Twenty-five years ago, cell phones were a lot less common. Before then, I carried a pager. When my wife (then girlfriend) and I decided to get on a cell phone plan, we signed up at the same time and were given numbers two apart: 0846 and 0848. Over the years we’ve changed providers a couple of times, but we always kept the same digits.
         I don’t know why it took me so long to think about it, but a little while ago I started to get curious about who had the number in between ours. So I called 0847 one day and a young man answered, and I told him why I was calling and he laughed and said in my position he’d’ve done the same.
         We actually got to talking about this and that. His name was Leo, and he worked doing something in tech. He was smart, and seemed to like a lot of the same things my wife and I did, like Indian food, and Doctor Who, and Aviation cocktails, but he spoke like a young person too: adulting, based, sus, okay boomer. I told him that was offensive: I was Gen X. I told him Leo was my grandfather’s name.
         He said I should call back whenever I felt like it. I didn’t want to abuse the privilege, but I did like to talk to him so I did now and then, especially when I was feeling a little down on myself. He cheered me up in a way, but to be honest, he seemed to have it so much more together than I did, and of course he was less than half my age, with his whole life ahead, so that when I hung up I had mixed feelings about things.
         I’d ask him a lot of questions, like about his politics (they were progressive), did he have a girlfriend (yes, the latest in a short sequence), if he liked to travel (yes: Greece and Italy), what his plans were for the future (uncertain). Did he get along with his parents?
         I didn’t tell my wife about him. At first I was just embarrassed at doing this dumb thing, and then after a while I wasn’t really sure how to explain it. It’s not like she would have thought I was having an emotional affair, but… maybe I was?
         He kept saying I should visit him sometime but I haven’t gotten around to it. Anyway, I wasn’t quite sure where he lived. At first I thought it must be pretty close, since our numbers had the same area code, but that doesn’t really mean the same thing as it did back in the landline days.
         Last time, I spoke to his girlfriend too for a minute. She seemed nice. I imagined her as dark-haired, kind of short, pretty in an alternative way, temperamental, more practical than he was, like my wife at her age. He said they were about to take a trip to Paris, and he confessed to me, because he knew I wouldn’t blow the secret, that he’d propose to her there. I told him how happy I was for him and how proud.
         The marriage is next summer. He invited me and my wife, but I’m not sure we’ll go. The explanation, et cetera. I asked if he wanted children, and he said he didn’t know yet. I took the opportunity to speak as a wise elder and told him society was a lot more open about that these days, and whatever they decided, as long as they both agreed on it, I’m sure it would all work out fine. I told him to have a great trip and I’d call him when he got back to see how it all went, and that I envied him the opportunity of walking down the Champs-Élysées for the very first time.
💀