He had no idea what to do. Of all the people he’d imagined answering (he did that as he listened to the phone ring)…Pam had never been a possibility.

He’d imagined a big, stocky man in a pinstripe suit with a fat cigar in his mouth and a frothy mustache, twirled up on the ends.

Or a thin, pinched woman with an ugly blouse (all frilly in the front) and a scratchy wool skirt, her hair up in a severe bun.

But never Pam.

He couldn’t think of anything to say…

Then he heard it. Her “empty line sequence”.

Click.