Intermezzo

by Sally Rooney

Hi, says the voice again. This is Margaret Kearns. We met last weekend. Quickly he answers: Oh, I remember. It’s cool. I mean, it’s nice to hear from you. I hope the call wasn’t ringing for too long or anything. I just had my phone left on charge because it was running out of battery. He is conscious that he says all this very rapidly, too rapidly, and she pauses before she replies. His pulse is so fast and loud in his ears that he wonders for a second if it’s even audible on the other side of the call, or is that medically possible, to hear the sound of another person’s heartbeat on a phone call: probably not. That’s okay, she says. It wasn’t ringing for long.