Ghosting Zoë

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.”

***

The words the guy rang in Zoë’s ears like someone shouting “Loser!” into the Grand Canyon.

Who had she dated lately? Eli, who lived at home with his mother and his penny-farthing collection? Cosmo, who handcrafted soap from ethically sourced ingredients and sampled it once a month? Atticus, who ran the alternative tabloid weekly and left Zoë for his stockbroker?

Each had been more fascinated with his possessions, his product, his cause … than her. A hopelessly romantic, although hopelessly pathetic, “lamb” might not be so bad.

The serenity chimes rang, and Zoë looked up to see Chuck the delivery guy approaching in his blousey brown shirt and brown Bermuda shorts. With his free hand, he removed his cap, exposing a head of fine flaxen hair that seemed to float off the top of his head.

“Gotta box for you ladies,” he said, setting it on the counter. Then, looking at Zoë, he added, “Looks like you got a little something on your skirt, there.”

“How can you tell?” Maple said, squinching her nose at Zoë.

“Nah, it’s lovely,” Chuck said, looking at Zoë. “Just lovely.”

Suddenly, the store became quiet. Maple made the awkward-turtle gesture with her hands.

“Try a little dish soap and vinegar on that,” Chuck said after a pause. “Come right out! That’s what my nan used to do.”

With a wave of his hand and a parting gong of the serenity chimes, he was gone.

Zoë shook her head, slit open the box with an X-Acto knife and began unpacking the shipment of geodes, but something else was on her mind. About a third of the way through the box, she reached for her phone.

Still not Annabel. |

| That’s okay … sorry I bothered you.

So she gave you this number? |

| Yes. Why would she do that? We really seemed to be hitting it off.

I don’t know. It’s probably just her. I’m sure it’s nothing you did. |

Zoë set a few more geodes on the shelf. The purple ones were her favorites.

What *did* you do? |

| I read her my latest love poem.

Zoë’s heart skipped a beat. He read her a love poem … that he wrote himself? How darling is that? Then she scoffed to herself. “Love poems. How good could they be?” she mumbled. She felt Maple’s eyes peering over the counter in her direction.

Zoë cleared her throat, straightened her back and typed:

You write poetry? Are you a writer? |

| Writing’s more of a hobby. I majored in creative writing and minored in American literature at the University of Virginia.

Zoë gasped! One of her heroes, Robert F. Kennedy, had earned his law degree at the University of Virginia, and she had always wanted to attend there.

“Are you alright over there?” Maple called while wiping her pince-nez on a handkerchief embroidered with a map of Middle Earth. She placed one hand on her hip, perched the glasses on her nose and stared at Zoë.

“Oh, fine. Um, it’s just these geodes. Brilliant.”

So what do you do for a living, Edgar? |

| I work for a nonprofit. It’s not much. We raise funds to provide arts opportunities for orphans.

Zoë held her phone to her chest, bit her lip and looked at the ceiling. She felt a tear slip out of the corner of her eye.

| So what do I call you — if I can call you — other than “not Annabel”?

Zoë’s hands were shaking. She could barely work her thumbs.

I’m Zoë … |

She watched the cursor flashing on her phone. It seemed to be daring her, flashing in Morse code, “C’mon, coward!” But before she could continue …

| Like Zooey Deschanel but with fewer letters. And more beautiful, I bet.

She fairly beat the letters into her iPhone.

Would you like to get together for coffee? |

***

The following evening, Zoë sat at a table in Beans on the Boulevard, nursing a Pumpkin Spice Swedish Egg Coffee With Caramel Drizzle and holding a volume of Emily Dickinson.

“You do realize you’re taking romantic advice from a recluse?” Maple asked.

“Perhaps I should have brought Blake, since he’s such a lamb,” Zoë said, reminding Maple of her first assessment of Edgar, the guy on whom neither of them had yet to actually lay eyes.

Zoë had enlisted Maple as her date backup, a role unique to 21st century courting. Like a stealthy chaperone, she would sit a few tables away and watch for a high sign from Zoë. If Edgar turned out to be a creep — or worse, crazy — Maple would swoop in with some excuse like a sick aunt or missing cat that needed Zoë’s immediate attention.

Truth be told, Zoë’s favorite romantic poem was “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,” although she thought Dickinson’s “Heart, We Will Forget Him” was hauntingly beautiful. Besides, Christopher Marlowe was English, and Edgar’s minor was in American literature.

Perhaps it was the java, but Zoë couldn’t remember ever being on such pins and needles. As 8 o’clock approached, her arms were so alive with goosebumps that she thought she might honk.

She watched the minute hand on the wall clock reach 12, signaling that H-hour had arrived. “He’ll be here any minute,” she thought, scanning the room for a man about the right age. “Any minute …”

A gaggle of prepubescent girls wearing denim jackets over their leotards came in with a couple of Karens for Italian sodas.

Zoë ordered another coffee and two hazelnut turtle brownies and picked nervously at one as she read “After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes.” What would he look like, she wondered? Tall? Short? Fair? Dark? Tortoiseshell? Horn-rimmed?

Eight-thirty arrived and still no Edgar. She texted him.

Did you have trouble finding the coffee shop? Are you lost? |

Zoë looked longingly as a couple in their 70s shuffled with their coffees to a table near the window.

Eight-forty-five. She began picking at the second brownie and texted:

Hello! Anyone out there? |

Zoë could sense Maple’s doleful eyes burning a hole into the back of her head. The minute hand was clicking off 9:05 when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry, chicken,” Maple said. “It doesn’t look like he’s coming.”

Zoë pinched a bit of brownie between her fingers, dropped it onto the table and wiped her hand on a napkin lying there. With the napkin crushed in her right fist, she shoved her arms into her hooded cardigan and cinched the belt tight. Slipping the napkin into the right pocket of her sweater, she drifted toward the door with Maple patting her back.

Alone in her car, Zoë sighed heavily and sent one last text …

Where WERE you? |

Then she started the Beetle and headed home.

***

Zoë texted Edgar’s number for days.

Sorry we missed each other the other night. Are you OK? |

I found a great old copy of “Tamerlane and Other Poems” in an antique shop. I’d love to show you. |

Busy with work? I know how that is. How are the orphans? |

But nothing. No reply.

When she walked into work one day with a cup of convenience store coffee instead of a concoction from Beans on the Boulevard, Maple said, “Now that’s just sad!”

“It was … convenient.”

“And it probably tastes like roofing tar,” Maple said. “I know you’re loath to return to the Scene of the Crime, but no guy is worth that!”

Zoë took a sip and winced. Maple opened the mini-fridge below the counter and brought out a bottle of white chocolate raspberry creamer. Zoë popped the lid off her cup and gave the bottle a liberal squeeze.

“I suspect there’s not enough creamer in the world to cover up that,” Maple said, “or the truth. It’s time to face the facts, petunia: You’ve been ghosted.”

Zoë was familiar with the practice of just blowing someone off like they didn’t exist, severing all lines of communication without warning or explanation. It had happened to some of her friends. She had even thought of doing it herself when guys had weirded her out, but she never thought she’d be on the receiving end.

She squeezed another dab of creamer into her coffee and sighed.

“It happens,” Maple said, patting the bun atop her Gibson girl hairdo. “He’s just a guy. The world’s full of ’em.”

“But he seemed so right,” Zoë thought to herself.

She moped around the store, checking her phone every five minutes, until finally Maple took it out of her hands, shut it off and sent Zoë home two hours early.

At her garage apartment, Zoë slipped on a Baja sweater and curled up on the futon. She turned her phone back on and spent the next hour reading and rereading the text messages from Edgar. Her Siamese cat, named Yul Brynner, jumped onto the futon, climbed onto her hip, curled up in a ball and fell asleep. Soon, Zoë set the phone on the burgundy leather steamer trunk that served as a coffee table and fell asleep herself.

She awoke the next morning with a cramp in her back and a pasty taste in her mouth. Sometime in the night, she’d pulled the granny-square comforter off the back of the futon and over her unconscious form without waking up. The cat, as cats are wont to do, had wandered off to sleep somewhere else.

Zoë stumbled into the bathroom and turned the hot water on in the shower. She shucked her outer clothes and began brushing her teeth, absentmindedly watching the bubbles form at the corners of her mouth.

When the heat from the shower steamed over the mirror, she wrote “Edgar” with her finger, drew a heart around the name and then a question mark. She was staring at her artwork when Yul Brynner yowled like only a Siamese cat can.

“Wha-at?”

The startled Zoë dropped her toothbrush into the sink and looked at the beast, who was sitting atop the hamper and staring daggers at her, as if to say, “You pathetic mess!”

Zoë looked back at the mirror and said, “You’re right, Yules, as usual.” His duty done, Yul Brynner hopped to the floor, straightened his back, lifted his tail and padded away. Zoë wiped the word from the mirror with a towel, looked at her loose brown curls falling over one eye and blew them out of the way with a puff of air from the corner of her mouth.

Then she finished undressing and stepped into the shower to wash away the memory of the abortive love affair.

***

Over the next week, Zoë poured herself into her work.

She organized a display of healing crystals in the store’s window and unpacked a shipment of green obsidian. Reading on the label, “Helps to overcome feelings of stagnation,” she thought, “I could use some of that,” and set a piece aside for herself. She straightened a shelf of Celtic knot soapstone mortars and pestles and spent two days inventorying the store’s entire supply of medicinal herbs.

That weekend, Zoë joined Maple for an open-mic night at Beats and Brews, a microbrewery and performing arts venue. Maple chose a pale ale, Zoë grabbed a coffee stout, and they found a table.

On the small stage, a paunchy guy with wispy blond hair — wearing khaki cargo pants and a plaid shirt — was playing an acoustic guitar and singing, “Come Live With Me.”

“Come live with me and be my love, and we will all the pleasures prove …”

When he saw Zoë and Maple in the audience, the singer’s face turned bright red.

There was something familiar about him.

“Oh, my God,” Maple said, grabbing Zoë’s arm. “Is that … Chuck?”

At the realization, Zoë chuckled a bit, lowered her head and covered her face, but as Chuck sang on …

“That hills and valleys, dales and fields and all the craggy mountains yield …”

… she found herself staring, her glass halfway to her mouth.

“Come live with me and be my love.”

It was her favorite romantic poem set to music, and as she watched Chuck, she realized: He was actually quite good.

Chuck was coming off stage after his number and Maple was frantically waving him over to their table when Zoë’s phone chimed, indicating a new text message:

| Zoë, it’s Edgar. I need your help!

***

Zoë’s first instinct was to drop the phone back in her purse and pretend she never saw the message. “You need help?” she thought to herself. “You need a watch. And a calendar. And GPS!”

But then she thought, what if Edgar really did need help? He was a fellow human being, after all. Karma and all that.

What do you want? |

| I promised Macy I would get her into an acting class. Tomorrow’s the final day to register, and I can’t reach anyone else. Will you pay her registration fee?

“What?” Zoë said aloud. “You’ve got a lot of nerve!”

“Zoë, put down your phone,” Maple said. “Congratulate Chuck. I was just telling him how much you liked his song.”

Maple rolled her eyes in Chuck’s direction as a less-than-subtle hint.

“Great, Chuck,” Zoë said without looking up from her phone, “but I’ve got to reply to this.”

She pounded the keypad furiously.

What?! You ask me for money after standing me up? |

| What do you mean? When did I stand you up?

Last week at Beans on the Boulevard. YOU NEVER SHOWED UP! And then you ghosted me. |

| I saw you there, picking at your brownie. I sat down and tried to talk to you, but you just ignored me.

No, mister! You were never there. You left me sitting alone ALL NIGHT! |

“Take a breath, Z,” Maple said, seeing how worked up her friend was getting. When Zoë explained the contents of the texting conversation, Maple said, “Uh-oh, it’s one of those ‘lonely hearts’ scams.”

Chuck put his hand on her arm and said, “Be careful, Zoë.” Then her phone binged again.

| I left you a poem on the table.

And now you want me to pay for your girlfriend’s acting class? What kind of fool do you take me for? |

| Macy is 12 years old. She’s one of the orphans.

Zoë’s eyes got big. She felt them starting to tear up. “Orphan?”

| For some reason, I can’t get into my bank account, and I can’t reach anyone at the nonprofit.

| I’d hate to disappoint her.

Zoë set her phone down and felt a tear run down her cheek. She reached into the pocket of her sweater for a tissue and pulled out the napkin from the coffee shop, still there from the week before. There was something written on it. She picked her phone up.

Tell me what to do. |

***

“Why, Zoë?” Maple asked the following Monday at work. “Why did you do it?”

Despite the words of caution from Maple and Chuck, Zoë had gone online and used her credit card to pay the registration fee for Macy’s acting class. “At least, the little girl won’t have to suffer,” she said.

“If she even is a little girl,” Maple said. “Now that Edgar knows you’re a soft touch, he’ll just want more and more. What else has he asked you for?”

“Nothing,” Zoë said. In fact, it had been radio silence since Saturday night, even after she texted to let Edgar know that she had successfully paid the fee. Over the course of the next week, she texted him several more times.

How does Macy like her acting class? |

Did you get things sorted out with your bank? |

What’s up with you and your job? Did you figure out why you couldn’t reach them? |

But Zoë was stuck in Ghost City, right smack dab in the middle of town square. Edgar — as sensitive, intelligent and caring as he initially seemed — was once again AWOL.

At first, Zoë wondered what the girl Macy must have gone through in her life and visualized her enjoying her acting class. Zoë thought of herself at that age and how she needed encouragement to be herself and try new things.

But slowly, thoughts of Edgar and how he’d used her crept in like a fog, obscuring the image of the good deed she’d done.

“Jesus — good hippie that he was — said the poor will always be with us,” Maple said. “But what he didn’t say, which is equally true, is that the jerks will always be with us, too.”

Zoë began to think Maple was right. Edgar was a jerk. But then she remembered the napkin from the coffee shop. She took it out of her pocket and spread it out on the counter at the New Age Universal Emporium.

“Take a look at this,” she said, smoothing out the wrinkles with her fingertips.

“What is that?” Maple said. “A poem?” It read:

Come sit with me and coffee sip,
Which slidest past thy lovely lip,
And down yon throat in beauteous neck,
While mine nerves lie in a wreck.

While caffeine take and brownie pinch,
Mine hand shall travel inch by inch,
Until me taking yours in mine,
‘Mid visions filled with Valentines.

And while the nymphs and cherubs sing,
Around mine heart you’ll wind your string,
‘Til it be joyfully in thy grip,
Come sit with me and coffee sip.

“It’s beautiful,” Maple said. “Where did it come from?”

“From Beans on the Boulevard,” Zoë said, turning the napkin over to show the shop’s name. “He left it on the table that night.”

“Who? Edgar? But I never saw him.”

“Neither did I, but he was there just the same. He mentioned in one of his texts that he left me a poem.”

“It can’t be!” Maple said as the store’s serenity chime gonged.

They were still looking over the poem when Chuck walked up to the counter with a box.

“Hey, ladies,” he said.

“More geodes?” Maple asked.

“No, this one’s addressed to Zoë.”

Zoë’s brows pinched together as she took the box and slit it open. Out came a purple teddy bear holding a heart that read, “Go out with me?”

“I’m singing at Beats and Brews again this Saturday,” Chuck said. “I’ve worked up some new material, and I think it would sound even better with you in the audience to hear it.”

Zoë’s massive curls bounced over her brow as she nodded an enthusiastic “yes.” She reached out and wrapped her arms around Chuck just as her phone sounded an incoming text message.

***

“Who’s that?” Chuck asked.

“Not again!” Maple moaned.

Zoë checked her phone and saw a message from the now-familiar number.

| Zoë, are you there? Something strange is going on.

What’s strange is that I keep responding to your texts. Honestly, Edgar. |

| I’m in some strange place and can’t seem to get out.

When Zoë showed the messages to her friends, Maple said, “Just when I thought it couldn’t get any weirder!”

| I can’t seem to reach anyone else. The only number that works is yours.

Sounds like your phone’s on the fritz. Did you drop it or something? |

| There was some kind of shock, like static electricity. My phone hasn’t worked right since.

| I really need some help, Zoë. I don’t know what this place is, and I can’t get out.

Where are you? |

Edgar texted her a link to a Google map with a pin on it.

“This is way beyond appropriate — or safe,” Maple said.

“Maple’s right,” Chuck said. “It’s way outside the rules of online dating.”

“But what if he’s for real? Remember the poem.”

“If you’re determined to do this,” Chuck said, “at least let me go with you.”

Zoë and Chuck got in his delivery van and followed the map to 123 N. Yancey St. When they pulled up to the address, they saw a sign that read Lee Funeral Home.

“A mortuary?” Zoë said. “This is getting creepy!”

“My uncle’s a funeral director, and he’s a great guy,” Chuck said, patting Zoë’s hand. “Maybe Edgar’s here for a service.”

As they stepped inside, they were greeted by a man in a dark suit. “Are you friends of Mr. Jones?” he asked. “We’re in the middle of the visitation just now.”

He handed them a program with a picture of a dark-haired young man.

“Oh, my God, Chuck! Look!”

The cover of the program read, “Celebrating the Life of Edgar A. Jones.”

“He’s dead?” Chuck said with alarm. “When did it happen?”

“Two weeks ago,” the funeral director said. “We’ve been trying to notify next of kin but haven’t been able to locate any. Apparently, Mr. Jones grew up in an orphanage.”

Zoë’s heart sank. “Oh, the poor lamb,” she said. “How, how did he … die?”

“The police said he was at a party at the home of a friend, named Nathaniel, I believe. When the lights went out, Mr. Jones volunteered to check the fuse box. It was just a mild jolt, I understand, but he had a heart arrhythmia, and so …”

Looking around the room, Chuck asked, “Who are all these kids?”

“Oh, foster children, teenagers from the youth shelter,” the funeral director said. “Mr. Jones knew them from the charity he worked for.”

Near the casket at the front of the room, one girl was tearfully saying, “Edgar was so good! He never forgot a promise! Somehow, he even got me into my acting class after he … died!”

“You’re Macy, aren’t you?” Zoë said, putting her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Edgar told me all about you, in his text messages.”

“Maybe you can help us with that,” the funeral director said. “We haven’t been able to shut off his phone. I’m afraid I’m not very good with technology.”

As he handed the phone to Zoë, a trail of blue light shot out from the device with a loud crackle and touched her fingertip. She let out a short shriek, and then the screen went black.

Zoë held the phone to her heart for a moment and then, looking down at the darkened screen, said, “Goodbye, Edgar.”

That Saturday night, after Chuck finished his set at Beats and Brews, he and Zoë sat close together, his arm around her, to watch their new friend make her stage debut.

The girl walked out and set a framed portrait of a young man on a stool. Taking a paper napkin from her pocket, she said, “I’m Macy, and I’d like to read a poem in honor of absent friends.”

“Come sit with me and coffee sip …”