Phone Call

This one was it. Janie knew as soon as she dialed the number. Her big pay-off was about to happen. The phone chord, stretched taut to reach into the pantry, was quivering in the excitement of Janie’s big moment. The tiresome research and endless waiting, the patient vigils, the cutting and pasting were done. She had put off the phone call until all the stars were aligned, the pieces of the puzzle -the enigma of Janie- were in place. More than once she had taken a deep breath, considering the risks, and held that breath while she recalled all her past disappointments, reliving those carefully constructed dreams that had been dashed in an instant. Success, fulfilment, happiness: nudged just beyond her reach. Was this yet one more beguiling rainbow about to be smudged grey?

Janie wanted to hang up, wanted to press her finger against the button, put the phone quickly back in place, but she knew this was it. This was her crowning glory, her longed-for triumph. She remained curled around the receiver, squatting inside the dark pantry, the door jammed shut on the phone chord. The quivering phone chord. Janie held her breath between rings.

On the third ring she coughed. A tickly cough that she knew was just beginning. She could feel it working up into a coughing fit that would not stop just because the person at the other end of the line was about to answer the telephone.

Holding the receiver close against her ear, Janie wrapped the trembling phone chord, the quivering coil about her neck and pulled. Slowly she tightened it, choking back the cough. Tighter. Cough. Tight. Ring.

This week  wants us to use the third definition of RAINBOW (noun) 3 [from the impossibility of reaching the rainbow, at whose foot a pot of gold is said to be buried] :  an illusory goal or hope