Ghosting Zoë

Part 1

Zoë was pulling her arm back from the drive-through window when a binging sound startled her so much that she nearly dropped her steaming cup of Beetroot Latte With Micro Green Foam.

"Wha-at?" she groaned.

She looked around the passenger compartment of her Volkswagen Beetle. Seat belt unfastened? No. Car door ajar? No. The binging stopped. With a grunt worthy of Monica Seles, she pulled her arm through the car window — only to jostle the cup at the sound of a straggling bing, spilling hot beverage onto her patchwork peasant skirt.

"Uh-UHH!" Zoë moaned, putting the dripping cup into the center console's cup holder and shaking the moisture from her hand.

She was staring down into the cave of brocade carpetbag purse open in her lap for the source of the sound when a horn behind her gave her another jolt. She was holding up traffic in the drive-through lane.

Zoë glanced in her rear-view mirror at the jacked-up Chevy pickup idling throatily behind her and pulled ahead and around the building. At the parking lot's exit, she came to a stop and extracted the iPhone from her bag.

At the top of the text messages was a number she didn't recognize. Perching her wayfarer sunglasses atop her mass of curly brown hair, she poked the number with an inquisitive finger, revealing a long list of messages:

| Hello?

| Anyone there?

| It's me, Edgar. From the party.

| You remember, from the party?

| Anyone out there?

Edgar, whoever he was, was obviously having his first experience of text messaging, and Zoë was in no mood to be his tutor. She dropped the phone into her bag, tossed the whole mess onto the passenger seat and zipped out onto the four-lane Hoagy Carmichael Boulevard.

"Late bloomer," she said aloud as she lowered the wayfarers over her deep green eyes and sped down the street. But then, almost plaintively, the phone binged again.

| We met at Nate's party. Don't you remember?

With a sigh, Zoë tapped the microphone icon next to the reply field and said, "I don't know any Nate. You have the wrong number. Sorry," and hit "Done."

She was just taking a sip of her coffee, wondering if she should have gotten the Double Espresso Macchiato With Yak Milk, when a familiar sound came to her ears. She picked up the phone again.

| Then this isn't Annabel?

"UHH, no!" she said aloud, then tapped the microphone icon and repeated, "No, I'm sorry. No Annabel here," and hit "Done."

Zoë braced herself for another text message notification. When it didn't come, she finally relaxed her shoulders, unclenched her jaw and drove the last few blocks to work. Parking outside the New Age Universal Emporium, she centered herself before pushing the door open, activating the store's serenity chimes.

A deep gong, reminiscent of a Tibetan monastery, signaled her arrival.

"What's wrong with you?" her co-worker Maple, the shop's resident macrame expert, asked. "You look vexed!"

"Wrong number. Some guy kept texting me, all the way from Beans on the Boulevard."

"You should switch to Turmeric Latte. Then you wouldn't be so angsted," Maple said. "What did he want anyway? Your wrong number."

"Looking for some girl he met at a party. Annabel."

"Aww," Maple said, peering out through her pince-nez with moist eyes. "He met the girl of his dreams, and she fobbed him off with a fake number."

"So?"

"So, would you do that?" Maple said, arranging some bamboo hoops on the wall behind the counter. "Would you give out a fake number to get rid of a guy?"

"Maybe he had it coming," Zoë said. "He's probably a frado."

"You don't know! He's obviously romantic, the poor lamb," Maple said. "That Annabel may have missed the guy."

Is there more to life than an iPhone and a good cup of coffee? Will the skeptical Zoë give Edgar a try? Find out in the next chapter.

This is a complete story to be posted at regular intervals.

R.J. Post is the author of "Lion Taming, Dating and Other Dangerous Endeavors" and "A Shovelful of Winter," which are available on Amazon.