Disconnected
Short Fiction: A Future Bride's Day Takes an Unexpected Turn as the Internet Vanishes
This is Part 3 in a short four-part fictional series Wedding Bells, sharing the celebration of marriage between Paul Buckley and Tracey Jenson.
By Vince Wetzel
Copyright Vince Wetzel and OT Press
Tracey looked down at her phone. 1 p.m. Four more hours to go on Wednesday before she took off for twelve days, beginning with final wedding preparations, a sunset wedding in El Dorado Hills and then a 10-day honeymoon in Kauai.
In a typical October, she’d be buried in bill language, preparing her boss, Senator Larry Grant’s legislative agenda for the following year. The Senator shared what his goals were, but as Chief of Staff, her job was to bring that vision to life in the form of a bill package. That meant meetings with stakeholders, understanding the nuances of the issue, and finding the right way to thread a needle that would do good, and have a chance to pass.
But this was his last term in office and the final push in office was assured, allowing the Senator to take a long-deserved vacation and for Tracey to prepare for the wedding. Tracey took her break a step further, deciding to work from home, allowing her to have a soft launch into the wedding weekend.
The house was quiet, and she let out a sigh at the silence. Paul started his wedding vacation early by playing golf with his longtime friends Jesse, David and Rob. They were her friends too, but Paul’s bond with them was special, stronger since their best friend – and her late husband – Jim died tragically seven years before. Her son Will was at school and would go to her parents afterward, giving her solitude at the island in her kitchen.
Her phone buzzed. It was Paul.
“How’s the golf game?” she asked. “Tee off yet?”
“We’re on the third hole,” Paul said. “Rob already birdied of course. After golf, I may just hang out at David’s place. We were talking about getting pizza and really bacheloring it up.”
“We already had our bachelor parties.” Tracey’s voice dripped with disappointment. Not because she was disappointed with Paul, but because the low-key outing sounded better than the night of wine and dinner at Ella with Janie, her maid of honor at one of the top restaurants in the area. She added with apparent sarcasm, “Just no strippers.”
“Ha, strippers? If I wanted strippers,” he said, but the words trailed off in a garbled mess, before dropping completely.
“Hello? Paul?” She stared at her phone. She was joking about the strippers, and she knew Paul was too. Given his previous history of compulsions, she knew that neither he, nor his friends, would put him in that situation. Still, she wanted to tell him to celebrate. After all, this was his first time as a groom.
All right, back to work. She needed to get more stakeholder feedback incorporated into the current bill language so she could send it to Senator Grant. The plan was to have it done and nice and tidy in time for Thanksgiving. That would give everyone a month to solicit co-authors and further allies.
Her phone buzzed again. She looked at the screen, anticipating it was Paul calling back. Instead, it was Alex Shelby, the asshole columnist with the Sacramento Times. He was a good writer, often got things right more than he got them wrong and was great to have him on your side. But he was also arrogant, stubborn, always digging and finding an angle, even when one didn’t exist.
“Hello Mr. Shelby,” Tracey regretted the time she gave him her cell phone number.
“I’m doing a story on insurance availability in the state,” he said. Not a Hello or acknowledgment of her humanity. She could hear him fumbling around in his notes. The man was one of the most disorganized people she knew, but somehow, he pulled seemingly un-related strings together to produce a column that made the broader story make sense. “I hear you’ve got a bill that would allow insurers to raise their prices. Do you or Senator Grant care to comment.”
Tracey put her hand to her forehead and rubbed her eyes. What her boss’s bill didn’t need at this critical juncture was for Alex Shelby to torpedo it before the process started. It was no secret that this was a priority for Senator Grant. But they were hoping to sign up as many allies as possible before having to submit to Shelby’s scrutiny.
This was not a problem Tracey needed right now. With Senator Grant out of town on his own vacation and all other staff working on various campaigns, she was the only person who could comment. Still, she could fudge a little to buy some time.
“Oh, the Senator is not available,” she said. Senator Grant was enjoying his final day of vacation in Monterey. “I can have him give you a call tomorrow.”
“I’m working on something for tomorrow,” he said. “Can you get him on the phone to give a comment this afternoon? Or can you talk about it?”
Typical Shelby. He liked to create added pressure because he could. He could wait a couple of extra days. After all, no one was going to scoop him on a story about insurance reform in October before the election. But he wanted to be the first to start the conversation. That meant leveraging his reputation to force people to comment before they were ready. He took great pleasure in adding pressure to see where folks would crack.
“You can hold it a day,” she said. “Nobody is going to be writing about next year’s legislative agenda in October before an election year. Look, he’s going to be back in tomorrow. I’m sure you’d rather have him give a quote, rather than me.”
“Don’t stall,” Shelby said. “Look, I know you want to push this off so you can go get married this weekend or whatever. I’ve tried him. It goes straight to voicemail.”
Tracey knew that Shelby only responded to aggressive back-and-forth. For some reason, everyone thought it was part of his brand. You weren’t a real Capitol staffer until you exchanged threats with Alex Shelby.
“Maybe, if you used more honey than vinegar, you’d get people to call you back.”
“Oh honey, I don’t think you’d want that,” Shelby came back. “Be careful or these bees will sting. Now look, I need a quote from you or your boss. I am running this story either way. If you want to save face before having to explain things to the Senator at your wedding, you’ll give me something good. So, either talk to me now or else I’ll just say you refused comment about a story that will affect all Californians. Your constituents deserve to know how you’re in the pockets of the insurance industry. So, do you have a statement or what?”
With each word out of Shelby’s mouth, the grip on Tracey’s phone tightened. What a fucking day. She should be signed off by now, listening to Taylor Swift, having a glass of wine while she fussed herself for dinner with her friends. Instead, she had to deal with this asshole. And how dare he threaten her with being unresponsive when he knew he was forcing her hand?
“Listen Shelby,” she said. “I don’t care what the constituents deserve to know.”
She actually heard Shelby laugh and she knew that she said the wrong thing. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh, I got it down as a quo--,” Shelby said but then garbled words, then the telltale three beeps indicating the call was dropped.
Tracey almost threw her phone. Sometimes she regretted signing up for cell service that was $10 cheaper in charges, but sixty percent less reliability. She looked at the bars. None. In fact, the words “No Service” appeared next to the little signal icon. Ok, maybe she could call back through her computer or at least email a statement to Shelby. On the computer, the VPN indicated a lost connection. She went to the Wi-Fi. No signal. No blinking light. She looked around the living room. No power at all.
Fuck.
Could she get in the car and drive to where she had a signal? Better yet, find a Wi-Fi to email Shelby? She still had two hours until she had to meet Janie. She sighed and looked at her living room. She was hoping to just keep her email open and watch the latest romcom on Netflix. Instead, she was fishing for Wi-Fi.
As Tracey started driving, she turned on the radio.
“Our breaking story,” said the radio host. “One of the main transformers feeding much of the pocket neighborhood has been vandalized, causing a massive interruption of power throughout Sacramento. Utility officials are saying it could take hours for the problem to be fixed and advise that people be safe and reach out to their help line if you need emergency assistance.”
I need emergency assistance, Tracey said to herself, and thought through alternatives. She looked around. With dark traffic lights, businesses either running on emergency power or no power at all, were shuttering up for the night. So, Starbucks was likely out.
Tracey drew a deep breath to calm herself. She allowed herself a fleeting thought of her and Paul in Hawaii, her wearing a long flowy island dress, he wearing nothing. Edit that. She also wanted to be wearing nothing but him with the tradewinds blowing into their condo from their sliding glass door.
A honk disrupted her honeymoon daydream and she was back in sweatpants and a long sleeve t-shirt. She was going to hurry to her office, craft a hurried statement, send it to Shelby, and hope he prints that over her cut off comment, then race back to meet her girlfriends at the house for their own night out. Then, she could think about her weekend with family and friends celebrating these most unexpected and wonderful nuptuals and her lanai fantasy
She grabbed her phone and brought it to her face to check the bars on her phone. Still nothing. But that check didn’t stop the blue lights flashing in her rearview mirror.
Seriously?
She was more upset because Senator Grant authored a bill seven years ago increasing the fines for distracted driving, including use of cell phone while in the car. Was it irony? According to Alanis Morisette, it was.
“Do you know why I pulled you over?”
“Cell phone?” Tracey said. “What if it was to check for service? I don’t have any, see? I was hoping to get to the Capitol so I can send an email. I wasn’t driving distracted. I promise you.”
The officer took her phone, gave it a momentary glance, then gave it back.
“License and registration?”
Tracey felt an urge to lash out but knew that was the wrong thing to do in this situation. The last thing she wanted was to be labeled some Karen who resisted arrest and had to spend her wedding day in jail awaiting arraignment. Even Paul had limits to his patience. When she provided the requested documentation, she made one final plea. She knew once he put pen to paper on the citation form, it was over.
“I’m sorry. I needed to get this email to that columnist Alex Shelby before I could take the time off to celebrate this new chapter.”
She gave her best smile, bordering on flirtatiousness. Unfortunately, it didn’t work as well in her 40s as it did in her 20s, but the officer considered it, before writing the ticket. She was on the brink of tears but managed a sarcastic smile before driving off toward the Capitol.
As she reached the office, Senator Grant was sitting at his desk on the phone.
“Alex, if customers have the choice between coverage and price, they’ll choose coverage. It’s unfortunate but insurers have to match price to risk. If we ask them to keep lowering the price, then they’re going to start lowering their risk, which means cancelled policies and that’s something no one wants. Now, if there’s nothing else, I need to get going. Thanks for the call Alex.”
When the Senator hung up, Tracey was stunned.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“What am I doing here? Since we’re coming to town for your wedding, we thought we’d stay in Sacramento a couple of days. But more importantly, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be getting ready for the wedding?”
“Yeah, but I needed to answer Shelby’s questions. I’m afraid I said something out of context on constituents.”
“I heard that. Probably not the right thing to do, but since he talked to me, he’s not going to print that err in judgment.”
A wave of relief came across Tracey. She tossed her head back and sighed. She felt exhausted and she wondered how good of a bachelorette she was going to be for her friends tonight.
“You’re going out like that?” Senator Grant asked. “Boy, bachelorette outings have really gone down.”
“No, but,” it was too hard to explain everything. “But I should get back.”
A series of buzzes hit her pocket where she had her phone. All text messages. Some from her friends and more from Paul. She dialed him up.
“Hey beautiful,” he said. He was such a charmer, and she melted every time.
“Hey,” she said.
“So, I saw that power went out at the house and when I called you, it went straight to voicemail. Are you ok?”
“I’m fine.”
“Great. The app says that the power is back on, so have a great time with Janie. And look at that. You’re officially on vacation. I love you.”
Tracey was giddy. “I love you too.”
She turned to Senator Grant.
“I gotta get out of here. I’m on vacation and I’m getting married.”
Side of Mustard
Readers Favorite
Look at this! I was awarded Honorable Mention in the Reader’s Favorite novel contest in the “Fiction - Sports” category.
When Lose Yourself was released earlier this year, I looked at various contests to enter. For one, I wanted to see how it stacked up with other releases in 2025. For another, the contest offered a critique as part of the process. Double Score.
I understand these contests have second- or third-tier credibility, but with a book that I’m proud of as much as Lose Yourself, I wanted to send around as much as possible.
Thanks to you all for your support. Please share the book with your friends. And also feel free to post a review on Amazon or platforms.
Alex Shelby
Now you’ve been introduced to Alex Shelby. Get used to this character. He’s going to be around for a while. I’m intrigued by this unlikeable narrator and his spirit. He’s cranky, self-righteous, and entitled, which provides great opportunity for growth, or it can be a reason to close the book never to open again. Part of me feels this is a big gamble. But he’s such a rich character and I want to explore his character.
Beginning in January, you’ll get to know him with a 12-part serial called Sacramento Noir, a noir crime fiction set twenty years ago. This novella was a character study for me, understanding his history, and what he’s like close to the start of his journalism career.
In 2027 or 2028, you’ll get a full novel told from the view of Alex Shelby himself. Less crime fiction and more redemption story (think A Man Called Ove), this novel, tentatively titled Landslide, will explore how gratitude can change a person’s life.
I’m excited with these projects. Stay tuned for more.