“I thought we could continue our conversation in person,” said Patrick, unaware that Callie had dropped off the call. “Let me introduce myself. My name is Patrick Walsh and I live in New York City and I was thinking…”
The lights in Patrick’s apartment flickered and all power went out.
“No! Not now,” he shouted into the darkness, still holding the phone.
“Hello? Are you still there?” he yelled into a dead phone
“What’s happening?” Callie cried out into the darkness at Ariom Marketing.
“Please, hold it together, Caledoni-aah,” said George loudly through the darkness. “We don’t need your added hysteria. Everyone, please remain calm. This building has an emergency generator and we should have lights in a few minutes.”
“But I was in the middle of this call,” shouted Callie through the dark to no one in particular.
Thirty cell phone flashlights turned on and were all pointed at George as he squinted and covered his eyes. “Save your batteries, people. We don’t know how long we’ll be without power. I’ll get the emergency lantern from my office,” he said as he stumbled through the dark room.
“Who keeps an emergency lantern in their office?” said a male voice.
“I do,” said George as he walked back into the bullpen with a battery powered lithium bulb lantern that nearly lit the entire space. “One always needs to be prepared.”
Several people got up from their desks and went to the windows.
“All the buildings to the west and south are dark,” said one person, looking out through the glass. “The only lights out there are coming from car headlights. Everything else is black.”
“It looks like the whole city is down,” said someone else, looking in a different direction out of another window. Everyone at Ariom Marketing started talking at once.
“Quiet! You all need to stay calm,” said George. “It’s best if you remain in your seats so no one trips or falls and has an accident. Hopefully, this blackout is temporary. Sometimes the electrical grid gets overloaded. I got a text thirty seconds ago which means the cell phone towers are still working, so that’s good news.”
Callie groped around in her desk drawer for her iPhone. More texts from Jess had just appeared and the last one was taken in the dark with a flash.
A moment later, the emergency generator kicked in and all the phone banks around the bullpen lit up with a dim light. Someone standing by the window shouted, “Hey, the lights are slowly coming back on all over the city.”
People rushed to the windows and watched blocks of light systematically come to life. Thirty seconds later, Ariom Marketing was on full power. Everyone cheered. Everyone except for Callie.
“Please call me back,” shouted Patrick into the dark as he put the phone back into its cradle on his coffee table and waited.
Within a minute, the lights in Patrick’s apartment returned. He stared at the phone telepathically trying to make her call him back. A minute later his cell phone rang and he lunged for it.
“Hello, is it you?” said Patrick.
“Yes, it’s me. Where are you? I’m about to turn thirty-five and you’re supposed to be here,” said his best friend, Lorenzo. “We had a blackout at the pub. People freaked. Some of the women started screaming. You’d think they’d never been in a power outage before. You lose electricity?”
“Yeah. I got involved in something here and then the lights went out. Be down there in a few minutes,” said Patrick.
“I need my wingman,” said Lorenzo as the sound of loud music and female laughter was heard in the background. “Get down here, Paddy.”
“That wasn’t too long,” said George, looking at his watch. “We were only without power for a few minutes.”
With the lights now on, Callie opened up all her phone lines to see if he was still there. Frantically, she hit each button on her console several times.
“Hello?”
She tried the next one. “Hello? Are you there?” Nothing. And the next and the next. After several frantic minutes, she gave up. He was gone. The man who might possibly have been the love of her life had disappeared forever into the darkness.
Her board suddenly lit up with live calls. She quickly answered each open line.
“Hi, are you still there?”
“Hey, what is this? You called me,” said a bewildered consumer who had been randomly robo-called. Callie hung up and sprinted across the floor to her manager.
“George, I have an emergency of biblical proportions,” said Callie. “I was completing the most incredible survey, full of info that I know our clients will want, really insightful. Wait until you see my report, you’re going to love it. As I was wrapping up the questions, we lost power and I lost the call. It’s absolutely imperative that I get that person back.”
George stared at Callie. “You know that’s not possible. There’s no way of doing that.”
“What do you mean, we have no way of doing that? You don’t understand, I’ve got to complete that call. I’ve got to finish that survey.”
“I applaud your commitment to your work, Caledoni-aah, but as you are well aware, these calls are randomly dialed out of a call center in Montana or Boise,” said George. “We never know where they’re coming from. How long have you been working here?”
This can’t be happening. Tell me I didn’t lose my soulmate because of an overloaded power grid?
Callie’s iPhone vibrated again.
“Hey, do you have lights?” shouted Jess through the phone.
“They just came back on.”
“Are you coming or not? Henry’s getting antsy,” said Jess.
“I’ll be there in five minutes.”
With a heavy heart, Callie gathered her things, tucked the survey she did with him into the zippered compartment of her ratty old red MoMA bag and walked out of her office.
Patrick continued to stare at the still silent landline on his coffee table. She’ll call me back. She has my number. What if she doesn’t? Maybe she didn’t feel the same way I did? What’s that number you can call to find out who called you? *69!
He punched *69 into his phone. A recording gave him another number. He dialed it but only got a rapid busy signal. He tried *69 ten times but couldn’t get through. He looked at his watch. He had to get to Lorenzo’s party. If she calls back tonight and I’m not here, she might not call again.
He messed around with some buttons on the answering machine of his phone and recorded a new outgoing message.
“Hi, you’ve reached Patrick. If you’re the amazing woman doing a survey that I talked to for nearly three hours tonight, please leave me a message. I don’t know how to reach you. I don’t even know your name. I lost power and then, I lost you. I’d really, really like to meet you for that coffee.”
8
The Fussy Virgin Guide:
“Holidays—What’s Love Got to Do With It?”
I don’t know about you, but holidays and romance have never gone particularly well for me. I was once dumped on Valentine’s Day. An hour later, I marched into a Walmart, purchased the largest heart-shaped box of chocolates they had and consumed the whole thing in a single sitting. It wasn’t my finest hour. There’s so much pressure on us now. Why are holidays intertwined with love and romance? We should be able to enjoy St. Patrick’s Day without feeling like a failure if we’re not with someone.
Egg hunts, jelly beans, chocolate bunnies. Easter has gone so far afield that Jesus himself wouldn’t recognize it. Yellow and pink marshmallow chicks and engagement rings hidden inside of pastel-colored plastic eggs? (Seriously, that’s a thing.) Couples kiss over bowls of foil-wrapped chocolate eggs and you sit at your kitchen table biting the head off a hollow white chocolate rabbit.
Single women dressed like hookers, kitty-kats or sexy witches? Men in astronaut or rock star costumes? It’s Halloween and you observe Sexy Witch as she sits on Neil Armstrong’s lap. You’re dressed as a scarecrow because you were g
oing for funny. Turns out “funny” gets you a seat in the corner with a bowl of guacamole and tortilla chips between your knees while you suck down a bottle of beer.
Across the Thanksgiving table, your cousin talks animatedly about the new boyfriend seated next to her. Your relatives pepper him with good natured questions and then turn to you and ask if you are seeing anyone. You mutter something no one can understand and reach for a third helping of stuffing while asking Uncle Chuck to pass the gravy and mashed potatoes.
The most popular day of the year to get engaged is Christmas. Standing next to the Christmas tree, he pulls out a small black box with a ring inside. She looks surprised, even though she went with him to pick it out. With happy tears in her eyes, she says, “Yes.” You refill your eggnog and bite down on a candy cane to prevent yourself from screaming.
It’s New Year’s Eve. Giddy partners clink champagne glasses and kiss when the clock strikes twelve. You wake up the next afternoon with a headache after staying out until four in the morning with your single friends. You drank too much wine and champagne and the only men unattached on New Year’s Eve were single for good reason. You vaguely remember exchanging contact info with a man missing a front tooth and a face tattoo…
9
The crowded bar at O’Toole’s was in full swing when Callie pulled open the heavy glass front door of the restaurant and pub. The city-wide blackout on Valentine’s Day Eve had ratcheted up everyone’s mood and the party inside was in full swing. The electricity in the room was palpable as Callie wriggled her way through the crowd looking for Jess.
A dark-haired thirty-something man wearing a navy-blue jacket approached Callie as she walked towards the back of the bar. Standing with a group of other guys all wearing big dopey grins, he had a silver quarter stuck in his right eye socket and a beer in his left hand.
“Excuse me, miss,” said the man with the quarter in his eye and an obviously fake Australian accent. “I’d like to introduce myself to you. I am the Astonished Commandant.”
“Who?” said Callie warily.
“Please say something that will astonish me.”
“You want me to astonish you?”
“Yes,” said the man while his friends laughed and poked each other.
Callie wasn’t in the mood and desperately wanted to find Jess to tell her about her amazing phone call, but she played along to get rid of him. “I once had a cat who spoke French,” she said deadpan, glancing around the room for Jess.
The Astonished Commandant’s expression changed to one of surprise and the quarter flew out of his eye into his open right palm. “You have astonished me!” he said as he and all his friends guffawed.
In spite of herself, Callie laughed. The quarter bit was so incredibly stupid it was funny and she needed a laugh after what had happened that night or she would cry. The commandant offered to buy her a beer.
“Maybe another time,” said Callie, spotting Jess at a table in the back and walking away.
“I thought you’d never get here,” said Jess. “Henry almost left twice, but I convinced him you were worth waiting for. I think he’s in the men’s room. It took you this long to do all your surveys? You should have been done two hours ago. You take that job way too seriously.”
“Jess, listen. The most amazing and awful thing just happened,” said Callie, unpacking the two-hour conversation with the Mystery Man in three minutes. “…and, we saw everything the exact same way. Everything! It was unbelievable, Jess, I think he was the one,” said Callie in a loud whisper.
“Are you going to go out with him?”
“You don’t understand,” Callie continued. “He was asking me out when the power went out. All the phones in the office went dead and we hadn’t exchanged names yet.”
“No way!”
“What am I going to do?” said Callie.
“Maybe there’s a way to find the number and…”
Callie shook her head. “I already checked with George. Mr. Compassion said there was no way to trace it, that they all come through the random robo-call center,” said Callie. “I don’t even know his name. How the hell will I find him?”
“If you were on the phone for two hours, you must have done a full survey,” said Jess. “Let’s deconstruct the information you have and maybe it will give us a clue as to who he is. I’ll meet you tomorrow morning and we’ll go into full forensic mode. Okay?”
Callie nodded and smiled. She didn’t think it would work but it made her feel better to have an action plan and a loyal accomplice. She always liked to have a plan: it was comforting.
“There he is,” whispered Jess as she jumped up. “Try to have a good time tonight,” she said to Callie as she reached for the arm of a tall, good-looking man with big brown eyes.
“Callie Swan, meet Henry Harrington,” said Jess.
“Finally,” said Henry, smiling. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Callie shook Henry’s hand while her thoughts were only about the man on the phone.
10
On the other side of O’Toole’s, a birthday party was in full swing.
“I can’t believe it. I’m thirty-five,” said Lorenzo, a slightly intoxicated dark-haired man with olive skin at the center of a crowd. “I can’t imagine spending my birthday with anyone but you, Paddy.”
“I’ve been with you for every one since freshman year of college,” said Patrick.
“You almost missed this one.” Lorenzo handed Patrick a beer and put his arm around his best friend.
“I got tied up with something. Can I talk to you a minute, privately?”
“That’s a little hard to do surrounded by all these people,” said Lorenzo, “but we can give it a try.”
Patrick ushered his friend over to a small unoccupied table and they sat. When Patrick looked up, Lorenzo had somehow slipped a quarter in his eye socket and had his hand out.
“C’mon Renzo, I have to tell you something important.”
“It’s my birthday,” said an undeterred Lorenzo. “Astonish me.”
Patrick rolled his eyes. Lorenzo had been doing the same stupid routine for sixteen years and Patrick had seen it nearly a thousand times.
“Astonish me,” commanded Lorenzo again. “I’ve added a new twist. Trust me, you’ll like it.”
“I have a dog who speaks German,” said a bored Patrick.
Lorenzo’s deadpan expression changed to one of surprise and the quarter in his eye popped out and fell into his open waiting palm. Patrick followed the trajectory of the quarter and then looked back at Lorenzo’s face. There was still a quarter in his eye socket. There had been a second quarter underneath the first one.
Patrick had never seen him do that before and for the first time in a long time, it made him laugh. “You got me,” he said, laughing harder. “I’ve never seen you do a double.”
“I astonished you then?” said Lorenzo, rather pleased with himself. “I thought it was time to update my material. It’s funny you said your dog spoke German. I pulled my bit on some girl a little while ago and she said she had a cat who spoke French. What are the odds?”
“Will you listen to me?” said Patrick as he leaned in closer to his friend. “Renzo, I met a woman and I think she’s the one.”
“The one?” said Lorenzo, as one of his friends walked by and handed him a fresh beer.
“The one,” Patrick whispered.
“You sound like someone in a Hallmark movie,” said Lorenzo, raising one eyebrow.
“How do you know what Hallmark movies are like?”
“I’ve seen a few. I find them very relaxing.”
“I don’t know what else to call her,” said Patrick. “My soulmate?”
“Whoa. That’s even worse.”
Patrick shared more of the details and laid out the beginning, middle and abrupt end of his phone conversation.
“What does she look like?” asked Lorenzo.
“She sounded pretty.”
“You think she
’s the one but you didn’t see her? It wasn’t a video chat?”
“It was a regular phone call that came in on my landline. After hours of talking we got disconnected because of the blackout,” said Patrick. “How am I going to find her? She could be anywhere.”
“I’m still stuck on the fact that you have a landline. I didn’t know that. Why do you have one? It’s so boomer.”
“My mom made me get one so she could reach me in case the cell towers went down,” said Patrick, sighing.
“Moms can be so random,” said Lorenzo. “I’m your best friend and you never gave me that number.”
“My mother’s the only one who uses it. It’s like her personal Bat Phone.”
“Let me think about this situation for a minute. The telemarketing woman called you, right? She’s got to have your number. If she felt the same way you did, she’ll call you back. If she doesn’t call, she’s just not that into you.”
“We didn’t technically finish the survey so she’d have to call me back to finish it, wouldn’t she?”
“I’ll bet there’s a message waiting for you when you get home.”
“You think?” said Patrick, smiling.
“Sure. In the meantime, it’s after twelve so that means it’s officially my birthday! What are you waiting for? You owe me a birthday beer.”
Later, at one thirty in the morning, Lorenzo and his friends said goodbye to each other out in front of the pub. Several other exhausted bar patrons also waited outside O’Toole’s for Ubers or attempted to hail taxis. Across the street, Callie and Jess stood rubbing their hands in an effort to stay warm while they waited for their Lyft. Standing next to Patrick, Lorenzo spotted Callie across the street and remembered she was one of the many girls who had laughed at his whacky commandant routine.
“Hold on a minute,” said Lorenzo to his friends. “There’s someone I know across the street. Be right back.” He loaded two quarters in one of his eyes and put a big smile on his face as he walked towards Callie and Jess.
The Fussy Virgin Page 4