Chapter 3: Forty-Seven Dollars and a List of Names
"Sit down, Marcus."
Her voice didn't rise.
It didn't need to.
Something in the way she said it — flat, practiced, like she'd rehearsed it for exactly this moment — made him stop moving.
He sat.
Sandra didn't look at him again.
She looked at me.
"I'm sorry.
I know this is a terrible first date."
"It's getting more interesting by the minute," I said.
That made her smile, just briefly.
She pulled out the chair across from me and sat down like she'd been invited.
The waitress hovered nearby, uncertain.
Sandra gave her a small nod.
"We're fine.
Thank you."
When the waitress stepped away, Sandra set her phone on the table again.
She scrolled up from the bank notification.
There was a notes app open underneath it.
A list of names.
Seven of them.
Women's names, each with a date beside it.
"I started keeping track eight months ago," she said.
"After the third one called me."
I looked at the list.
"They called you?"
"Two of them found me on social media.
One of them had his last name because he'd told her they were practically engaged." She said it without drama, like she was reading from a report.
"He wasn't.
They'd been on four dates.
She'd paid for all of them."
Marcus leaned forward.
"Sandra, you don't have to do this."
"I really do." She didn't look at him.
"Her name is Joanna, by the way," she said to me.
"The one who thought they were engaged.
She's a retired schoolteacher.
Sixty-one years old.
She paid for a weekend trip to the coast because he told her his card had been flagged for fraud."
The table went quiet.
I turned to Marcus.
He was looking at the tablecloth.
"Was any of it true?" I asked.
"The promotion.
The portfolio.
The car."
He didn't answer immediately.
That was answer enough.
"The car is leased," Sandra said.
"Two payments behind.
The promotion — " She paused.
"Tell her, Marcus.
Or I will."
"I was let go," he said.
Quietly.
"Eight months ago."
"Restructuring," Sandra said, and the word came out like she'd heard it too many times.
"He's been telling women he got promoted the same week he was escorted out of the building."
I sat back in my chair.
The restaurant hummed around us — silverware, low conversation, someone laughing at the bar.
Everything completely normal and completely surreal at the same time.
"Why?" I asked him.
Not angry.
Genuinely asking.
"Why not just be honest?
Why not just split the check like a regular person?"
Marcus looked up.
For a moment I thought he might actually answer honestly.
Then something shifted behind his eyes.
"You don't understand the pressure," he said.
"Women like you — you want a certain kind of man.
You want someone successful.
If I'd told you the truth on the app, you never would have agreed to meet me."
"So you lied."
"I presented the best version of what I'm working toward."
Sandra made a short sound that wasn't quite a laugh.
"He used that exact line on me.
Word for word.
Three years ago."
Marcus's jaw tightened.
"I don't need you here, Sandra."
"No," she agreed.
"But she did."
She closed the notes app and picked up her card from the check folder.
The waitress reappeared and Sandra handed it over without looking at the total again.
When the waitress left, Sandra looked at me directly.
"I'm not trying to make a scene," she said.
"I just — I was sitting two blocks away when I saw his car.
And I thought about Joanna.
And the others.
And I couldn't walk past."
"I'm glad you didn't," I said.
Marcus pushed his water glass to the side.
"This is humiliating."
"Yes," Sandra said simply.
"It is."
He stood up.
This time neither of us stopped him.
He straightened his jacket, looked around the restaurant like he was checking whether anyone had noticed, and then looked back at me with an expression I couldn't quite name.
Not shame, exactly.
Something closer to calculation.
"I'll pay you back," he said to Sandra.
"You've said that before."
May you like
He walked toward the door.
At the last second he turned back, and what he said next made Sandra go very still.
