I was halfway through making coffee when I noticed Pandora’s phone sitting beside the coffee maker. It was face down, which immediately caught my attention because Pandora almost never leaves her phone anywhere she can’t see the screen. She carries it around the house like it contains the launch codes for a nuclear submarine. I’ve seen her take it into the laundry room just to move a load of towels from the washer to the dryer. Yet there it was, abandoned on the kitchen counter, without so much as a charging cable attached. I stood there holding the coffee scoop, trying to remember the last time I’d seen her voluntarily leave it behind. Nothing came to mind. That was when I began to suspect the phone wasn’t forgotten at all.
John Mercer wandered into the kitchen a few minutes later, looking at his own phone and wearing the expression of a man who had already decided the day was going to disappoint him. He poured himself some coffee, opened the refrigerator, stared into it for a while, and closed it without taking anything out. I watched him throughout this little performance, waiting to see whether he would notice Pandora’s phone. He didn’t. Finally, I pointed toward the counter and asked, “Does anything about this kitchen strike you as unusual?” John looked around, considered the question, and said, “You’re making coffee without spilling it. That’s new.” I told him I was being serious. He glanced at the phone, shrugged, and took a sip from his mug. “Maybe she left it there, Hal.” I explained that this was precisely the part I found suspicious. He stared at me for a moment, then walked away.
Pandora was upstairs getting ready for the day, which gave me a few minutes to consider the situation without her offering an explanation that might interfere with my investigation. I knew she had been answering emails the previous evening, and I remembered her complaining about how often her phone interrupted her. She had been sitting on the couch when it buzzed for what must have been the sixth time in ten minutes. At one point, she looked at the screen and said, “I swear this thing never leaves me alone.” I hadn’t thought much about it then. Now, with the phone sitting unattended in front of me, those words seemed considerably more important. Perhaps she had decided to take a break from it. Perhaps she wanted to see how long she could go without checking her messages. Or perhaps she had left it in the kitchen for a completely different reason, one that had not yet occurred to me.
Mr Whiskers appeared just as I was considering these possibilities. He jumped onto a chair, climbed onto the counter before I could stop him, and settled beside the phone with the confidence of an animal who has never paid a bill in his life. He sniffed the case, rubbed his cheek against one corner, and sat down. I told him to get off the counter. He ignored me. Then the phone vibrated, and he startled so dramatically that his back feet slipped on the countertop. He recovered almost immediately, but not before knocking a teaspoon onto the floor. I looked at the spoon, then at the cat, then at the phone. If Pandora had deliberately left the device there, she had certainly chosen an interesting place for it. Mr Whiskers seemed determined to conduct his own investigation, although his methods involved considerably more licking than mine.
I was retrieving the spoon when John returned for a second cup of coffee. He found me standing in front of the counter with my arms folded, watching the phone. “Are you waiting for it to confess?” he asked. I told him I was trying to establish why Pandora would leave something she normally kept within reach. John suggested I ask her. I explained that asking her immediately would eliminate my opportunity to understand the situation independently. He nodded as though this made perfect sense, which should have warned me that he was enjoying himself. “Right,” he said. “Wouldn’t want the person who owns the phone interfering with the investigation.” He took his coffee and went into the living room, where I heard him laughing at something. I chose to believe it was a television program.
The more I thought about the previous evening, the more convinced I became that Pandora’s decision had been deliberate. She had mentioned wanting a quiet morning, and she had asked whether I could handle breakfast while she finished getting ready. That was unusual enough to deserve consideration, although I had already agreed to make breakfast and then forgotten about it. I wondered whether she had left her phone downstairs to avoid distractions. It was a reasonable explanation, but it didn’t account for why she had placed it beside the coffee maker rather than on the dining table or the bookshelf. I briefly considered whether she wanted me to notice it. After all, she knew I made coffee every morning, and she knew I had a habit of noticing things that other people considered unworthy of attention. I prefer to think of that as observational skill. John has another name for it.
When Pandora finally came downstairs, I was ready. She walked into the kitchen, smiled at me, and asked whether the coffee was fresh. I said it was, then casually mentioned that I had noticed her phone on the counter. She glanced at it and said, “Oh, good. It’s still there.” I found that answer interesting. Of course it was still there. Where else would it have gone? I asked whether she had left it there on purpose, and she said yes. For a brief moment, I experienced the satisfaction of having my theory confirmed. Then she opened a cupboard, took out a mug, and asked why I was looking at her like that. I told her I had been trying to figure out what she was doing. She gave me a puzzled smile and said, “Hal, I put my phone down. I didn’t disappear into witness protection.”
I explained that she normally kept her phone with her and that leaving it unattended suggested a change in her routine. Pandora leaned against the counter and listened while I described the events of the morning, including John’s lack of interest and Mr Whiskers’ reaction to the vibration. I was careful to present the evidence in the order I had collected it. When I finished, she looked at the phone and then back at me. “I left it down here because I wanted to get ready without being interrupted,” she said. “I was tired of answering messages.” It was an explanation I had already considered, so I felt reasonably pleased with myself. Then she added, “And I figured if it rang, you’d hear it and tell me if it was important.” I hadn’t considered that part. Apparently, I had been assigned a perfectly ordinary household responsibility without realizing it.
John had been listening from the living room and chose that moment to join us. “So the mystery is solved?” he asked. I told him it appeared to be. He looked at Pandora and asked whether she had deliberately left the phone beside the coffee maker because she knew I would notice it. Pandora laughed. “I left it there because that’s where I was standing when I decided I’d had enough of it.” John turned toward me with an expression I didn’t care for. “There you go, Hal. No secret plan. Just a woman putting down her phone.” I pointed out that her decision had still been intentional, which meant my original suspicion had technically been correct. John said that by the same reasoning, he was suspicious every time someone deliberately put a plate in the dishwasher. I decided not to pursue that argument.
I might have let the whole thing go if Mr Whiskers hadn’t decided to become involved again. While the three of us were talking, the phone buzzed against the countertop. The cat, who had apparently forgotten his earlier experience, reached out and slapped it with one paw. The phone slid several inches toward the edge. I lunged forward and caught it just before it fell. Unfortunately, I was still holding my coffee mug in my other hand. The sudden movement sent a generous portion of coffee across the counter and directly onto the clean dish towel Pandora had laid out for breakfast. Mr Whiskers jumped down and walked away without the slightest indication of remorse. John doubled over laughing. Pandora took the phone from my hand, looked at the mess, and said, “Well, at least you were watching it.”
I cleaned up the coffee while John continued offering observations that were neither useful nor particularly kind. He suggested I consider a career in security, provided the job didn’t involve protecting anything near a beverage. Pandora rescued the dish towel and put it in the laundry basket. Then she picked up her phone and checked the notification that had caused all the trouble. It was a reminder to order more cat food. She showed it to me, and I stared at the screen for a moment before looking toward the doorway where Mr Whiskers had disappeared. I had spent most of the morning trying to uncover the meaning behind an abandoned phone, and the only urgent message it had received concerned the animal who had nearly knocked it onto the floor. There was something deeply unfair about that.
Pandora put the phone in her pocket and kissed me on the cheek before leaving the kitchen. John followed her, still chuckling, and I was left with a damp counter, an unfinished breakfast, and the uncomfortable realization that I had been standing beside a perfectly ordinary phone for nearly half an hour. I had also failed to make the breakfast Pandora had asked for, which she reminded me of from the hallway. I assured her I was getting to it. She said, “Great. Maybe you can investigate the eggs while you’re at it.” John laughed again. I would have appreciated a little more respect for the effort I had put into the morning.
I was reaching for the frying pan when Mr Whiskers returned and jumped onto the chair beside me. He looked at the empty space where Pandora’s phone had been, then up at me, as if expecting another performance. I told him the investigation was closed. He blinked, stretched, and began licking one paw. A moment later, he knocked the teaspoon off the counter again. I looked down at it, then back at him. He held my gaze with an expression of complete innocence. I’m beginning to think Pandora isn’t the only one in this house who knows exactly how to get my attention. The difference is that when she does it, I usually end up making breakfast. When he does it, I end up picking things off the floor.