Don't Call Me Anymore

By the time Claire announced that she was being stalked, her strawberry ice cream was already melting down one side of the cone.

"Do you remember the guy I met at the bookstore? Daniel. I think he's stalking me."

Megan stopped licking her ice cream.

"What did he do?"

"First of all, he texted me the next morning. At eight seventeen."

"A very punctual stalker," Sofía murmured.

The three friends were in the square in front of the amusement park, beneath an afternoon that smelled of caramelized sugar and fried onions. On the other side of the fence, the roller coaster climbed slowly, loaded with people who had paid to scream.

"Thursday I saw him at a flower shop, and yesterday at the supermarket on Oak Street," Claire went on.

"Uh-huh… The one next to his apartment," Megan observed, studying her closely.

"How do you know where he lives?" Claire said at once, a little astonished.

"You told me yourself," Megan replied with a deep sigh.

"Oh. Well, I'm just nervous."

Megan wiped her fingers on a napkin.

"So you meet a guy at the neighborhood bookstore, you give him your number, and now you're scared because he texts you and does his grocery shopping."

"It's too many coincidences!" Claire protested.

"So far we've got two," Megan replied.

"And he sent me a picture of his dog."

Megan eyed her through narrowed eyes.

"Is it a three-headed dog?"

Claire squinted back at her.

"No. It's a golden retriever. His name is Mr. Darcy."

Sofía, who had been listening while paying more attention to her ice cream, declared:

"I'd marry him."

Megan added, laughing:

"I hope you're not talking about the dog."

Sofía made a face somewhere between annoyed and amused at the joke.

Claire sighed and showed them a photograph of Daniel. He was dark-haired, gorgeous, smiling beside a lake.

"See? There's something off about his expression."

"Yes, there's something off about him," Megan said. "He looks happy."

Sofía studied the photograph with interest and then looked at Claire.

"I know what's wrong with Daniel… It's that you still haven't gotten over Adam. That's it. That's all it is."

"I've gotten over him perfectly well!" Claire protested.

"You brought him up six times yesterday," Megan cut in.

"Because he owes me money."

"And last week?" Sofía chimed in.

"Because he still owes me money!"

The phone buzzed.

Daniel calling.

"Answer it," Megan said.

"No," Claire replied.

"Then tell him you're not interested and introduce him to me," Sofía suggested with a smile.

"If I answer, he might think we have a relationship!"

Megan frowned.

"But do you have a relationship?"

"Not exactly."

Claire declined the call. On the other side of the square, the roller coaster plunged down its first drop amid screams.

Sofía pointed at a small purple booth.

"I know! Madame Zelda."

"Who?" Claire asked.

"The fortune-teller. She's been there forever."

"Come on," Megan said. "Let's ask her whether Daniel is dangerous."

Claire looked at them in disbelief.

"A fortune-teller? What kind of professional is that?"

"The kind who knows things," Sofía answered.

Ten minutes later, having paid the admission to the park, they stood before the purple booth, wedged between a shooting gallery and a cotton candy stand.

Above the door, a sign announced:

MADAME ZELDA

Past, present, and future.

No refunds.

Cash only.

 "See?" Sofía said. "A woman of principle."

Inside, it smelled of incense and furniture polish. Madame Zelda, a woman of about sixty, wore rings on nearly every finger and a pair of glasses that hung from a chain. Before her sat a crystal ball and a small electric fan.

"All three of you?" she asked.

"Only her," Sofía answered, pushing Claire forward.

"Love?"

"Not exactly."

"Money?"

"There's a man," Megan put in.

"Ah. Love."

"Possibly stalking," Claire corrected.

Madame Zelda picked up a deck of cards.

"Sit."

Claire obeyed. Her phone buzzed inside her bag, but she ignored it.

The fortune-teller laid three cards on the table.

"The Fool."

Sofía let out a little laugh.

"Don't you dare," Claire warned.

"The Lovers. And the Sun."

Madame Zelda studied the cards.

"This young man has good intentions. I see no danger, but I do see fear in you."

"Fear?"

"Of trusting again."

"Adam," Megan murmured.

"Don't start with Adam again."

"The past can keep us from recognizing the opportunities of the present," the fortune-teller pronounced.

"How beautiful," Megan said.

"That will be twenty dollars."

"Even more beautiful," Sofía murmured.

Claire opened her bag and took out twenty dollars. Her phone buzzed again.

Daniel calling.

"Oh, come on!" she exclaimed.

"Maybe he wants to know whether you made it to the 'consultation' all right," Megan suggested slyly.

Sofía burst out laughing.

"I'm sick of his texts, of his calls, and of his damn dog!" Claire said.

Madame Zelda held out her hand toward the twenty dollars.

"The future always offers solutions."

"Well, all I wish is that he would never call me again!"

At that precise instant, the phone stopped buzzing.

Claire looked at the screen. Black.

She pressed the side button. Nothing.

"Well," Megan said. "Looks like he heard you."

"Very funny."

"It must have run out of battery," Sofía offered.

"Impossible. It was at seventy-eight percent."

Madame Zelda tucked the twenty dollars into a metal box.

"Have a lovely afternoon, girls."

And she began to shuffle the cards for the next consultation.

Outside, the park carried on. The music of the carousels mingled with the screams from the roller coaster and the voices of the vendors.

Claire kept trying to turn on her phone.

"Give me yours," she said to Megan.

Her friend pulled it out of her bag and pressed the button.

"That's strange. Mine isn't working either."

Sofía checked hers. Black screen.

A man walked past them, slapping his phone against the palm of his hand.

"It won't even start!" he complained.

Near the roller coaster, a young woman was trying to restart hers while another plugged hers into a portable charger. An employee was arguing with a family who couldn't show their passes, claiming they were stored in an app.

Claire looked around. Everywhere there were people examining dead phones, hunting for chargers, or asking whether anyone had a signal.

"Is it a blackout?" Sofía asked.

Megan pointed at the lit-up rides.

"Doesn't look like it."

Right there, in the café, a girl was trying to pay with her phone. When she discovered that it no longer worked, the waiters told her they accepted cards, but she wasn't carrying one either. A man beside her ended up treating her to the coffee, which he paid for in cash.

A little farther on, a boy of about fifteen was cursing loudly as he jerked his phone around, blaming it plainly for not working.

"My mom's going to think I went off with my buddies again! Shit! Shit, shit!"

A couple was arguing loudly because they had trusted their phone to remember where they'd parked the car.

"Marc, the car was here! I know we left it here!"

"Marie, I'd say we left it near a souvenir shop."

"Damn phone! That's why I always use that app. It's never failed me."

"Darling," he said, trying to revive his phone, "I don't think it's the app's fault. I think the phones aren't working."

"That's nonsense. Impossible."

He raised his eyes and pointed at the people around them.

"Then look around you. Can't you see everybody's having the same problem?"

The voice of a father desperately searching for his daughter turned heads; he asked everyone he came across about her. When he saw the three friends, he came over, his face twisted with anguish.

"Excuse me, have you seen a red-haired girl, about fourteen? We'd agreed to call each other when she got off the ride," he explained anxiously, holding his younger daughter by the hand.

"I'd recommend asking at the information booth," Megan advised, worried.

"Where is it?"

Sofía pointed to a map of the park.

"You'll find the information booth on that map."

The man thanked them and hurried toward the map.

"At least there are still people who can read maps," Megan remarked.

"Speak for yourself," Sofía answered.

A park employee announced through a megaphone:

"Attention, please! We are experiencing widespread problems with mobile phones. Please remain calm. The rides continue to operate."

"Widespread how?" someone asked.

The employee couldn't say.

After several minutes of questions and futile attempts to restart the devices, a man pointed at the television in the souvenir shop.

"They're saying on TV it's happening everywhere!"

Claire, Megan, and Sofía rushed in along with several others.

Among the mugs and teddy bears, the television showed a news anchor. A red banner announced:

WORLDWIDE SMARTPHONE FAILURE

The reporter spoke of millions of devices rendered useless at the same moment, in countries around the world. No one knew the cause, and the authorities were calling for calm.

"Worldwide?" Sofía repeated.

"So it seems," Megan answered.

Claire felt a shiver.

She looked at her phone and remembered Daniel's last call, Madame Zelda's voice, and her own wish.

I only wish he would never call me again.

"Girls…"

Megan and Sofía were talking as they watched the news; Sofía was trying to remember her sister's number.

"It ends in forty-two. Or twenty-four."

"Don't you have it written down?" Megan asked.

"Yes. On my phone."

Around them, the park was transforming.

Employees gave directions using the megaphone and short-range radios; parents gathered their children with their help. One of the employees announced that they were trying to put the park's old phone booth back into service and that, if they succeeded, they would allow free calls. Someone was already selling paper maps for five dollars. The souvenir shop had run out of every pen and pencil in its inventory.

An elderly man lent his pen to those who managed to recall a landline number. Nobody wanted to waste their chance to call if the booth could be made to work.

"I only remember my mother's number, and she lives in Oklahoma!" a woman said loudly.

"At least she's alive," someone answered. "Mine isn't."

"Oh my God! I don't know a single number," another woman said, clutching her head.

A little girl was saying:

"I do."

And she recited a cell phone number.

Her mother watched her tenderly.

"Sweetheart, that's my number, yes. But cell phones don't work anymore."

A pair of young lovers, oblivious by choice to the magnitude of the problem, only wanted to have their picture taken in front of the roller coaster. They ended up buying a disposable camera at the souvenir shop and left laughing, trying to figure out how it worked. How they would upload those pictures to their profiles was a matter for later.

The roller coaster dropped again amid screams.

Megan watched Claire, who was still staring at her phone.

"Well, at least there's one piece of good news: Daniel can't call you anymore."

Sofía let out a nervous laugh.

Claire didn't laugh.

Madame Zelda stepped out of her booth for a moment, straightened the CASH ONLY sign, and went back in.

"Hey," Claire said. "Do you two believe in wishes?"

Megan looked at the phone in her friend's hand.

"Don't tell me you think it was you!"

Claire didn't answer.

"Please! You can't have shut down every phone on the planet just because you wished a good-looking guy wouldn't call you!"

"Besides," Megan added, "if you could make wishes, wouldn't you have started with the five hundred dollars Adam owes you?"

Claire put her phone away and looked toward the purple booth.

"You know what? I think I'll ask her to give me my money back."

"From Adam?" Sofía asked.

"From the fortune-teller, if she doesn't fix this."

And she set off toward the booth.