“hello?”
“hey, sweetie i know this is probably not the right time to say this but it is the right time because it’s midnight and i can’t stand up i can only listen to what my brain is telling me to say and that’s ‘call val and tell her you love her and only want to be with her’”
It was 1:13 a.m.
“that’s…so sweet”
“baby?!”
“wait but i have to tell you this is not val, this is sam”
“oh, sam from the shop! heyyy buddy hahahiiiiiii’m so embarassed. dude, trashed ::garble garble::”
“nope, i don’t think so…”
“wait, are you fucking with me? who is this?”
“this is wrong number sam.”
there is a pause.
“uh–why would you say what i said was fucking sweet if you’re not val or sam from the shop?”
“because it was sweet, and you should call val, actually call her right number, and say that to her if you feel that way. are y’all close?”
and then we talked about his relationship with val. apparently she’s a grocery clerk that’s seven years his senior; they met after she’d had to void his grocery order because all of his cards got rejected. after the manager came and voided the order, she slipped him the only thing she surreptitiously could, a walmart gift card he’d wanted to buy for his niece for christmas, behind his receipts. he slipped them into his pocket, went home, and came back with fruitcake his grandmother made, and a card with his phone number inside, thanking her and inviting her to coffee. she called him immediately after work, they went to starbucks, commiserated about her recent divorce and his waning marriage.
and even though in retrospect i maybe should not have recommended he call her, it was too real of a story and besides i’d already told him to before he told me his story and i was pretty drunk and this was the only call i’d gotten; i was not sure if this was actually love or Love Actually (i don’t know it, only heard good things), but it wasn’t my place to say, anyway. The only thing i was supposed to say was “oops, wrong number, dude.” i wasn’t sam from work, i was just some wrong number. who takes advice from wrong number sam? this guy:
“sam, can i call you back when after i call her back?”
“sure. good luck, happy new year.”
Still haven’t heard from him.
