the symbolism you had seen in your dreams.

When we acted out our favorite movies, I was the protagonist and you were the sidekick, a default dynamic that was only rarely challenged. We most often disagreed over who got to be Ariel from The Little Mermaid and who had to play one of Ariel’s forgettable sisters. We twisted the rules of hospitality inside out and backwards into a guest versus host power struggle – the “guest” insisting that they were entitled to choose the activity and the manner in which it was carried out, and the “host” asserting that since it was their house and property, they got to make the rules. We debated over who was most like Ariel in real life and therefore more well-suited to the role – who was prettier, who had the better singing voice, whose bathing suit most closely met the high standards of mermaid fashion. When the arguments escalated into full-blown temper tantrums, our mothers would be sought to pass a decree on who got to be Ariel for the afternoon. Most often, the person displaying the brattiest behavior was sentenced to suffer the consequence of not getting what they wanted.

“Life goes on,” your mother said when she could see I felt guilty about making you cry. “Come on, girls – you should both apologize.” The way her laugh lines crinkled her soft cheeks when she smiled inspired us to practice smiling in the mirror over and over, tracing the creases with our fingers that we imagined would one day become permanent. Of course my mother smiled too, but she also had frown lines, a constant furrow between her eyebrows even while she slept. We saw the furrow deepen whenever she came home late from work again, weary to the bone and walking slow to the kitchen for a glass of wine. We resolved to never work late, that we’d have better jobs and live happily all of our days so that only the laugh lines would stay.

Once, you said to me that my mother wouldn’t be so tired and stressed if she didn’t work so much. I snapped back that maybe if my mother had married rich, she could have been a stay-at-home-mom, like your mother. But she worked hard for us, which was something a spoiled brat like you could never understand. Your family wasn’t much wealthier than mine, and I knew it. “Spoiled brat” was a serious insult, only to be used in dire circumstances. You admonished me for my self-pity, reminding me that I was the luckier one with a moon chair in my bedroom, a Gameboy Color, and new store-bought tops for school every fall. You usually only got secondhand clothes, plus you had been dealt the misfortune of having to share resources with your younger brother while I was an only child.

Eavesdropping on our mothers’ fights had taught us that an untruth straddling the sticky area between fact and fiction could cause piercing damage – it could not be fully defended or denied, and it often left a lasting scar. Their fights were terrible to witness because they were so much quieter and more serious than ours. I remember driving by your house once and asking if we could stop by to say hello, and my mother told me that she didn’t want to see your mother just then. Slumped shoulders, sullen demeanors, pointed silences – these were the ways our mothers expressed hurt without speaking. We learned to mimic their gestures in a courtly dance that brought us closer together and then farther apart, keeping up with one another’s rhythms and moods, at turns somber and slow or joyous and quick, yet always in step together.

The movement toward reconciliation was often signaled by a white flag waving through a phone call. My mother holed up in her bedroom, speaking with yours for over an hour in hushed tones. Eventually she held out the phone to me and said you were on the other end. “Do you want to say hello?” I held the receiver to my ear and listened for your voice, like listening for the echo of the sea inside a shell. I thought that “landline” meant that all the telephone wires were woven together in a mysterious tapestry underground, with one wire leading directly from our house to yours. Anytime I wanted, I could cast a spell and conjure your voice by dialing those seven digits and counting the rings until you picked up.

We learned to forgive as they forgave. True, your mother didn’t work, but your father had a lot of debt, and that meant there wasn’t often extra money for treats. Special occasions were celebrated modestly in both our households. And yes, my mother was often tired and could be stern, but working hard was an admirable virtue, and there was a lot of pride in providing for one’s family. The wounds could only be healed when we both admitted that we knew how much was true and untrue, that we were standing together in the ambiguous gray. Eventually, we could let go of the discordant tones to find our way back into harmony.

Then the unthinkable happened: we moved to the new house. That invisible line buried under the earth that connected our houses was stretched so thin I feared it would snap. There was more distance to cover when we spoke, many more miles that we could only cross on a raft of words. For all their years of friendship, our mothers didn’t seem to feel the gulf of separation as sharply as we did. We tried hard to stay connected, and we talked on the phone almost every day. Your voice came through the receiver as clear and soft as ever – constant tides that anchored me back to the old neighborhood. I laid on the floor of my new bedroom next to the same old moon chair, watching dust motes float in the sun. We talked about everything and nothing until someone else inevitably needed to make a call or check their email. Over time I felt the line slacken, and eventually it all but vanished. Now I can only see it by squinting into the distance.

Sometimes I like your Instagram stories, pressing that tiny heart in a futile attempt to say so much more than I feel the courage to speak out loud. I can see you, painted and posing for the camera, paired with a sassy caption and the occasional glimpse into who you are now. When you smile big, I still see those phantom traces of how we imagined the years would shape us. I wonder if you still wash your face the way my mother taught you during one of our at-home spa days: first splash with warm water, then cool. Then pat, pat, pat it dry with a clean towel. When you’re sipping on a juicy red cabernet or celebratory champagne that I sometimes see in your photos, do you ever think of my mother and her late night glasses of wine? She asks me about you now and then. She laid a damp washcloth over your forehead that time you came down with a fever while your parents were out of town. She held your hair back when you threw up in the parking lot after our softball game. You wear it short now – it suits you.

I like to believe that I still know you, but I can’t be sure. A cell phone is supposed to do so much more than a landline can do, but it cannot lead us back home. It’s tethered to nothing, just a shell lost in the ocean.

I close the app and close my eyes. There was a time when our mothers were best friends, and we would always be best friends, and one day our children would also be best friends, or so we dreamed.