Review: Dial A for Average
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 17, 2012
Being single has its advantages---and, if one is not cautious, also some serious drawbacks.In 2011, shortly after my divorce, I signed up for an online singles website that catered to single, divorced, separated, and widowed people who wanted to connect with someone and hopefully begin a relationship. Not too long afterwards, I met a young woman (whom I'll call Jane) who lived in my area.It certainly seemed promising. She was fairly tall, proportioned well, educated, no children, worked part-time, had her own place, enjoyed reading and music (two of my favorite pastimes). She was in her mid-twenties and from the area, so it wasn't as if she lived half a world away or anything like that. To top it off, I found Jane quite attractive.So far, so good.We exchanged several emails, making casual inquiries about each other's goals, likes and aversions, dreams, fears, and family. I learned that she was estranged from her parents and was an only child. When I inquired about whether she would reconcile with them or not, I noticed she changed the subject rather quickly. I chalked it up to my not being sensitive enough to her situation, apologized, and let the matter drop.Eventually we were comfortable enough with each other that we decided to meet for coffee at a local Barnes and Noble. We had a lovely time and talked for nearly four hours. Jane was vivacious, positive, erudite, and an excellent listener. I found her to be an excellent conversationalist as well, and I felt emboldened enough to ask her out again, which she readily accepted.We exchanged personal home numbers and began calling each other once or twice a week. This was fine for me, as I normally do not talk on the phone all that much and prefer face-to-face meetings.Then the plot changed.Whereas I was happy chatting online or by phone once or twice a week, she preferred a daily dialogue. Soon it had crept up to twice a day. When I tried telling her that I couldn't always be available twice a day, much less every day, she became petulant and wanted to know with whom else I was talking to. When I replied no one, she made it very plain that she was not too happy.My eyebrows did a quizzical raise all on their own.As it turned out, Jane had a habit of calling me whenever the mood struck her. Normally, this wouldn't bother me, but when phone calls start arriving at your workplace and you never give out your work number to anyone, even someone like Jane, then that's a bit creepy.The phone calls, innocuous at first, gradually became more incessant and interruptive. Several times my co-workers had to take me aside to tell me in no uncertain terms that my personal issues were interfering with their work. My boss at the time corroborated this, and subsequently I was forced to confront Jane about her numerous faux pas. Initially, she agreed to respect the work environment and let me do my job, but not long after our conversation, the phone calls started up again.It was her or my job. I chose the latter.Then the phone calls began arriving at all hours. It seemed as if my cell phone had a broken ring tone. My inbox flooded with her texts and voice mails. At one point I received no less than thirty text messages in one day.At first I ignored her. Then I called her---twice---to ask that she please not call me again, and to please leave me alone. All I received in reply was an earful of hateful invective and several accusations of cheating on her.I hadn't even realized we were an exclusive item.After that, I blocked Jane's number. I changed my personal phone number. I even spoke to a lawyer about filing harrassment charges and seeking an order of protection against her.Then, after about a week of being under siege, the calls and texts abruptly stopped. I never heard from Jane again. I went back to the singles website where we had originally met and discovered that her account was deleted. When I decided to risk a volley of verbal abuse and dialed her number, it had been disconnected.I went online and Googled her name in the search engine. Nothing. It was as if she had never existed.So when I previewed Sandra Ross's "Wrong Number," my experiences with the Janester flooded my memory banks.In "Number," the character Devon is newly single, having lost her husband, Dan, and moving away to a small town where she could open up a bookstore and make a new start for herself. In this regard I was able to draw parallels between Devon and myself.The eerie aspect of "Number" occurred when Devon began receiving phone calls at all hours of the day. Each time, the male voice on the other end of the line would ask for Dan, despite Devon's repeated requests for him to identify himself. While the phone calls were not overwhelming in number like Jane's were, they rivaled hers for chutzpah and obstinacy. The only difference is that Devon's unknown caller maintains a pleasant disposition at all times, whereas I had dealt with a real harridan.I strongly identified with Devon because, insofar as my personal privacy, time, and information were concerned, I felt violated. It was a very uncomfortable feeling to wake up and dread hearing the phone ring, or if I had shut it off for the day, to turn it on to make a call and discover umpteen messages in my inbox or on my voice mail.Ross creates a fairly suspenseful plot. She makes the apartment's setting the primary focus of Devon's dilemma while creating several subplots throughout the story that center upon Devon's mourning Dan's loss; her unspoken sexual needs that she allows to consume her thoughts; and her need to reconcile her psychic abilities with being able to understand why her husband was taken away from her so soon."Number" might have been a bit better had Devon's psychic ability been extrapolated to counter the mysterious phone calls and confront the unknown caller. Additionally, how she received her power could have been further explored.All told, Ross has written a decent tome that is fast-paced and provides her fans a nice source of entertainment.