Lydia Davis

People did not know what she knew, that she was not really a woman but a man, often a fat man, but more often, probably, an old man. The fact that she was an old man made it hard for her to be a young woman. It was hard for her to talk to a young man, for instance, though the young man was clearly interested in her. She had to ask herself, Why is this young man flirting with this old man?

All over the city there are old black women who have been employed to call up people at seven in the morning and ask in a muffled voice to speak to Lisa. These women are part of a larger corps of city employees engaged to call wrong numbers. The highest earner of all is an Indian from India who is able to insist that he does not have the wrong number.

For years we have lived together in the basement. She is the cook; I am the housemaid. We are not good servants, but no one can dismiss us because we are still better than most. My mother’s dream is that someday she will save enough money to leave me and live in the country. My dream is nearly the same, except that when I am feeling angry and unhappy I look across the table at her clawlike hands and hope that she will choke to death on her food. Then no one would be there to stop me from going into her closet and breaking open her money box. I would put on her dresses and her hats, and open the windows of her room and let the smell out.