"There's a moth in your wine."
"I know."
"It's dead."
"Yep."
"That why you're not drinking it?"
"Yep."
"Want a fresh glass?"
"Nope."
"Want a fresh glass with fresh wine in it?"
"Yep."
"'Kay. Be right back."
His sister goes into the house and he is struck by the power of the relief that flooded through him when it was she, and not the peculiar callers, who stepped onto the back patio a few moments ago. It occurs to X. to wonder if perhaps the phone call is part of an elaborate ruse, a joke played by some college friends or part of a massive revenge scheme perpetrated by an ex-girlfriend. He has discarded both of these ideas by the time his sister returns with two glasses, the remaining bottle of Riesling and a fresh bottle of something she will not let him see.
"You are uncharacteristically quiet tonight, Brother Mine."
"I am uncharacteristically alarmed, O Sister, My Sister."
"What by, O Respected Elder Sibling?"
"A series of odd and seemingly unconnected events which now appear either connected or so misshapen in their randomness that they have overlapped one another and now threaten to intersect unpleasantly with my everyday life, such as it is."
"'Such as it is,' he murmured, gesturing lazily about him with his wineglass before raising it to sip."
"Mock, mock, mock."
"Detail these events and I will clarify for you, Fellow Offspring of our Progenitor and Progenitrix."
"Are you quite prepared to marinate in details over the next several hours?"
"As long as you come with me to the Secret Barn Dance in Lost Canyon."
"Done. Shall I begin?"
"Do."
"Very well, then: as you know, I've been looking for a way to finance my eventual return to NYC or a foray into the wilds of Chicago."
"And you took the job with the creepy dusty office people."
"Yes. It appears that they nor their company do not exist. Nobody contacted the school and the only reason I have any money is because the staff took up a collection."
"Hence the pile of cash on the table here in the out-of-doors."
"Quite. But, mysteriously you will no doubt agree, I have received several phone calls from a 408 number and no voicemails on my phone, but a strange and disconcerting one on the home number just before you arrived."
"No!"
"O, indeed. Go. Listen to it. Discern, if you can, the dialect."
"Curiouser and curiouser," she says, heading in through the French Doors to hit play on the machine.
And now X. discovers that it is not, in fact, the first such message on his parents' machine.
