Love on the Line

Since I chatted on the phone with my friend Andy almost daily during the summer of 1974, when I dialed his number that particular August afternoon, it was unthinkingly--by rote.

But instead of a ring at his end, there was silence. And when a voice did suddenly sound on the line, it wasn't Andy's sandpapery growl but plush velvet. Inexplicably, I seemed to have hooked up with Jacqueline Bisset or, at the very least, her sister.

"Like a kangaroo," she was saying. "This fellow was hopping around as if someone had poked him in the behind." She laughed. "But I suppose I shouldn't be so amused. I didn't get the job, after all. I guess I'd have had to sleep with him for that."

"Yes, I know how it can be," answered another voice, male, and very tentative.

"Do you?" she asked, amused. "Do you, really? Tell me how it can be."

"Well, you know, I know about the way some men, you know, use women."

"I'm sure you do, Richard," she said with mock severity. "I'm sure you've had a lot of experience with that kind of thing."

(continued on page 261)Love on the Line(continued from page 171)

"No, no, I didn't mean to imply that I--"

"Don't mind me, Richard, I was just teasing." She paused. "I'm sorry. I guess I'm just a bit put off by not having gotten that job, that's all."

"I understand, Zoe." He cleared his throat. "Perhaps I can help. If you're free Friday evening, I'd love to ask you out for din--"

"Wait a second," she hissed. "What's that?"

"What's what?"

"I hear breathing."

"Ah, yes," I chimed in, "that must be me."

"Who's that?"

"My name is Harry. I seem to have ended up in the wrong conversation. Unless, of course, one of you happens to be Andy Reiman pretending not to be."

Zoe laughed. "I don't think so. My name's Zoe and that's Richard."

"I'm very pleased to meet you. This conversation is much better than talking to Andy, anyway." I paused. "I gather you're English."

"My mother is. But I've been in this country for the past seven or eight years, since I began college here."

"Excuse me, Zoe, I wanted to ask you--"

"Not now, Richard. We can talk about it afterward."

"Where'd you go to college?" I asked.

"Oh, I'm almost embarrassed to say."

"Finch," said Richard, maliciously.

"You mean the place where Tricia Nixon went?"

"No need to rub it in," said Zoe. "But there I was, a proper English girl, from a proper English family, so the situation did seem to call for a proper finishing school." She sighed dramatically. "So here I am, an unfinished woman, unable to find myself a proper job."

"Yes," I said, "I just heard about your last interview."

"It's awful," she said. "Until recently, I did have a job with one of the local television stations, but it was simply hateful, so I quit. Now I'm almost sorry I did."

"Which station?"

"Listen, Zoe," cut in Richard sullenly, "I'm getting off. Maybe we can speak later."

"Oh, OK, Richard, we'll speak soon." She paused a beat. "Are you still there, Harry?"

But at that instant, Richard placed his receiver back in the cradle and the line, our line, went stone-dead.

•

The woman in the placement office at Finch College was baffled by my request. "You want to see the college yearbooks for the past three years?"

"Yes, if I could."

"May I ask why?"

"Well, I'm not sure you'll understand." But looking at her sitting there, plump and grandmotherly, pink-cheeked and wet-eyed, I suspected she might, especially if I were kind to poor Richard in the telling. Ten minutes later, I was sitting at a table in the corner, poring over pages of photos of Finch graduates.

There were, if the photos were to be taken at face value, more than a few Finchies I'd have gladly pounced upon, but there were precious few Zoes among them. Indeed, I was well into my second yearbook before I found my first--but she appeared to have been worth the wait. Zoe Dickinson, posed primly over the legend I've Come a long way, baby, was a knockout, in a blonde, clear-eyed kind of way; I could not imagine her speaking with anything but an English accent.

Still, with Woodward and Bernstein just then very much in the air, I felt compelled to press on. It was a wise decision, for toward the end of the third volume, I discovered a second Zoe. From her photo, which featured lively dark eyes and a mischievous smile, Zoe Ann Weinbaum appeared to be a good deal sassier than Zoe Dickinson. Indeed, that smile seemed to match perfectly the spirit of that wonderful disembodied soul I'd encountered on the telephone.

"Excuse me," I said to the lady in the alumni office, "I was wondering if you could give me some information on a couple of Finch graduates."

The woman, who looked alarmingly like Miss Grundy in Archie comics, eyed me severely. "And who might you be?"

So I smiled, charmingly, I thought, and repeated my story. "And so you see," I concluded, "there seems to be fate at work here."

"Young man," said Miss Grundy, "I don't give a crap about fate."

"But don't you see--"

"I don't want to hear any more about it," she cut me off. "We try to protect our girls from people like you." She examined me with contempt. "Next you'll be asking for Tricia Nixon's file."

•

A quick examination of the phone book revealed, alas, that neither of my Zoes was listed, leaving me with but one option: There are nine television stations in New York, and I began with Channel 2.

"WCBS-TV," answered the operator.

"Yes, I'm trying to reach Zoe Dickinson-Weinbaum. She doesn't work there anymore, but I was wondering--"

"Dickinson-Weinbaum? What kind of name is that?"

"Well, it might be Weinbaum-Dickinson. It's a married name."

"Do you know what department she's in?"

"No, I don't."

There was a five-second pause. "I'm sorry, sir, I don't find a listing under either of those names."

And so it went at station after station. I tried the names in several permutations, as Zoe Ann Weinbaum, as Z. A. Weinbaum-Dickinson, as Z. Ann Dickinson-Weinbaum; once, with Channel 5, I summoned up my most casual manner and said simply, "Hi, is Zoe there?"

It wasn't until I was down to Channel 11, WPIX, that things broke for me.

"Hello," I said to the operator, "this is going to be very complicated. I'm looking for someone named Zoe."

"Zoe? She's not here anymore."

I sat bolt upright. "Do you know how I can reach her?"

"I'll switch you to the promotion department. That's where she worked."

The lady in the promotion department knew all about Zoe--everything but her phone number; apparently, Zoe had been much sought after by ardent young men (a good sign, that) and had felt obliged to get an unlisted phone (a very bad sign). "But," the lady added cheerily, "I do have an address for her."

Thus it was that two hours later, I found myself before the door of a ground-floor Upper West Side apartment, dressed in a French tweed suit, a bottle of Moët under my arm. I knocked, the door opened and there stood Zoe herself: Zoe Dickinson.

"Hello, Zoe. I'm Harry."

She smiled, not primly at all, but joyously, eagerly, even lasciviously, precisely as I had imagined Zoe Weinbaum would smile. "Oh, God," she exclaimed, "I wouldn't have believed it! Do come in."