“Ugh. Is it from ink•scribe again?” Another overly stylized name for a company that’s always sending me free stuff care of the shop, except this free stuff is garbage. Pens that last a literal day and a half, and I think they’ve sent me fifty since the Times article. “I guess hang on to it, if so.” I’ll pick it up tomorrow and donate it to the day care two blocks from me.

There’s rustling on the other end of the phone. Cecelia mumbles something about needing her glasses, which I know without seeing her are tucked into the neck of her shirt. “Oh, here they are,” she says, a half second later. “No, this one—Sutherland, it says. Who’s that?”

My face heats. “Oh, uh—”

“Your date maybe, hmmm?”

I immediately change direction, heading toward the Smith Street station so I can get over to the shop.

“No, jeez. I wouldn’t have a date send something there. He’s a—” I break off. Can’t risk it. Out of context, his name isn’t that memorable. But if I say former client maybe it’ll ring a bell for her. “He’s a small business consultant.”

How annoying, that this is what I’ve said. All his man-terrogating got in my head. That package probably has a bunch of information about health insurance that I already know. What a jerk.

“Oh, what a good idea,” Cecelia says.

I tell her I’ll be there soon and for the rest of the trip over, I’m doing that thing I indulge myself in sometimes, where I compose a lengthy, highly organized but incredibly witty lecture of censure to someone who has done me wrong. Except in this version, I’m seeing it all written out. I’d make it chaotic, haphazard, all different fonts blended together. Something that would really annoy Reid. Bubble letters, definitely; that’d probably make his face melt off. I set up the LLC months ago, I’d write. And I have a health savings account. I even looked into one of those asset insurance policies for my hands. I’d leave out the part where those policies are expensive enough to have made me laugh out loud.

By the time I’m close, my mind has wandered, and all I can do is wonder what that Sutherland looks like on the package. Did he address it himself? Seeing his handwriting—the possibility feels at turns exciting and unnerving. Intimate. It’s rare to see people’s handwriting these days. Surprising as it may sound, no one ever really sees mine, since what I draw isn’t really similar to my natural writing. Even my own planner, it’s stylized—my headers for task lists in a wide, all-lowercase script, no slant, the tasks themselves blocked with a slim, all-caps roman. It looks good in photos.