Page 1 of Wrong Number, Right Mountain Man
Chapter 1
Sunny
Thenotificationpopsupon my phone screen just as Mrs. Henderson explains over the bakery phone why her granddaughter's birthday cake needs to be shaped like a unicorn but also somehow incorporate a dinosaur theme. My thumb swipes automatically while she rambles about prehistoric princesses, and there it is—a photo that makes my stomach drop straight through the bakery's checkered linoleum floor.
Josh. My Josh. Except he's not mine anymore, hasn't been for three months, and now he's down on one knee in front of some blonde with perfect teeth and a yoga instructor's body. "She said yes! Can't wait to spend forever with my best friend and soulmate."
He never called me either of those things during our two years together. Three months. That's all it took for him to find forever with someone else.
"Miss? Are you there? The cake?" Mrs. Henderson's voice sounds like it's coming from underwater.
"Right, yes, the unicorn-dinosaur situation." My voice comes out strangled. The cell slips from my suddenly sweaty palm and lands with a spectacular splash directly into the bowl of vanilla cake batter Honey prepared for the next order.
"Oh sweetie, no!" Honey rushes over as batter drips from my phone screen. "Quick, get it out!"
But it's too late. The screen flickers once and dies, taking with it my last connection to the world and any hope of pretending this day might get better.
Mrs. Henderson's voice crackles through the phone asking if everything's alright while Honey stares at my batter-covered phone, fighting back laughter. Honey rescues me by taking over the call, and I mouth my apologies while fishing batter out of my phone case with what was supposed to be someone's birthday cake. At least we can still bake it for ourselves. Assuming anyone wants phone-flavored vanilla.
Three hours and one trip to the sketchy electronics store later, I'm the proud owner of a pay-as-you-go phone that looks like it survived the early 2000s. The teenage clerk assured me it "totally works fine" while avoiding eye contact, which fills me with confidence.
By the time I get home to my shoebox studio apartment and have to deal with the plumbing rumbling again, exhaustion weighs heavily on my shoulders. The engagement post has probably gotten hundreds of likes by now. Comments from mutual friends offering congratulations, maybe even some of my old coworkers who never liked me anyway. They're probablythrilled that the weird girl from accounting finally got what was coming to her.
The wine bottle opens with a satisfying pop. The first glass goes down easily. By the second, the walls of my apartment feel like they're closing in, decorated with all the dreams that haven't panned out. The easel in the corner holds a half-finished paint-by-numbers that's been half-finished for six months. The stack of business plan notebooks for my food truck dream sits collecting dust on the kitchen counter.
Twenty-eight years old and what do I have to show for it? A job decorating other people's celebrations, an ex who found his soulmate three months after dumping me, and a social life that consists of texting my friend Maya pictures of my dinner.
Maya. Sweet, reliable Maya, who always knows what to say when life goes sideways.
The third glass of wine brings a wave of self-doubt that hits hard. Josh's new fiancée looked so confident in that photo, so sure of herself. She probably never stands in front of mirrors cataloging her flaws like I do every morning.
Speaking of flaws, when did my left boob start looking bigger than my right one? Or has it always been that way and I'm just now noticing? The wine makes everything seem more important and less reasonable simultaneously. But I swear the left one looks like a cantaloupe compared to the grapefruit size of the right one.
Before logic can intervene, I'm standing in front of my bedroom mirror, phone in hand. The cheap camera makes everything look grainy, but Maya won't care about photo quality. She'll give me an honest opinion and make me laugh about the whole thing.
My fingers move faster than my brain, typing out the message before I can reconsider.
Me: Maya, emergency!!! Do my boobs look weird to you? Like, is the left one way bigger? Be honest! I can take it. The left one is a cantaloupe and the right one is a grapefruit, right? Ugh. Have they always been like this? Why did you never tell me? This can be fixed, you know. I can sell a kidney or something.
The photo uploads with agonizing slowness on this ancient phone. For a moment, I consider deleting the whole thing. But she's seen me at my worst before. She held my hair back during my twenty-first birthday disaster and helped me move out of Josh's place when he decided he "needed space to find himself." She can handle a drunk boob consultation.
My thumb hovers over the send button for two seconds before hitting it.
The message disappears into cyberspace, and immediately my fuzzy brain starts second-guessing everything. What if she's on a date? What if she shows her boyfriend? Maya would never, but what if this is the final straw...?
It's too late now. The message is out there, making its way to her sensible phone where she'll screenshot it and save it to show me later when I'm sober and mortified.
I set the phone on my nightstand and crawl into bed, pulling the covers over my head. Tomorrow I'll wake up, apologize for my drunken crisis, and figure out how to piece my life back together. Tonight, I just want to disappear.
The phone buzzes once, a sharp sound in the quiet apartment. She's typing back some combination of reassurance and gentle mockery that’ll make everything feel less catastrophic.
She’s my hero like that.
Chapter 2
Beck
Thecabinsettlesaroundme with its familiar creaks and sighs as I bank the fire for the night. Wood smoke mingles with the pine scent drifting through the cracked window, a combination that never gets old after five years up here. The day's work left my shoulders tight. Fence repair is not getting any easier at forty-two, but there’s satisfaction in problems that can be fixed with honest labor.
