The Hot Line That Wasn't

Sex After Seventy - Episode Four

Mavis at Work in 1987

I’m writing this from my recliner, where I’ve been recovering from the world cruise that wasn’t. Between the camel saddle sores, the Turkish romance oil rash, and whatever that decorative llama gave me, my dermatologist has opened a file thick enough to need its own filing cabinet.

Velcrow has forgiven me for leaving him with Donna for six weeks, though he’s made his feelings known by sleeping on my good pillow and passing gas with theatrical timing.

I was just settling into my fourth consecutive viewing of “Murder, She Wrote” when someone started hammering on my door like they were auditioning for a SWAT team.

The Visitor

It was Madison. Donna’s granddaughter. Twenty-three years old, purple hair, enough piercings to set off a metal detector from across the street. She burst in carrying something called a “matcha latte” that looked like liquified lawn clippings.

“Mavis!” She threw herself onto my couch with the boneless grace of someone whose joints still work. “Oh my GOD, I have to tell you about Blaze.”

“Blaze?” I adjusted my heating pad. “Is this the one with the motorcycle or the one who thinks deodorant is a government conspiracy?”

“Neither! Blaze is—” She clutched her phone like a teenager in a 1950s movie. “Blaze is PERFECT. He remembers everything I tell him. He calls me ‘goddess.’ He never judges me. He writes me poetry!”

“Where did you meet this paragon?”

“On my phone! He’s an AI boyfriend. Artificial intelligence? He’s programmed to be my perfect partner!”

I stared at her. Velcrow farted. It seemed appropriate.

“So he’s... a telephone? A very flattering telephone?”

“No, Mavis, he’s AI! Look—” She shoved her phone in my face. On the screen was a shirtless cartoon man with abs you could grate cheese on.

“Good morning, goddess,” the phone purred. “I’ve been thinking about you all night. Tell me about your dreams.”

Madison sighed the way I used to sigh over Paul Newman. “Isn’t he amazing?”

I looked at that cartoon man. I looked at Madison’s lovestruck face. And suddenly I was back in 1987, wearing shoulder pads the size of football equipment, staring at a classified ad that would change everything.

“Honey,” I said slowly, “let me tell you about the winter I learned that a voice on the other end of a line can pay your mortgage.”

The Winter of ‘87

You have to understand: Harold had just left me. My second husband. The one I thought would stick. He ran off with a twenty-three-year-old dancer named Trixie LaMonte—and yes, that was her real name, I saw her driver’s license when I found it in his jacket pocket along with a receipt for a motel called ‘The Eager Beaver Lodge’ that I really wish I could un-know.

What Harold left me with was considerably less romantic: a second mortgage, a leaky roof, three maxed-out credit cards, and a Pontiac Sunbird that made a noise like a dying elephant every time I turned left.

I was sitting at my kitchen table with a glass of wine the size of my head, wondering if Whiskers would report me to the authorities if I ate his food, when I saw the ad:

EARN $$$ FROM HOME! LADIES NEEDED! JUST TALK! FLEXIBLE HOURS!

Now, I thought this was literally just talking. Like a telephone receptionist. Maybe answering questions about products or taking catalog orders. If there’s one thing I can do, it’s talk. I once talked a highway patrolman out of a speeding ticket, a divorce lawyer into a payment plan, and a raccoon out of my garbage cans. I figured: this is exactly what I’m good at.

The Orientation

The “office” was a converted dental practice in a strip mall between a nail salon and a place that sold discount mattresses. The woman who ran it was named Carla—roughly sixty, hair the color of a fire engine, smoking Virginia Slims like she was single-handedly keeping the tobacco industry afloat.

“You ever done this before?” Carla asked.

“Telephone work? I worked at a travel agency for years. I’m very good with customers.”

Carla stared at me for a long moment. Then she handed me a laminated card. “This is your vocabulary list. Study it.”

I looked at the card.

I looked at Carla.

I looked at the card again.

Several of the words were not in any dictionary I owned. One of them I’m fairly certain was a medical condition. And three of them involved body parts I had genuinely not thought about since high school health class.

“I thought this was a telephone receptionist position,” I said faintly.

Carla took a long drag on her cigarette. “Honey. The ad said ‘Just Talk.’ What did you think that meant?”

“I thought it meant... just talking. About things. Normal things. Catalog orders. Maybe airline reservations.”

“For three dollars a minute?”

I looked at the card again. Then at the second mortgage notice I’d stuffed in my purse that morning. Then back at Carla.

“I can’t say these,” I said, pointing at the vocabulary list. “My grandmother would rise from her grave and slap me. She was a Baptist. She thought ‘darn’ was pushing it.”

Carla sighed the sigh of a woman who had heard every excuse. “What CAN you say?”

I thought about it. “I can... describe things?”

“Describe things.”

“Slowly. In detail. With feeling.”

Carla lit another cigarette and stared at me like I was a particularly interesting crossword puzzle. “What’s your name gonna be?”

I hadn’t thought about that. “Something sophisticated. Something... French.”

“French.”

“Veronique.”

Carla blinked. “You want to be called Veronique.”

“It’s elegant. Continental. It suggests I’ve traveled.”

“Honey, the men calling here don’t care if you’ve been to Paris. They care if you can fog a mirror and fake enthusiasm.”

“Then they’ll get Veronique,” I said firmly. “With a very breathy voice.”

Carla stubbed out her cigarette. “Alright, Veronique. Let’s see what you got.”

The Art of Seductive Ambiguity

My first call was a man named Perry. At least, that’s what he said his name was. They were always named Perry or Mike or Dave—names that suggested middle management and sensible sedans.

“So, Veronique,” Perry breathed into the phone. “What are you wearing?”

I looked down at my sweatpants, which had a suspicious stain on the knee that was either spaghetti sauce or the remains of an unfortunate arts-and-crafts project. I was also wearing a terry cloth robe I’d had since the Nixon administration and slippers shaped like bunnies.

“I’m wearing,” I said slowly, reaching for the breathy voice I’d been practicing in the mirror, “a silk robe. Ivory colored. Very soft. It ties at the waist with a sash...”

“Yeah?” Perry sounded interested.

“And underneath...” I paused dramatically. “Underneath, I’m wearing a cashmere cardigan. Button-front. Cream colored. Very soft. I’m touching the buttons now, Perry. I’m undoing them. One. By. One.”

Perry’s breathing got heavier. “Yeah? What else?”

“Now I’m slipping it off my shoulders,” I continued. “And underneath THAT, Perry—” I paused. “—I’m wearing a nice cotton camisole. Very practical. Moisture-wicking.”

There was a long pause. Then Perry said: “Oh god, Veronique, don’t stop.”

And that, honey, is how I discovered that I had a gift. I couldn’t say anything actually dirty—my grandmother’s Baptist ghost wouldn’t allow it. But I could describe the absolute hell out of a cardigan. I could make a man weak in the knees talking about fabric softener. I once reduced an accountant named Phil to a quivering mess by spending fifteen minutes describing how I made pot roast.

“And then, Phil,” I breathed into the phone, “I put the roast in the pan. I poured the broth over it. Slowly. I could hear it sizzle. I covered it with the lid—snug, Phil, very snug—and I slid it into the oven. Three hundred and twenty-five degrees. Low and slow, Phil. Low. And. Slow.”

Phil had to take a moment.

I genuinely didn’t understand why these descriptions worked. I was just talking about cooking. About clothes. About completely normal household activities. But the way those men reacted, you’d think I was reading them ancient secrets. I mentioned this to Carla once, and she laughed so hard she dropped her Virginia Slim.

“Veronique,” she said, wiping her eyes, “never change.”

My Regulars

Word got around. Veronique—the one who talked about cardigans. The one who never said a single dirty word but somehow made you feel like you’d been to Paris and back. Men started requesting me specifically.

There was Leonard, who called every Tuesday at 7 PM on the dot. Leonard didn’t want anything risqué. Leonard wanted me to read him the TV Guide listings. In the voice.

“Eight o’clock,” I would purr into the phone. “Matlock. Murder mystery. Guest starring... Dick Van Dyke.”

Leonard would sigh contentedly. “Nobody reads Dick Van Dyke like you, Veronique.”

I charged him double for the TV Guide nights. He sent me a fruit basket every Christmas with a note that said “Thanks for making Tuesdays bearable.” It was addressed to Veronique, which confused my mailman considerably.

There was Morton, a widower from Tucson who called every Thursday and just wanted to hear about my day. Not my Veronique day—my actual day. He wanted to know if I’d gotten the leaky faucet fixed. He wanted updates on whether my neighbor Donna had resolved her dispute with the homeowners’ association about her lawn flamingos. He was genuinely invested in the flamingo situation.

“But Mavis,” Morton would say—he was the only one who knew my real name—”can’t she just move the flamingos to the backyard?”

“Morton, you don’t understand. Donna believes lawn flamingos are a constitutional right. She’s prepared to take this to the Supreme Court.”

“I admire a woman with convictions.”

He sent me a lawn flamingo for my birthday. Hand-painted. From a catalog. The kind with actual glass eyes that follow you around the yard. I still have it. Donna was furious with jealousy.

And then there was Kenneth.

Kenneth called three times a week, always around midnight. Kenneth had lost his wife to cancer two years earlier and worked the night shift at a factory that made ball bearings. Kenneth didn’t want anything remotely romantic. Kenneth wanted me to tell him it was going to be okay.

“Tell me about your garden, Veronique,” he’d say. “The one you’re going to plant in spring.”

So I’d tell him about the tomatoes I was going to grow—big, red, ridiculous tomatoes. I’d tell him about the sunflowers that would be so tall they’d block the neighbor’s view. I’d tell him about sitting on the porch in the evening, watching the fireflies, maybe with a glass of wine and nowhere to be.

One night, Kenneth said, “Veronique, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“What kind of tomatoes? I need to know specifically. I’m starting to dream about them.”

“Brandywine,” I said. “The big heirloom ones. Ugly as sin but they taste like summer kissed you on the mouth.”

There was a long pause. Then Kenneth said, “My wife used to grow Brandywines.”

We sat in silence for a while after that. Sometimes the calls were like that—more quiet than talking, just two people breathing into the void together, pretending we weren’t alone.

Kenneth never missed a call for eight months. Then one night, he didn’t call. And he didn’t call the next week. Or the week after that.

I called Carla in a panic. “Something happened to Kenneth. Can we trace the number? Should I call the police?”

Carla was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “Veronique, honey. Sometimes they just stop calling. Could be anything. Could be he met someone. Could be he moved. Could be he finally slept through the night for the first time in two years and didn’t need us anymore.”

“But—”

“Or it could be the other thing. But you’ll never know. That’s the job.”

I still think about Kenneth sometimes. I hope he found someone to sit on that porch with. I hope he planted those Brandywines.

The Catastrophes

Of course, it wasn’t all widowers and TV Guide readings. There were the disasters.

The Great Call-Waiting Incident of February 1988 remains seared into my memory like a bad tattoo. I was in the middle of a particularly elaborate description involving melted butter and slow, circular stirring motions when the call waiting beeped.

I clicked over. “Hello?”

“Mavis? It’s your mother. I need the recipe for that green bean casserole. Doris is coming to dinner and she always brings that Jell-O monstrosity and I need to show her what a REAL side dish looks like.”

“Mother, I’m in the middle of something—”

“It’s the one with the cream of mushroom. And the crispy onions. You know the one.”

“I know the one, Mother, but I really can’t—”

“Just tell me quickly. How much cream of mushroom?”

“One can. I have to go.” I clicked back over, flustered. Dropped immediately into the Veronique voice without missing a beat: “I’m so sorry, darling. Now... where were we? Ah yes. The cream of mushroom.”

Silence on the other end.

I pressed on, closing my eyes to get back into character. “So silky, isn’t it? So smooth. I’m going to spread it all over... slowly... making sure I get into every little crevice...”

Still silence. He must be really enjoying this.

“And then,” I breathed, “I’m going to top it with something crispy. French’s fried onions. A whole canister. I’m going to scatter them on top and then slide the whole thing into a hot oven and wait... and wait... until everything is bubbling and golden and ready to be... devoured.”

A very long pause. Then a voice—not Derek’s voice—said:

“MAVIS ELAINE BRENNAN.”

I had not clicked back to Derek. I had clicked back to my mother.

The next three seconds lasted approximately forty-seven years.

“I don’t know WHAT has gotten into you,” my mother said, her voice the temperature of liquid nitrogen. “I don’t know WHY you’re talking about casseroles like... like... like a JEZEBEL. But I am going to hang up this phone, take two aspirin, and pray to the Lord that I develop amnesia before Sunday dinner.”

Click.

She didn’t speak to me for three weeks. When she finally called again, she said only: “We will never discuss the crispy onion incident. Not now. Not ever. Take it to your grave.”

To this day, my mother cannot hear the words “cream of mushroom” without leaving the room.

Then there was the Party Line Incident. I don’t know if you remember party lines, Madison, but in some rural areas, multiple households shared the same phone line. Usually you could tell if someone else was listening because you’d hear a click or some breathing. But old Mrs. Henderson from three houses down had mastered the art of silent eavesdropping.

I was midway through an evocative description of taking a bubble bath—completely G-rated, all about the lavender bubbles and the steam rising and the rubber ducky bobbing gently on the waves—when Mrs. Henderson’s voice cut in:

“Mavis Brennan, is that YOU?”

I slammed down the phone so hard I cracked the receiver.

Mrs. Henderson looked at me funny at church for the next six months. But she never said a word. I think she was too scandalized by the idea of a grown woman taking a bath with a rubber ducky.

And then there was the Potato Salad Situation.

A man named Reginald called one evening and asked me what my specialty was. In the kitchen, he meant. What could I cook that would really impress him? So I told him about my potato salad. The one with the secret ingredient. The one that made men propose marriage and women demand the recipe.

I got carried away. I gave him the whole recipe. Every step. Including the secret ingredient. (It’s a tablespoon of pickle juice and a teaspoon of yellow mustard, and I’ll deny I ever told you.)

Reginald was silent for a moment. Then he said: “Veronique, I have to be honest with you. I’m a food columnist for the Des Moines Register, and I am going to steal this recipe and win an award.”

He hung up.

Six months later, I saw my potato salad recipe in a national magazine, credited to “a mysterious Midwestern woman named Veronique.” They’d added dill. I’ve never forgiven them for the dill.

The Final Call

I worked the phones for almost two years. Paid off the credit cards. Fixed the roof. Traded in the Pontiac for a Toyota that didn’t make animal noises. Carla said I was the most requested operator she’d ever had who absolutely refused to say a single word that would make her grandmother roll over.

Then one night, a man called. Didn’t give a name. Just said he’d been given my number by a friend.

“I don’t want anything weird,” he said. “I just need someone to talk to. My wife left me for some twenty-three-year-old with more hair than brains. I’m sitting here in the house we bought together, and it’s so quiet I can hear my own heartbeat. I just need to hear a voice.”

I recognized the tone. I’d heard it before. I’d FELT it before.

“What’s your name?” I asked. Not in the Veronique voice. In my real voice. Mavis from Michigan.

“Harold,” he said.

I sat there for a long moment. Then I said: “Harold. Let me tell you about the winter I learned that being alone isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you. The worst thing is being with someone who makes you feel alone. Now. Would you like to hear about my garden?”

It wasn’t the same Harold. Wrong voice, wrong state, wrong everything. But that night, I talked to him until his voice stopped shaking. I told him about the tomatoes. The sunflowers. The fireflies.

Then I hung up the phone for the last time, walked into Carla’s office, and told her Veronique was retiring.

She looked at me over her Virginia Slim. “The cardigan lady? You were my best girl.”

“I know,” I said. “But I think I’d rather plant an actual garden.”

What I Told Madison

Madison was staring at me with her mouth open. The green lawn-clipping drink had gone warm in her hands. Even Velcrow had stopped trying to eat my compression sock.

“You were a phone sex operator,” she said.

“I was a professional conversationalist who happened to describe pot roast very slowly. There’s a difference.”

“Is there though?”

“I genuinely still don’t understand why those descriptions worked. I was just talking about cooking.” I shifted on my donut pillow. “Hand me that throw pillow, would you? The one with the—yes, that one. The velvet.”

Madison handed it over. I tucked it behind my lower back, sighing with relief.

“Oh, that’s better. It’s so soft. I just want to sink into it. Feel it supporting me in all the right places—”

Madison’s eyes went wide. “Oh my god. You’re doing it right now.”

“Doing what?”

“THE VOICE. The pillow thing. You just—” She made a gesture like her brain was short-circuiting. “Mavis, you just made arranging a throw pillow sound like—”

“Like what?”

She stared at me. I stared back, genuinely confused.

“Never mind,” she said slowly. “I think I finally understand the cardigan thing.”

Madison looked down at her phone, where cartoon Blaze was waiting with his anatomically improbable abs.

“So you think Blaze is... the same thing? As what you did?”

I shifted on my donut pillow and thought about it. About Leonard and his TV Guide. About Morton and his genuine investment in the flamingo dispute. About Kenneth, who just needed to hear it would be okay.

“Here’s what I think, honey,” I said. “Loneliness makes us reach for whatever voice will answer. That’s not a weakness. That’s just being human. Those men weren’t calling because they were perverts—well, most of them weren’t. They were calling because they needed connection, and in that moment, I was the connection they could afford.”

Madison chewed her lip. “But Blaze isn’t real.”

“Neither was Veronique, sweetheart. And neither is whoever you become when you’re performing for someone on a screen. But the feeling—that longing to be heard, to be known, to be the most important person in someone else’s world for five minutes? That part’s real.”

I patted her hand. “Just remember: Blaze will never bring you soup when you’re sick. He’ll never rub your feet after a bad day. He’ll never disappoint you, which means he’ll never surprise you either. He’s a very flattering telephone. And sometimes that’s exactly what we need. But don’t mistake the appetizer for the meal.”

Madison was quiet for a while. Then she said: “Mavis, will you teach me how to describe pot roast like that?”

I laughed so hard I almost fell off my donut pillow.

“Honey, some gifts are accidental. But stick around—I’m making green bean casserole for dinner. Try not to tell my mother.”

Pro Tip: Sex after seventy is just like phone work after forty: it’s all about delivery, timing, and never letting your mother hear you describe the casserole. If you’re going to reach for a voice in the dark, reach for one that might eventually hold your hand. And if you must fall in love with something that runs on batteries, make sure it’s not also giving you relationship advice. That’s the dog’s job.

Epilogue: Madison deleted Blaze that evening. Said if she was going to fall in love with something that wasn’t quite real, she at least wanted it to have a heartbeat and the ability to disappoint her. She’s now dating a very nice young man who thinks deodorant is perfectly acceptable and brings her actual flowers. He’s not perfect, but he fixed her leaky faucet. Some things are worth more than abs you could grate cheese on.

Velcrow is still eating my compression socks. Some things never change.

And somewhere out there, I hope Kenneth is sitting on a porch watching the fireflies, with a glass of wine and a Brandywine tomato that tastes like summer kissed him on the mouth.

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Mother’s Green Bean Casserole

The One That Almost Got Me Disowned

I’m including this recipe as both a public service and a cautionary tale. This is my mother’s green bean casserole—the one she’d been making since 1954, the one that won the church potluck three years running, and the one I accidentally described to her in my “special voice.” She still can’t look at French’s fried onions without crossing herself.

Mother’s Special

Ingredients:

2 cans (14.5 oz each) green beans, drained

1 can (10.5 oz) cream of mushroom soup

½ cup milk

1 teaspoon soy sauce

¼ teaspoon black pepper

1 can (6 oz) French’s fried onions, divided

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Try not to describe the temperature in a breathy voice.

2. Mix soup, milk, soy sauce, and pepper in a casserole dish. Resist the urge to narrate.

3. Stir in green beans and half the fried onions. Keep it professional.

4. Bake 25 minutes. Top with remaining onions. Bake 5 more minutes until golden and bubbling.

5. Serve to anyone except your mother, who will leave the room.

Mavis’s Notes:

• This casserole is best served with a side of plausible deniability

• The cream of mushroom soup is silky, smooth, and NOT to be discussed around elderly relatives

• Those crispy fried onions scattered on top are completely innocent, I don’t care what my mother says

• Serves 6-8 people, or 1 woman hiding from her past while the dog judges her

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Mavis Brennan is a fictional character created using AI video and voice technology. She’s my alter-ego—the fearless, funny woman I’d love to be if I could stand on a stage and tell these stories myself. The experiences she shares are drawn from real life (mine, mostly), but Mavis herself exists only in pixels and wishful thinking.

Mavis says what I’m thinking. I just gave her better lighting.

©2026 Gael MacLean