Heather Brown

Wife turned on

CHAPTER ONE

I was coming home from the PTA meeting alone about ten at night, when the car brake down. The first thing I thought of was finding the nearest pay phone and calling my husband at home.

When the engine had started to sputter I'd managed to turn off the freeway. Now I got out of the car and started walking up the deserted, dark street. The neighborhood was totally unfamiliar.

I must have walked a quarter of a mile without seeing any phone booths. Briefly I considered going up to a house and asking if I could make a cell. However, when I took a closer look at the homes around me, I decided against it.

The neighborhood was at least half abandoned. At first I'd assumed that the absence of lights in so many of the windows meant most of the residents turned in early. Then, upon closer inspection, I realized that nobody was living in many of the houses. This was apparently one of those neighborhoods the newspapers placed under the heading of "urban blight". For some reason the people who'd formerly lived there had been scared or pushed out, and now it was a no-man's land.

Suddenly I felt scared. Crime was reportedly rampant in areas like this. From what I'd read and heard, clearly this was no place for a woman to be walking the street alone after dark.

Then, at last, I saw a phone booth. I ran toward it, somehow thinking that if I could just hear Don's voice on the other end of the line I would be safe.

Clutching a dime in my sweaty palm I anxiously ran for the booth. When I slipped inside the narrow enclosure I could hear my heart loudly thumping from the exertion.

Wiping the perspiration off the dime on my skirt, I dropped it into the slot. My hand was trembling as I dialed our number at home.

I was so agitated that it took me several seconds to realize that I was holding a dead line to my ear. There was nothing but silence coming out of the receiver.

Finally I caught on and took a better look at the phone. The whole center of the box was missing. It had been ripped off by vandals and was a useless piece of junk.