Ma Bell

Ma Bell

The young girl’s red-haired head popped up from the opening on the floor. She looked around the attic, taking in everything and committing it to memory. Once satisfied, she turned her attention to the elderly man, who sat with his back to her, on a cardboard box in the middle of the floor with a single light bulb over his head.

“Grandpa, what are you doing up here?”

He wiped a forearm across his eyes as he turned toward her.

“Belle, does your mom know you’re up here? I seem to recall her telling you not to climb on the attic stairs.”

“It’s okay. She’s in the garage. She said I should keep you company, that you might be lonely.”

“Is that so? When did she say that?”

“When we were driving over here.”

Belle now was sitting on the attic floor, legs dangling down in the opening.

“Come over here then and get away from the steps. What I’m doing here is trying to go through your grandma’s stuff.”

“Mom says you should throw it all away.”

“All in good time. You can help me, do you see anything up here I should get rid of?”

Belle studied the room, slowly walking under the rafters.

“This could take a while, Grandpa. There’s a lot of boxes here.”

“I’ll say. A lifetime of boxes.”

Belle poked at a black object with her toe.

“What’s this?”

“That is…” he smiled. “Guess what it is.”

She picked up the object in both hands, it was heavier than she expected. A part of it fell off but stayed connected by a thick, curly black cord. The center of it had a plastic circle sticking out of it with numbers and letters on it. Her grandpa took it from her and set it on a box next to him.

“This is a telephone.”

She stared at the object and then looked dubiously at him. He picked up the part that had fallen and held it to the side of her head.

“See,” he pointed to the end near her mouth. “You talk into here, and then put this part to your ear and listen to the person on the other end of the line. We used these phones for many years, they worked great. You didn’t have to get a new phone every couple of years, these lasted forever. Your grandma spent many hours on this particular phone. We kept it on a table in the front hallway and she would gossip with all her friends.”

He gently took the receiver out of Belle’s hand and held it up to his ear.

“I would call her every day, after work, to say I was coming home.”

“Did you call her on your cell phone?”

“No cell phones back then. Which meant you couldn’t talk while you were driving. Which you shouldn’t do now, anyways.”

Belle frowned as she tried to fathom this news. Her grandpa turned the phone around and pointed to a stub of a cord dangling in the back.

“The phones were attached to a telephone line so they would have to stay in one place.”

“That sounds stupid.” Belle punched at the circular dial. “Why are these numbers and letters here? Are they for texting?”

He laughed and pulled her up on his lap.

“There was no texting then. Or email for that matter.”

“No pictures?” Belle whispered. She was catching on.

“Here’s another thing about this phone that reminds me of your grandmother. I thought she was the cutest girl in school, but she hardly noticed me. Then I found out that she worked, after school, at the phone company as an operator.”

“An operator?”

“Back then, operators helped people to make phone calls. Say you were making a long-distance call, they could make the connection for you.  You dial zero,” he put Belle’s finger in the last hole on the dial and they spun it around. Then you would hear a voice say, ‘directory assistance’ and that voice might have been your grandma. I started to call all the time. We lived in a small town and there weren’t that many operators, so eventually your grandma would answer my call. Sometimes I would just ask her what the time was, then hang up.”

“You mean the phone didn’t have a clock on it?”

He put the receiver in the cradle and smiled at Belle.

“Soon she recognized my voice, and she would smile at me when we passed in the school hallway. Finally, after she answered one of my calls, I got up the nerve to ask her to go to the movies.”

“Did she say she would go with you?”

“Yes, she did, and then we fell in love. I think this old phone had a lot to do with us getting married.”

“I miss Grandma.”

He put his arm around Belle and they sat silently for a minute. Then he put the phone on his lap and pointed to the center of the dial.

“See this? That was our phone number. MA7-3841.” He put her finger in the correct hole, turned the dial to the end and let it spin back. Then he moved her finger to the first hole for the ‘A’ and continued to dial the complete number. He put the receiver up to his ear.

“Hello, hello? This is a long-distance call from Belle, will you accept the call? Yes? One minute please, I’ll put her on.”

Belle giggled as he handed her the receiver.

“Who should I pretend I’m talking to?”

“Whoever you want.”

“Is it okay if I pretend I’m talking to Grandma?”

“Yes. Um, yes. She would… she would like that.”

“Hi Grandma, Grandpa and I found your old phone and decided to call. We just wanted to tell you we miss you. Grandpa is right here, he wants to say ‘hi’.”

She held out the phone as her mom’s head popped into view.

“Belle, I told you to stay out of the attic.”

“Hi Mom. Look, you won’t believe it, but this is an actual phone. I’m not kidding. It was Grandma’s. Now we’re talking to her. Pretending to.”

Belle’s mom stepped into the attic. She walked over to her father, bent over and kissed him on top of his head.

“Dad, I’m sorry Belle put you up to this. You know how her imagination runs wild.”

“It’s okay. For a second there, I could almost hear your mother’s voice.”

“Grandpa, do you think I could keep Grandma’s phone?”

“Of course you can.”