“Here. The boxes are over here.” I point him to the living room where I’ve boxed up a bunch of the old equipment I used to use in my graphic design job. I was employed by a big tech company for a while, that’s actually where Fred and I met. The job was a little bit over my head when I started and I ended up buying a bunch of different tablets and mouses and touchscreens and all sorts of digital-age detritus that I thought would give me a leg up. Now that I work from home and I’ve figured out the best setup for myself, it’s all just gathering dust. Fred volunteers at this afterschool program that teaches kids how to code, and I offered to donate the equipment. He said he’d come by today to see what they could and couldn’t use.

He kneels down and starts pawing through the equipment. “This is great, Eliot. We probably wouldn’t use this or this. But everything else is awesome.”

“If we carry it down to my car, I can drive it over right now.”

“Great!”

We’re schlepping the boxes down the stairs, but my mind is still on JD. Apparently so is Fred’s.

“So, is it that she doesn’t want to tell you who she is, or she just doesn’t want to meet up with you?”

“Um. I’m not sure. Maybe both? But she’s definitely set on not telling me who she is.”

“Huh.”

“Any guesses why? It’s kind of stumping me.”

“Any guesses as to why a woman might not want to give out information involving her identity to a random dude she maybe kinda vaguely knows and has only had a few phone conversations with?”

“Yeah. You’re totally right. To her, I could just be some strange perv.”

“I mean, if she’s met you then she probably knows you’re not a total perv. You’re a good person and that’s pretty clear from the get-go. But even so, she might be . . . waiting? To get a better read on you? Or she might never want to tell you. Maybe anonymity is important to her for any number of reasons.”

“Like what?” I ask as I lean to one side, attempting to open the front double doors of the building with one foot. They’re sticky and not cooperating, so I lean my weight on one of the doors and kick my foot up higher on the other, heaving them open.

Fred, who like I said, is a genius in some ways, is not exactly a genius in others, and for reasons known only to him, instead of stepping over my extended leg, attempts to duck under it.