On Friday I think I may get a respite from this twenty-first century Tell-Tale Heart sideshow, because Reid finally, finally e-mails me back, his message time-stamped at 5:01 p.m., because of course it is. It’s brief, efficient (more shock and awe, obviously), barely more than a recitation of my own offer to meet again. I’ll find you at the Promenade, he’d written. Sunday, four o’clock. I stare at that e-mail for a long time. Maybe he’s hidden a code, I think, though there aren’t enough f’s for “fuck off,” which, you know. Would be fair enough, I guess.

But I hear it again now, a tiny echo of it.

Because it’s Sunday, one week since he showed me that program. Because it’s three p.m., and if I’m going to make it to the Promenade by four, I need to leave the shop soon and catch the R train (“lol, boring”) to Court Street. Because in one hour (you know he’ll be right on time!), I need to make a pitch to a man who has very real reasons to dislike me. Because if he takes me up on this, I might be seeing him semiregularly for the foreseeable future.

“You seem antsy,” says Lachelle, which I appreciate, because at least it stops the phantom swooshing in my brain. Across from me, she pulls her nib away from her sharpening stone and picks up the small magnifying glass she’s wearing around her neck to check the sloping edge. She makes a noise of frustration and drops the glass again, adding a few more drops of water to the stone.

“Oh, not at all,” I say casually, my voice customer service cheerful in spite of the fact that we’re in the rear of the shop. Lachelle’s in to try out a new brand of walnut ink Cecelia’s ordered, some museum benefit job they’re collaborating on. I’m in to pretend I need to test out Cecelia’s metallic pen inventory, but really I’m here because Sibby and Elijah are at our place watching a show about people making terrible baking errors, and my nerves are too jangled to act normal around them or around the baking errors. And since I couldn’t really decide what would be worse—Sibby noticing my nerves and asking me about it, Sibby noticing and not asking me about it, or Sibby not noticing at all—I figured visiting the shop made sense.

A return to the scene of the swoosh, if you will.

“What I mean is,” Lachelle clarifies, “your leg shaking is making this table move.”

I feel my face flush as I still my unruly right leg. “Oh! I’m so sorry.”

Lachelle looks up at me and smiles. “Do you have a date or something?”