“You don’t say anything.”

“No.”

“The whole time. He’s talking and she’s talking and I’m screaming and you don’t say one word.” She was not accusing. She was reporting. “Why?”

“Because I had worked out by then that anything I said would make it longer,” I said. “And because I had already decided, about four minutes before that recording starts, that I was going to make a phone call as soon as they left.”

Phoebe nodded.

“So the silence is you leaving,” she said.