Vacillation can be fun

I vacillated back and forth, practiced what to say in French, threw up a hundred reasons why I DIDN'T want to call, before I finally picked up the phone and dialed the doctor's number. My French isn’t very good and I did not want to be misunderstood. "Ask for Annick," Joan had urged. What I got was an answering machine in rapid French. I caught enough to figure out that I had dialed the correct number. So I left my name and coordinates, speaking in bad French and good Italian, and hung up.