Wishful Thinking Read Online Free PDF Page B

him. Nodding, Tim left. Alone again, Jennifer bit her lip and tentatively touched the wand hovering on her velvety-bluescreen. Like a shot, her tiny office was filled with the ringing, resonant voice she’d heard earlier that morning.
    “Have you ever needed to be in more than one place at the same time?” the voice asked.
Obviously!
Jennifer thought as she cranked down the volume, praying Tim hadn’t heard. “With Wishful Thinking, you can be. Simply enter the time, date, place, and Google Maps coordinates for the second appointment you wish to keep—the place you
wish
you could be—and through the magic of Wishful Thinking, you will be able to be in both places at once.” Then, on the screen, the word
warning
appeared. “This app utilizes a powerful technology,” the voice continued sternly. “Prior to use, please contact me, Dr. Diane Sexton, for further instructions.”
    Dr. Diane Sexton’s name was hyperlinked. Jennifer’s finger was poised above it. Should she contact this woman? Or should she wipe the entire thing from her phone? Clearly, this was crazy. Dr. Diane Sexton was clearly crazy.
Clearly
(she found herself wanting to use the word
clearly
as often as possible), this was a lifestyle app, a game for desperately overtired and gullible women like her, and as soon as she typed
Guitar recital, the West End School for Music and Art, 4:00 p.m.
, she would be delivered ads for children’s guitar lessons and the latest Dan Zanes album and invited to share her Wishful Thinking calendar with friends on Facebook, where they could all “wish” to be together in a virtual coffee shop and max out their credit cards buying imaginary lattes.
    Which made it hard to understand why on earth she would e-mail a perfect stranger for “further instructions.” She had no idea who this woman was or what she was after. Typing a Wishful Thinking calendar entry, however, was tempting. An app that let a woman be in two places at the same time? It was mommy porn, to be sure. But she couldn’t see the harm in fantasizing.
    A small white arrow pulsed in and out of view in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. She swiped it.
    A window appeared: CREATE AN EVENT .
    Guitar Recital
, she typed.
West End School for Music and Art, 55 Bethune Street, Tuesday, September 22, 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
After saying yes to the app’s request to use her current location and confirming the Google Maps coordinates for the West End School, she hit ENTER , and that was that. Her old, familiar calendar returned to the screen, with its legion of entries already eating up every minute of the day—but now with one intriguing addition: the midnight-blue Wishful Thinking entry pulsing subtly in and out of view, like a tactful dinner hostess hovering over the table without quite taking a seat.
    Despite herself, Jennifer smiled.
Guitar recital, 4:00 p.m.
She knew it was impossible. But even though it was only wishful thinking, typing the details of Julien’s recital so confidently into her calendar had given her a distinct feeling of happiness. Closing her eyes for a moment, she imagined it: that she really could be in two places at the same time, both front and center at Julien’s concert
and
at the staff meeting scheduled for four o’clock that day, missing neither an occasion nor a beat. And for that fleeting feeling of transport, Jennifer permitted herself a moment of gratitude to the clearly crazy Dr. Diane Sexton.
    I T WAS A LITTLE bit before four when, after an exhausting two-hour meeting, the majority of which involved Jennifer’s refereeing between an officer from the Administration for Children’s Services and a group of angry parents from the Walt Whitman Houses, Jennifer told Tim she was going downstairs to get a coffee. He reminded her—unnecessarily, as the Employee Time Clock periodically flashed reminders of department meetings—that the staff meeting had been pushedback to four thirty, then asked her to get him a skinny