They saw my fire escape

Someone stood under my window at 5:47 in the morning and took a photograph. I know the time because they told me. That is the kind of sentence I cannot believe I am thinking on a Wednesday.

I moved the brass key from under the lamp into my sock drawer. Drawer is between the thermal socks and the period underwear I will never wear because they were an impulse buy at three in the morning in March. The key is smaller than either of them. It does not deserve to be hidden among my soft things. I did it anyway. I also did not open the curtains.

The bodega was worse than the email. The email is a thing I can solve or fail to solve. The bodega is a man in a Mets cap telling six strangers that I am not what I look like. Miss Park Avenue. I handed him exact change. I did not smile. I walked home holding the bag in both hands like a woman who has never once been embarrassed in her life, and I ranked him in my head in the place I rank everyone who is rude with my money.

The email is real. They have footage. They want the key under a hostess's pillow, which means a building I have already walked into, a doorman who has already let me pass, a door I have already opened. Friday at nine my mother opens her phone. My mother who thinks I am a personal stylist who left modeling because I was tired of being looked at. Tomorrow I will call her and say something ordinary and laugh at something she says. I will do all of that on a phone that knows my real face and not the one in the email.