Seven Seconds

Once upon a time, I stumbled upon the phone number of my one true rockstar love. He wasn't a frontman and he wasn’t big into the spotlight, which are maybe the only two reasons his phone number was readily listed in the completely (maybe too much) publicly-accessible White Pages.

What do you do with that kind of information? The first cliff my brain leapt toward was that there was no way this was his home phone number, glaring and gleaming at me through my computer screen. All I have to my name is 35,000 Instagram followers and even I won’t give my phone number out unless I’ve know someone personally for at least six months (exaggeration encouraged, always).

There was no way this was his real life home phone number, so of course I tapped it into my phone and called. I was expecting a pizza place or an automated machine telling me the number I dialed was invalid. I even expected a recording of “Hey, leave a message,” before I ever anticipated the next move.

“Hello?”

The other end of the line spoke to me. And it was him.

Panic ensued. I hadn’t thought this through. It took everything in me not to pull an Aquamarine and throw the phone from the eleventh-story window mid-scream. My mouth dried up. My breath stopped flowing any and everywhere. I couldn’t choke, so I mentally cleared my throat to pull it together.

“Oh, I think I got the wrong number,” I figured out.

“Oh, k. Bye.”

It was over before I even realized what had happened.

I don’t know which of us hung up first, but I do know which of us had a heartbeat nearing the pace of a cheetah running after its dinner. There’s nothing more unattractive than a wide and gaping mouth, which was my resting face for something like the next five minutes.

I just called him.

I just spoke to this man that I assumed I would never even get the chance to meet. His vocal chords had congregated to form words that were directed at me, in my ear, through my phone, which was connected to his all the way in Los Angeles.

Little me, on a gloomy day in my Minneapolis cubicle, and just a moment of connection with an incredibly gifted guitarist in Hollywood whom I had loved since the first day I saw him. A moment of connection.

A fleeting, wispy, momentary hair of a connection.

They were the sweetest seven seconds of my life thus far.