Mr. Wrong Number(17)

“Hotter, actually.”

“What a prick.”

“Right?”

“I always thought he looked like Ryan Gos—”

“Still does.”

She grinned and settled back in her chair. “So your luck just might be changing.”

“Oh, God, no.” I took a sip of my latte and let the foam float around in my mouth before swallowing. “He’s still an asshole. He looks at me like he knows he’s better than me.”

“Really? Is that how he is?” She pushed her sunglasses up her nose. “I just always thought he seemed intense. Like he had a lot going on in his head. Didn’t he get a perfect ACT?”

“Did everyone know he was smart except me?”

“Looks like.” She pushed back her chair and stood as my phone buzzed on the table. “I’m running to the restroom. Be right back.”

I waited to check my messages until she went inside.


Mr. Wrong Number: I’ve been in a meeting with a woman for 35 minutes, and she has no idea that there is pear on her chin.

Me: How do you know it’s pear?

Mr. Wrong Number: Because it looks like those slippery canned pears.

Me: It could be something gross. Maybe she puked up her lunch just before your meeting and that’s a chunk.

Mr. Wrong Number: Ignoring that. What do I do, though? Do I say something?



I coughed out a laugh and typed: You can NOT say anything. It’s too late now.


Mr. Wrong Number: But it’s driving me insane. I can’t concentrate on anything but the pear.

Me: You mean the chunk.

Mr. Wrong Number: You’re killing me, Misdial.



“Who is making you smile like that?”

My cheeks got hot and I grinned at Sara, who sat back down and looked at me expectantly.

“Oh, my God, finally someone I can tell.”

I told her all about Mr. Wrong Number: how it happened, our pact of anonymity, and the frequency of our chats.

“This is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard!” She gave me an openmouthed smile. “I wonder what he looks like.”

“Right? Like, I have no interest in ever knowing who he is, but it’s a fascinating thing to ponder.”

“Ponder my ass. You mean fantasize about.”

I shrugged. “Potato, po-tah-toe.”

“You be careful, though, Miss Unlucky. Combine your bad mojo with the dark corners of the internet, and all of a sudden you’ve got a creepy stalker breaking into your house to steal your panties.”

My phone rang and I recognized the number; it was Glenda. “Oh, my God—I have to take this. It’s about a job I interviewed for—”

“Say no more.” She stood and said, “I have to get home anyway. Call me and we’ll do lunch soon, okay?”

I waved while she grabbed her stuff, and then answered with a nervous “Hello?”

“Olivia, it’s Glenda. How are you?”

Man, just hearing her voice made my stomach hurt. “Great, how are you?”

“I’m good. This is kind of a weird call, because I’ve been in meetings for hours and everything about the job you interviewed for has changed.”

That couldn’t be good. “Okay . . . ?”

I heard a door close. “They want the position to be anonymous, and for the column to be written as the 402 Mom. We’ll use a cartoon avatar of, you know, a trendy and adorable mom; they’re working on the logo mock-up as we speak. But everyone loves the idea of this branded unknown. They want to promote the hell out of this thing, our super cool 402 Mom; so are you okay with the area code pseudonym thing? I’m offering you the job, by the way—did I say that yet?”

“What?” Anonymous? “Wow. No, Glen—”

“Oh, good Lord, I’m a real mess, aren’t I?” She laughed at herself and then just sort of launched a slew of information at me. She wanted to run my sample column as the launch piece, and the job would now be writing half the time for the 402 Mom, and half the time providing assorted content—entertainment, lifestyle, local—under my actual name like the rest of the paper’s bloggers.

Which would be chef’s-kiss perfect, because I’d have a byline for my parents to see as proof of legitimate employment.

“Wow.” My head was spinning. I was being offered the job, and that job was going to be anonymous? So no one who knew me would know non-mom Liv was the mom bomb? I was glad I had on sunglasses because no matter how fast and hard I blinked, the tears wouldn’t go away. It was just such a perfect position and it sucked so hard that I had to turn it down.

“And did I mention it’s a remote position? We’ll set you up with a phone, a laptop, a printer, and all that so you won’t have to commute to the office every day.”

“That sounds incredible, Glenda. But the thing is . . .”

I stopped. Everything stopped. I looked at the downtown all around me, with people bustling and horns honking and the smell of old garbage intermingling with the smell of fried food, and I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring myself to say no.

Instead I heard myself say, “That sounds incredible. Thank you so much, Glenda.”

“Welcome aboard, Olivia. I’ll have HR email over our new-hire packet with benefit info, online orientation, job duties, and so on, and we’ll set up a Zoom meeting your first day to get everything rolling. Sound good?”