This episode is presented by W. Hotels, from Shanghai to New York.

I love hotels that feel like a living, breathing part of a city and makes me feel like I'm experiencing that place in an authentic, holistic way. This is The Writer's Voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Treesman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this special holiday episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear a New Year's story from the archives,

Signal by John Lancaster, which appeared in the April 3rd, 2017 issue of the magazine.

Lancaster, a journalist and novelist, is the author of six books of fiction, including Capital,

The Wall, and Reality and Other Stories, which was published in 2020.

Now here's John Lancaster.

Signal.

I tried to give the children an etiquette lesson

while we were waiting at King's Cross on December 30th.

You aren't allowed to ask for the Wi-Fi password.

Before you say hello, I said. That's the main thing.

Uncle Mike won't care, said Toby, who was nine. He's nice, said Mia, who was seven.

Both of those things are true, I said. Uncle Mike is nice, and he wouldn't care, but this is a life

lesson. It's just not what you do. You say hello, you chat for a bit,

and then you ask for the Wi-Fi password. It's just one of the rules. Fear, that's the other

guy's problem, Toby said. We had recently let him stay up too late to watch

trading places, and this line had made a profound impact. Michael wasn't my oldest friend, and he wasn't

my closest friend, but he was older than any of the ones who were closer and closer than any of the

ones who were older, so he had a special status as part of the ones who were closer and closer than any of the ones who were older.

So he had a special status as part of the furniture of my life, the kind of friend who,

...