Wrong Number

By Roy Gomez

The woman said I’d misdialed. It’d been her number for years—but added, after a pause, that she sometimes did get calls for Charles.

“Really?” I said.

“Yes.”

I thought to explain. It was just so odd. I’d been watching television; doodling—hardly even thinking, really—when on a whim I dialled my old number.

“Popular,” she said.

Oh, yeah! Everyone loved me. My phone rang off the hook. I, Charles. I was everybody’s darling.

“So,” the woman said, “what would you tell him?”

“Who?”

“Charles.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I guess, I guess I’d tell him we all miss him.”