Chapter 1 - The Dead Number
By four o'clock on my thirty-seventh birthday, almost everyone I had invited had canceled.
My sister Claire texted first. Migraine. Then my cousin had car trouble. Two coworkers suddenly remembered a school fundraiser. A woman from my book club claimed her basement had flooded, even though it had not rained in Chicago for nine days.
At four-ten, sitting alone in St. Bridget's parish hall beside a grocery-store cake with HAPPY BIRTHDAY NORA written in crooked blue icing, I did something I knew was pathetic.
I texted Paula.
Not the Paula who existed now. I did not know where that woman was, or if she was alive. I texted the number I still remembered from high school, the one I had not used in almost twenty years.
I wrote: Hey. It's Nora Bennett. I'm turning thirty-seven tonight. St. Bridget's hall, seven o'clock. There will be cake even if it's only me. If by some miracle this is still you, come laugh at me.
I hit send before I could stop myself.
Ten minutes later, the dead number answered.
Wear red. I'm coming.
I stared at those four words until my screen dimmed.
"Very funny," I whispered to an empty room.
I called Claire. Straight to voicemail.
I called the number. It rang once, then disconnected.
At six-thirty, against every reasonable instinct I possessed, I went home and opened the cedar box under my bed. Inside was my mother's red dress, the one she wore in the only photograph I had of her laughing without looking tired. She had died six years earlier, and I had never worn it.
The dress fit as if she had left it for me yesterday.
At seven, only Mrs. Delaney from choir and eighty-two-year-old Mr. Avery from the parish council had shown up. Mrs. Delaney squeezed my hand and said, "Small parties have better cake." Mr. Avery was already cutting himself a corner piece when headlights washed across the frosted windows.
A black sedan stopped outside.
A man stepped out alone.
He was tall, broad through the shoulders, dressed in a dark overcoat that probably cost more than my car. Silver had begun to show at his temples. He did not rush. He moved like a person accustomed to rooms changing shape when he entered them.
I assumed Claire had hired some ridiculous birthday performer.
When he walked in, I smiled too brightly and said, "You must be the surprise. Do you need a chair, or do you perform standing?"
He stared at me.
Then he laughed. A real laugh. Low, rusty, almost startled out of him.
"My name is Stefano," he said. "You invited me."
He held out his phone.
There was my message.
Underneath it were his four words.
Wear red. I'm coming.
My stomach dropped.
"Oh my God. I'm so sorry. That number belonged to a friend of mine. A long time ago."
His expression changed almost too quickly to catch.
"What friend?"
"Paula. Paula Romano."
The room went still.
Stefano's hand tightened around his phone.
"Say that name again," he said.
May you like
And suddenly I understood that the wrong number had not brought a stranger to my birthday.
It had brought a man who knew exactly who Paula was.
