Is Pearl there?

This is really an apartment story although I don’t believe that we were unlucky to get the same phone number of the previous tenants. However, the phone calls when combined with the catalog deliveries make me think that something like that must have happened.

Soon after we got a phone every once in a while rather late into the evening, or night, we would get a call from an obviously inebriated man who in a slurred Texas drawl would ask, “Is Pearl there?” Now that doesn’t sound so bad and could have been some prankster writing on a bar’s bathroom wall, “For a good time, call Pearl [our new phone number].” The first few times we tried to tell this person he had the wrong number, which led to something that wasn’t exactly a conversation, certainly not a two-way exchange of information, but we learned quite a bit. While he never heard or believed us, if he did actually hear us, and I do mean us, he would talk with me as readily as Marilyn, he would want to come over. I think he thought I was Pearl’s pimp. I don’t believe he thought Marilyn was Pearl but she never said.

Now, getting a random call from a drunk who always asked for the same person and wanted to come over wouldn’t have been scary in and of itself because telephone numbers are seven digits and this guy couldn’t have known our address. But then there were the catalogs: “Frederick’s of Hollywood,” and other introductions to the marvelous world of sexy, well, kinky. (Although I did try to talk Marilyn into allowing me to buy a few items for her, which was hard to do while I was trying to convince her that I didn’t need to be titillated by a perverted catalog.) It took someone showing up at our door looking for a good time for us to put two and two together for a million. Could we have gotten the same phone number as the previous tenants? Was the guy calling for Pearl truly going to be able to show up? Was he one of the people who already had? If so, why did he keep calling?

We didn’t lose the Pearl calls until we moved into our house almost a year later. One of the great benefits of moving then was that we got a new phone number. We would have insisted on it if it weren’t automatic.

After the first time she answered the phone to the Pearl guy, I got the phone calls. We didn’t have an answering machine but Marilyn had an answering service. Since we were both working, I was home whenever she was.

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Marilyn lost her life to cancer but was able to truly "live" until the very end due to a lymphedema garment from Don Kellogg, inventor and founder of Telesto-Medtech. It is due to the "living" he provided Marilyn and through his suggestion and connection with Saskia Thiadens of the National Lymphedema Network that the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund exists. It needs other people's help to remain a living memorial of Marilyn. Please help other people receive the gift of living by donating to the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund. Thank you.