the photo is the thing

The lock. Someone changed my lock while I was working all day and left a fresh screw by the mail slot like a signature and I stood in my own doorway for nine seconds before I went in. I counted.

The photo is the thing I keep turning over. Not the threat — the threat is theater, someone performing menace for someone like me who doesn't have a file or a lawyer or even a name to file anything under. The photo is real. Someone stood across from the Park Avenue tower this morning and watched me walk in and decided I was worth a roll of film. I want to know when. Was I holding the coffee? Was I thinking about the client? Was I already being seen before I knew it.

I texted Camille one word because that was all I had. Tribeca. And she typed three things and killed three things and finally sent back something I won't write here because this page is mine. The dots kept appearing and disappearing and I watched them the way I watch a client pretend they aren't price-shopping me. I didn't add more words because if she was thinking, she should think.

The SUV is still down there. I checked the curtain twice and the third time I let it fall because I don't want to be a silhouette in my own window. The key is under my pillow now. It feels stupid. The alternative is the nightstand and I don't trust the nightstand anymore.

My mum got the cleaned version tonight. She will never know what I do in the dark, the photographing, the one-word texts, the way I rank threats against my own calm the same way I rank clients against a girl who is younger and cheaper and has no bruises to file.