My heart thumps like a drum as I drive on, eyes glued to the road. She’s right. I am crazy. I’m becoming paranoid. So a car from my neighborhood is heading in the same direction I am. Lots of people have reason to be driving into downtown D.C. this hour. It doesn’t have to mean something.
Sure enough, by the time I get down to H Street, the Audi is nowhere in sight. I need to get a grip, I tell myself as I park the car and walk to my office. I can’t let neighborhood gossips get to me.
“Good morning,” I say and put my laptop down on an empty table. I want to contact Tinder as soon as possible, but I don’t want to be rude to my boss.
“Hey, Allie. Any chance you could edit the Dwayne-and-Kylie shoot today? I told them we’d expedite it.”
“Of course.” I boot up my laptop. Dwayne and Kylie are planning the perfect wedding, and they want engagement pics that Dwayne can send to his family in Trinidad. Normally, engagement shoots are a breeze, but their newborn was being very fussy that day.
Mike grabs his jacket and stops in front of my desk. “I’m heading out for coffee. You want an espresso?”
“Yes, please. Double.” I hand him my Chicago Art Institute travel mug. It turns from pink to blue when filled with hot liquid.
He laughs. “Rough night?”
“Yeah, drama in the suburbs.” I mean my tone to sound light. Mike frowns.
“Everything all right at home?” Mike is a sensitive guy who likes to take the emotional temperature of everyone he meets. Divorced for about three years from his high school girlfriend, he had kids early, and now his twin daughters are already in middle school. I’ve heard him drop comments about his online dating experiences, and I consider mentioning the Tinder issue to see if he has any insight. But I decide against it, not because he wouldn’t listen but because I want him to leave so I can email Tinder.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Believe it or not, we had a murder in our neighborhood this weekend.”
“See, that’s why I will never leave the city. Too dangerous in the burbs.” He raps his knuckles on the table.
After he’s gone, I turn my attention to my computer. I should be editing. Instead, I call Krystle.
“This is no Russian scam, Allie,” she says as soon as I answer. “This shit is real. Personal.”
“I don’t need you to tell me that,” I snap. Still, I am grateful. It confirms my innermost fears. I am not paranoid; I am being targeted.
“Who’s doing this?”
“I feel like it has to be someone from Overton. I mean—Sexy Lexi?”
“Like who?” she asks. “I mean, you don’t think it’s Paul Adamson, do you?”
“Maybe. I think it’s possible.” Paul would be in his mid-forties now.
“Maybe his life hasn’t turned out the way he’d planned. Maybe he blames you for what happened.”
“He’s not like that. He was a kind person.”
“Allie! He slept with a student when he was a teacher. He was a total creep. Why are you defending him?”
“I’m not. But you make it sound like I was a victim.”
“That’s because you were a victim. You were seventeen. He committed a crime.”
“I take responsibility for what happened.”
“That’s not how the law works. Trust me on this one.”
“And now he lives in my neighborhood? I mean, it’s been years, but I like to think that I’d recognize Paul Adamson if I saw him at my neighborhood pool.”
“I’m texting you a link to a page set up specifically to address false accounts,” Krystle says. “Email them.”
My phone pings right away with her text. If Tinder has bothered to create a whole page of FAQs about false accounts, that means they’ve encountered this problem before. Maybe there will be a quick fix, although somehow, I doubt it.
I open the page Krystle sent me and follow Tinder’s instructions. It takes all of three minutes, and then there’s nothing else I can do for the moment.
I should be editing. I should throw myself into work. But all I can think about is Paul and the blue bikini. Worst of all is how queasy I feel, how Krystle made me feel. Is she right? Why does the idea of being a victim repel me?
I’m not like her and Sharon. I don’t blame everyone else for my life’s problems. I type Paul Adamson into the computer.
I know what I’ll find even before I hit Return. It’s not like I haven’t searched for him over the years. I’ve typed his name into the void of the web dozens of times. After all, everyone is on the internet. Everyone, it turns out, but Paul Adamson. At least not the Paul Adamson I knew. The first four pages of any search are gummed up by a Minnesota Vikings player with the same name. Once I found an apple-cheeked priest in the Midwest named Paul Adamson who was charged with molesting altar boys. But I’ve never found my Paul.
I turn my attention to the hundreds of photos of Dwayne and Kylie, trying to find one where their newborn, Jaden, isn’t scowling. I’ll be culling the ones that don’t work and putting together Package C—twenty-five different images on a disc.
Back when I was struggling to make it as an artist in San Francisco, while waiting tables and bartending to make ends meet, I looked down on this kind of photography. I am embarrassed to remember mocking another photographer friend who did weddings.
I wasn’t mature enough to bear witness to other people’s peak happiness. Now I love my work and feel honored that people let me into their private moments.
Mike returns with my coffee and two packets of Splenda, which is how I like it. After about an hour of editing, I’ve managed to cull the lot down to thirty photos and decide to take a break. I open the Eastbrook Facebook page, an idea stirring in the back
