"I texted Becca as I went through the subway turnstile: "You won't believe it, but Sex and The City is back! But no Samantha, so you wouldn't like it." I added a grin emoji and tucked my phone in my bag. When I absent-mindedly took it out as I reached my stop, I almost dropped it in shock. For the first time since my dear friend had died five years earlier, she'd written back."
"Becca and I met my first year in college at a craft fair where I was eyeing a bag. She'd noticed me holding it - deep sea green and entirely impractical - against myself. "Go for it," I heard someone behind me say. I turned and saw a tall young woman with a cataract of blond curls falling across her shoulders. "I shouldn't," I said. "Oh, come on, just get it. Life is short." I was charmed."
"As I stood on the subway platform, passengers eddying around me, my gaze was frozen on the screen. "Who is this?" I read again. Shakily, I scrolled through my phone, and saw that it had been a few months since I'd last sent Becca a text. I typed out a new one: "This is my friend Becca's number." "Well, it appears to be mine now," came the response. "Please don't text it again.""
An unexpected text from a deceased friend's old phone number prompts shock and grief. The narrator had sent a casual message about Sex and The City while riding the subway and received a reply asking, "Who is this?" The narrator recalls meeting Becca in college at a craft fair, buying an impractical deep-sea-green bag after Becca urged risk-taking. The friendship bridged cultural differences and encouraged bold choices. After Becca's funeral, small urban incongruities — like a Tweety Bird costumed commuter reading the Wall Street Journal — triggered the narrator's habitual impulse to reach for the phone and try to tell Becca.
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