He says, “It really is an unmistakable sound, the mixing of a martini. When I was a kid, radio stations used to have these sound quizzes. They’d play a sound, and if they called you up, you’d try to guess what it was. A toaster popping up, something like that. Rock ’n’ roll stations used to have these.” Ha! That’ll show her. “My mom’s friend — my mom has this cute boyfriend — and he was in on the birth of rock ’n’ roll.” He makes a mental note to tell her about lying in bed with the measles and hearing “Rock Around the Clock” for the first time. Mmm, maybe not. Measles might suggest that he was a sickly child, make him seem weak. He throws himself into the routine that inspiration has thrust upon him, beginning with the voice of the radio announcer: “All right, Mrs. Edward Dingle, for a complete set of waterless cookware, what is this sound?”
Will she know what waterless cookware is? he wonders. Oh, shit, the cab. I should go out and tell the cab to keep waiting. But if I stop this now, I’ll look completely ridiculous. I hope he waits. I hope he doesn’t come to the door or something — make me look ridiculous.
He makes the sound of a martini being stirred, and the gesture of stirring a martini, too, so that Leila will be sure to get it: “Linkala-plinkala, linkala-plinkala, linkala-plinkala.”
Am I making a fool of myself? he asks himself.
In his own voice he continues: “Well, I would recognize that anywhere. It’s a martini. Somebody stirring a martini, but Mrs. Dingle hasn’t the faintest idea.”
In the voice of Mrs. Dingle: “Um, uh, ah, oh, gee.”
In his own voice: “A martini.”
In the voice of the announcer: “Fifteen seconds!”
His own voice: “A martini, damn it, a martini!”
Leila laughs. At the routine, or at me?
Mrs. Dingle: “Somebody stirring tea — ”
Matthew: “A martini, Mrs. Dingle, you ignorant teetotaler!”
Mrs. Dingle: “No, not tea — ”
Matthew: “Ah! Finally!”
Mrs. Dingle: “Coffee! No — tea. Somebody stirring a cup of tea.”
The announcer: “Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs. Dingle — ”
A wavelet of unhappiness washes over Matthew now that he’s finished. His shoulders sag. “Well,” he says. “Something like that.” He can’t believe that he’s just done what he’s just done. He’s not like this. He doesn’t act out. I’m behaving like a lovesick adolescent. In a minute I’ll be crushing beer cans with one hand. No, that’s not a feat anymore — all the beer cans are made of aluminum.
“I — uh — have to go tell the cabdriver to keep waiting,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”
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🎧 457: He says . . .