I was alone in New York City. I was alone in New York City and my best friend had abandoned me. I was alone in New York City and my best friend had abandoned me and I didn’t have a phone.

I looked around, like there was someone who could tell me what to do, suddenly feeling like my fancy dress and curled hair looked like a bad costume, fine onstage but tacky and gaudy in the light of day. I was all too aware of how much younger I was than everyone around me, and how much I wasn’t up to this. Why had I thought I could do this? I felt a sob catch somewhere in my throat.

I needed to talk to my parents. I wanted to go home.

I didn’t care if I would get in trouble, or that this was admitting I couldn’t hack it in the big bad city, even for a couple of hours. Everything in me was on high alert, telling me that I needed to touch base, go back to where it was safe, get out of this situation. But how was I supposed to do that? I turned in a circle on the platform, my hands shaking—and then saw, back by the benches, the pay phone.

I practically ran over to it. Would it even still work? It looked like it had seen better days—the phone was battered and scratched, and covered in what looked like decades’ worth of graffiti and scrawls. I picked up the receiver hesitantly.

A dial tone sounded in my ear—so this phone was working, which was a huge relief. But now what? At the bottom, under the keypad, was a series of instructions, white letters on a bright blue background. Since I was outside the calling area, I had to press one, then our home number. Luckily, I could do that—our landline was one of the very few numbers I had memorized.

I dialed, and an automated operator voice rang through, very loud, making me jump, telling me the call I was trying to complete cost seventy-five cents. I reached in my pocket for my change and slid three quarters through the coin slot. “Thank you,” the automated voice said, and I gripped the receiver, willing the phone to hurry up.

The phone rang twice, and at the start of the third ring, I got nervous. This was the last of my change—what if my parents didn’t answer? What was I supposed to do then?

“Hello?” a girl’s voice, one I didn’t recognize, answered. I frowned, wondering what was happening. Had the phone somehow connected me to whoever lived in my house back when there were pay phones? Or, more realistically, had I dialed the number wrong?

“Hi,” I said. “Um—I was calling for the Steinberger-Thompson house?”