Chapter 4: The Call He Made
I stared at the screen.
Dan read it over my shoulder.
"How does he have her number?" he said.
I was already typing.
*What did he say?*
Three dots.
Then: *Calling you now.*
My phone rang before I could put it down.
"He found me on LinkedIn," Maria said.
No hello.
"He called my work number, got my cell from the voicemail, and called that."
"That's —" I didn't finish the sentence.
"He was very calm," she said.
"That was the part that bothered me.
He wasn't angry.
He was calm."
"What did he want?"
"He wants the photo deleted." A pause.
"He said he'd like to handle this privately.
Those were his exact words.
*Handle this privately.*"
Dan had moved to the kitchen doorway.
He was watching me.
"What did you tell him?" I said.
"I told him I'd think about it." Another pause.
"I'm not going to, obviously.
But I wanted to know what he'd say next."
"What did he say next?"
Maria was quiet for a moment.
"He said he knew who you were."
The kitchen went very still.
"What does that mean?" I said.
"I don't know.
He said it like it was supposed to mean something.
Like I was supposed to react." Her voice was steady but careful.
"He said, 'I know who your friend is.
I'd like her to know I meant no harm.' And then he said your name."
"He said my name."
"Your full name."
I sat down at the kitchen table.
Dan came in from the doorway and stood beside me without being asked.
"He looked you up," Dan said quietly.
"He had eleven minutes," Maria said.
"Maybe less.
He walked away from us, took a phone call, and somewhere in there he found out your name."
I thought about the parking lot.
The cart rolling into the bumper.
The sun on the roof of my car.
I'd been standing there talking to Maria while he was somewhere on the other side of that building doing something with his phone.
"He's trying to scare us," I said.
"Yes," Maria said.
"He is."
"Is it working?"
A beat.
"A little," she said.
"I'm not going to lie to you.
A man with eleven years on the city council just called my personal cell phone and said your full name like a reminder.
Yeah.
It's working a little."
I looked at Dan.
He had his hand flat on the table near mine.
Not touching.
Just near.
"What do you want to do?" I said.
"I want to post the photo," Maria said.
"But I want to do it right.
I don't want it to be just the picture.
I want it to be the whole thing — what he said, what you said, the apologies, the flannel, all of it.
I want people to read it and feel exactly what you felt standing in that aisle."
"And if he comes back harder?"
"Then we have more to say."
I looked at my phone.
The photo was on her phone, not mine — I hadn't even seen the final version.
I'd been the subject of it.
I'd been the one standing there holding my shirt open while a stranger's face was eight inches from mine.
"Write it," I said.
"Write the whole thing.
I'll read it before you post."
"Okay," Maria said.
"And Maria —"
"Yeah."
"Don't soften it."
She didn't answer right away.
When she did, her voice was quieter.
"I wasn't planning to," she said.
We hung up.
Dan made tea without asking if I wanted any and set a mug in front of me.
Nora had fallen asleep against the baby monitor on the counter, her small breathing audible in the kitchen.
I wrapped both hands around the mug.
"He said my name," I said.
"I heard," Dan said.
"He said it like a warning."
Dan sat down across from me.
"Let him warn," he said.
"You didn't do anything wrong in that store.
And he knows it.
That's why he's calling."
I nodded.
I believed him.
I did.
But that night, after Nora was down and Dan was asleep, I lay in the dark and thought about a man in a navy polo standing somewhere in that grocery store parking lot, looking up my name on his phone, deciding to say it out loud.
And I thought: *he's done this before.*
I didn't know why I thought it.
I just did.
My phone lit up on the nightstand.
A text from a number I didn't recognize.
May you like
*This doesn't need to go any further.
Think about your family.*
