Hello Stranger(64)

I put my hand to my mouth. I looked up and saw Hazel One over by the coffee station. She was the first person to spring into action, and she grabbed a broom and a dustpan and came my way.

“I’m so sorry,” I said as she got close. “I didn’t mean to do that.” Then, of course: “I’ll pay for it. I’ll fix it.” I’d figure it out somehow.

“Don’t worry,” Hazel One said kindly. “The hinge is broken. Happens all the time.”

It definitely did not happen all the time.

But I was too mortified to argue.

And then the craziest, trippiest, most unreal thing I’ve ever seen in my life happened right before my eyes. Hazel One leaned her broom against the doorjamb for a second, preparing to start sweeping up the mess, and she pulled out a ponytail holder from her apron pocket, lifted her hands behind her head to twist her hair into it, and when she dropped her hands again … she was Hazel Two.

What I’m saying is this: Hazel One always wore her brown hair down, and Hazel Two always wore her brown hair in a ponytail—and that’s how I could tell them apart. And in that one impossible moment, I watched Hazel One become Hazel Two right before my eyes.

Like a horror movie.

I gasped out loud at the sight.

“Wait…” I said, taking a step back. “What just happened?”

“When?” Hazel Two asked, starting to sweep.

“Are you Hazel One or Hazel Two?”

Now she looked up. I could feel the confusion in her expression. “Huh?”

“Of the two Hazels who work here,” I said, with a feeling like this question was already doomed, “which one are you?”

A pause. Then she shook her head. “I’m the only Hazel who works here.”

“Always?” I asked. “Has there ever been another Hazel working here?”

“Nope,” Hazel said, getting back to sweeping. “Just me.”

Oh, my god. There was only one Hazel who worked here. The girl with the bob and the girl with the ponytail were the same person.





Twenty


I KNEW, OF course, that I couldn’t trust my perceptions.

I knew that my brain was having a rough month.

But it was so strange to witness it correcting itself.

I really wasn’t okay. Not yet.

The only Hazel was gesturing at me to move out of the way now so she could sweep. I started to tiptoe my way over the broken glass in my dumb strappy sandals … when an arm clamped around my waist to help guide me.

Joe.

I knew it before I knew it. I felt him in an instant.

Then one side glance brought confirmation: Yep. The bowling jacket.

“Let’s sit you down,” Joe said, starting to walk me toward a bench.

But when we got back to the safe shore of the glass-shard-free sidewalk, I sidled out of his grasp.

Joe. Pajamas. Parker. Nope.

He did not need to rescue me. Not today. Not after whatever he’d been up to with the defining bully of my lifetime. I could rescue myself, thanks very much.

Mostly, I was angry at Parker. I was angry at the man who’d shot me the bird. I was angry at the imaging tech who hadn’t found any reduction of the edema. I was angry at my blister and my understocked grocery store and my dead phone battery. And at myself for my own inability to navigate my life—and the way I’d just brutalized that innocent glass door.

But right then, all that anger just crystallized at Joe.

How dare he cavort with my evil stepsister like that and then show up acting like a good person?

It wasn’t just poor choices. It was a deep betrayal. And the fact that he didn’t know that?

That just made it worse.

An image of Joe stepping out of Parker’s door in his pajamas lit up in my head like a neon sign. Who did he think he was?

“I’ve got it,” I said, my voice distant.

Joe hesitated. “Can I—”

“No, thanks.”

“Are you—” he tried again.

“I’m good.”

There was no bouncing back here. There was no redeeming this moment. Or this day.

I started walking toward our lobby doors. No way was I taking the shortcut through Bean Street. I might never get coffee there again.

As the rage receded in my consciousness, delayed humiliation took its place. I walked faster, trying to escape as soon as possible.

But that’s when Joe called after me. “Are you okay?”

I just kept walking.

Joe called after me again. “Are you mad at me?”

No response there, either.

One final question from Joe. “Do we still need to finish the portrait?”

That one, I needed to answer. I stopped and turned. “The portrait,” I called back, looking near him but not at him, “is canceled.”



* * *



CANCELED.

The word ricocheted around in my head as I rode the elevator, climbed the rooftop stairs, served a plate of croissant morsels to Peanut, and then draped myself over my bed.

Canceled.

That felt surprisingly good.

I didn’t have to do any of this.

The idea misted me with relief. I didn’t have to just endlessly suffer and suffer and suffer.

I could just … quit.