broken phone...

Gabriela hates yellow. She can’t stand the ugly shade of mustard on the cheap, transparent plastic of the parka she has to wear. Right now all she wants is her giant, zebra-striped umbrella and a working phone. She spews obscenities at the crappy phone she’s attempting to take pictures with so she can send them to her mother, who had to give up the trip to Niagara Falls so she could make her trips to chemo instead. Mom always wanted to see the Canadian side, but the masses in her lungs showed themselves before she could go, and she insisted between violent coughing fits and drags of the cigarettes she refused to give up that Gabi go without her.
So now Gabi is stuck on the damn boat, crowded with all the damn tourists, trying to take pictures with the damn phone so Mom can be there, in a way. She won’t feel the spray or hear the deafening roar of the falls, but at least she can see them. That is, if the phone won’t stop randomly cutting off. As soon as she turns it on for the fifth time, it vibrates and brightly displays “Mom” on the screen. Gabi presses it to one ear and plugs the other one with her finger, trying in vain to hear her mother’s voice over the crashing water and yelling tourists.
“Mom?”
“Hey, girl. You doing okay?” Her mother’s English sounds like she’s still speaking Spanish. It makes Gabi homesick.
“I’m good, but how are you? Has the doctor said anything, like, did anything change yet?”
“That doctor don’t know shit, okay? I don’t even wanna talk about him, he pisses me off so much…What’s the falls like? That where all the noise is coming from?”
“They’re really gorgeous, Mom. I wish you could see them.”
“I can as soon as you send me the pict--” Her mom suddenly stops.
“Mom? Mom, you there?” Gabi takes the phone from her ear and looks at it. The damn phone has turned itself off yet again.
“Goddammit!“ she screams. “Fucking…gah!“ She winds up and flings the phone as far as she can. It disappears into the mist, never to be seen again.
“That’s littering, you know,” says the twenty-something standing beside her.  
“It’s a piece of shit, that’s what it is,” she retorts, wondering where the hell this guy gets off. A glance at his feet tells her all she needs to know: he’s wearing Birkenstocks.  One of those goddamn nature people, she thinks, scowling. Fucking hippies. She looks at the rest of him, sizes him up. He’s a foot taller than her but way skinny, the result of one of those ridiculous vegan diets, no doubt. White guy (of course). Probably got a trust fund back home, where his rich parents are sipping wine by the pool, wondering when he’ll get out of his Save The Whales phase. Yeah, Gabi’s got him labeled and filed right under “pretentious asshole.” They’ve exchanged less than fifteen words, but she’s already decided that she does not like him and they are not going to be friends. She turns towards the falls, considering the conversation over, but the guy won’t shut up.
“Do you have any idea what would happen if everyone did what you just did?” he says.
Gabi rolls her eyes, facing him. “No, I don’t, and I don’t give a damn either. I don’t recycle, I wear fur, and I could really go for a Big Mac right now. I’m the wrong person for you to be preaching to, okay?”
“It’s not too late to help the Earth,” he says. “You just have to be open to change.”
Gabi looks at him like he’s got a Prius growing out of his head. “I’m not giving up my leather jacket. Fuck that shit.”
“You don’t have to,” he assures her. He’s getting into it now, his eyes wide and earnest. Gabi’s starting to wonder if he has any life at all. “Every little thing helps. I mean, there’s lots of small changes you can make to your lifestyle. You’ll hardly notice.”
There’s a long silence as Gabi shoots him her best Angry Hispanic Woman glare. She’s surprised when the kid looks right back with no malice in his eyes; he honestly believes in the shit he’s spouting. She sighs and asks, “What’s your name?”
“Chris.”
“Well, Chris,” Gabi says, “you’re either really stupid or really brave. Either way, I’m finding it hard to hate you as much as I want to.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“For you it is. For me, it means I’m getting soft.”
“Then thanks, um…?”
“Gabi.” She reaches into her purse and fumbles around, finally pulling out a cigarette and a lighter. Chris begins to say something, but Gabi cuts him off with a hand in his face.
“Don’t say a damn thing.”
He obediently shuts his mouth, but gives her a disapproving look as she holds the cigarette between her lips and lights it. A few seconds later, the glowing end goes out. Gabi curses around the cigarette and tries again, but there’s just too much mist. She hears what sounds like a smothered giggle. Chris barely manages to hide his grin before she turns on him.
“Oh, so you think this is funny?”
Chris laughs. “I guess that’s nature’s way of telling you to stop smoking. Those things’ll kill you, you know.”
Gabi looks out at the water. “I know. My mom’s got lung cancer.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Chris start to freak out. “Oh god, I’m sorry. I mean, I didn’t…I-I thought…I was just…”
“Stop,” Gabi cuts him off. “There was no way you coulda known, okay? So quit being all embarrassed. I’m not mad or anything.”
“Okay.”
Neither of them talk for a while. Gabi leans on the rails and peers down over the side while Chris snaps pictures of the falls.
“So Gabi, how long are you going to be in Canada?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “A few days, I guess. My mom won’t listen to her doctor, so I gotta be there to convince her to take her medicine and everything, you know?”
“Yeah. I’m leaving next week…” He stops and bites his bottom lip, thinking hard. Gabi finds it incredibly cute. “Um…you want to get together? You know, before we leave?”
Gabi is pleasantly taken by surprise. “Are you asking me out?” she says, amused. He gives her a sheepish grin, and she throws her head back and laughs in a way that she hasn’t in ages.
“You don’t have much game, but you got balls,” she says. The boat slows and pulls up to the pier. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but yeah. We’ll hang out.”
Chris tries to hide his excitement. “Great! I mean, that’s great. Um, here, I’ll put your number in my phone, and um, you can call me, or I mean, I’ll call you…”
“Chris?”
“Yeah?” He’s beaming. It’s adorable.
“I don’t have a phone, remember?”
“Oh.” He looks confused. “Yeah. I forgot. Well then, um…”
“Just give me your number, Chris.” Gabi shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “I’ll call you from my hotel.”
He doesn’t have a pen, of course, so Gabi pulls a Sharpie from her purse and Chris scrawls his number on her palm, the sloppily made digits meandering from her wrist to her pinkie.
“Um, you can call me anytime, my phone’s always on.”
Gabi smiles up at him. Chris’s ears turn red, and he asks, “What?”
“Nothing. You’re just really cute, you know that?”
He struggles to think of a witty reply as Gabi laughs and walks away, waving over her shoulder.
“Later, Chris.”