Without knowing what he was doing, Jeffrey found himself running after her. Call it stupidity or desperation or a cop’s training. If someone was running away from you, then you chased after them.

Sara sprinted around a steep curve that followed the lakeshore. Jeffrey picked up his feet, pumped his arms. She had a head start, but he was a stronger runner. He saw her cut through Mrs. Beaman’s front yard. He sidestepped into the Porters’ driveway, then through their backyard. By the time they both reached the lake, he’d cut about twenty yards off her head start.

Sara wasn’t good on the grass. She looked back over her shoulder. Jeffrey gained another five yards. He gulped a mouthful of air and pushed his legs until they were screaming. Another five yards gained, but Sara had reached the back of her property. Her foot slipped as she sprinted up the steep slope toward the house, the same steep slope that her Honda had rolled down.

Jeffrey narrowed the gap even more, jumping over the retaining wall, cutting across the lawn. He was close enough to smell the sweat on her as she darted up the stairs. He hurdled the steps, his foot catching on the top tread. He righted himself, but he couldn’t stop his momentum. He watched the door slam, and then, Wile E. Coyote-like, Jeffrey slammed face-first into the door.

“Fuck!” His hands went to his nose. Blood poured between his fingers. “Fuck!”

He leaned over. Blood dripped onto the deck. He saw stars. His nose had to be broken. He could feel it beating like a second heart.

“Sara?” He banged on the door. “Sar—”

Jeffrey heard an engine start. The Z4. He was familiar with the low grumble. He heard it every fucking time he was in his office and Sara started the $80,000 sportscar across the street.

He shook the blood off his hands. He found his handkerchief in his back pocket. It took every bit of Jeffrey’s self-control not to run around to the side of the house and watch her drive away.

Atlanta

19

Gina Vogel forced her shoulders to slide away from her ears as she pushed her shopping cart up and down the aisles of the local Target. Her period had forced her out into the world. She’d scrounged up two tampons in her purse and one in her gym bag before running out of options. Her overly familiar relationship with her InstaCart delivery boy precluded home delivery. Amazon two-day shipping was two days too late, and she wasn’t so far gone that she was willing to spend $49.65 to overnight a box of tampons that she could get for eight bucks at the store.

Besides, a woman couldn’t just buy tampons. She needed chocolate, Advil, more chocolate and a bag of miniature-sized candy bars because treats did not have calories if you could fit the entire serving into your mouth.

Despite these inducements, Shawshanking her way out of the house had been embarrassingly difficult. Gina had procrastinated for as long as she could, making do with so much wadded-up toilet paper that her bathroom looked like Jeffrey Dahmer’s kitchen. Even then, Gina had found excuses. She had vacuumed the house top to bottom. Cleaned the baseboards. Dusted the ceiling fans, light fixtures, and the parts of the blinds she could reach with the slats closed. She’d even worked through the night to finish her report for Beijing.

Honestly, Gina hadn’t been this manic since she’d tried coke those three hundred times in college.

Forcing herself to get dressed had been the hard part. Gina had always been of the mind that once you put on the proper attire—gym togs, business suits, edible panties—you were pretty much locked into the task appropriate to the outfit. Pulling on a pair of sweatpants had not been the hard part. Sweatpants were, in fact, an integral part of her day-pajama Garanimal sets. Walking out the door, exposing herself to not only the nosey neighbor across the street but to the public at large, had felt like an unbearably risky proposition.

Gina was being watched. She knew this for a fact. But she was not sure enough about this fact to tell her sister. Or the police.

Just the thought of the 911 call made her cheeks catch fire.

Yes, could you please help me leave my house I promise I’m not crazy but you see I stole this scrunchie from my mopey, annoying niece—yes, that’s the one—and now someone stole it from me and I feel eyes on me wherever I go and … yes … I’ll hold … Hello? Hello? Is there anybody out there?

Gina had started to compare her paranoia to one of those weird pantyhose masks that bank robbers wore in movies. Or maybe in real life. Whatever. The point was, she felt the weight of her trepidation like an actual thing that was smooshing down her features.

She had been so anxious about leaving the house that she had made two false starts, both times getting as far as the car, once even starting the engine, before running back inside like the stupid girl in a horror movie who you knew was going to trip and fall and get chainsawed in two.

Gina had pledged a sorority. It was totally on-brand.

Finally, a phone call from her sister had propelled her out into the world.

Nancy was furious at her daughter. Gina relished these rare opportunities for cattiness, because it was the only time her sister ever admitted that the girl was an ungodly sulk. This time, there had been a pregnancy scare because who would’ve ever guessed that sometimes condoms did not work? Why wasn’t there an article? Or a Discovery Investigates?

Gina had gasped all the right oh dears and how could shes and oh no she didn’ts to pull out every juicy, dramatic tidbit, but after an hour, Nancy had eventually gotten around to asking Gina what she was up to.

“I was actually on my way to the Target,” Gina had said, and vocalizing her intentions had been the final push that sent her not just out the door, not just behind the wheel of her car, but driving down the street like an adult person who knows how to drive down streets.

Thankfully, her local Target was sparsely populated in the early morning hours. There seemed to be more clerks than shoppers. Gina groaned as the grocery cart twisted out of her grip. She had done that stupid thing where she’d pulled out a cart, then gotten ten feet away before she’d realized that one of the wheels was wonky, but instead of simply walking ten feet back, she had trudged on like that member of the Donner Party who kept insisting there was a Jack-in-the-Box just over the next hill.

Gina checked the items in the cart against her mental list: toilet paper, paper towels, ice cream, chocolate syrup, a bag of miniature chocolate bars, big chocolate bars, two Twix so they didn’t get lonely, and Advil with the arthritis cap even though she was too young to need it but also too fucking old to see how to line up the arrows without a magnifying glass and why did they make them so hard to pop off in the first place?

“Duh,” she mumbled.

Tampons.

Of course the feminine products were clear on the other side of the store, tucked into the back corner alongside baby diapers and incontinence panties and all those other gross vagina products that need not ever trouble a man’s gaze.

Housewares. Bed Linens. Towels. Sporting goods.

Target didn’t sell guns. Neither did Walmart or Dick’s. Shockingly, it was illegal to buy a gun online and have said gun shipped to your house. The closest gun boutique, or whatever it was called, that Gina could find online was located outside the perimeter. She might very well be paranoid and possibly in the throes of a psychotic break, but she was not going to drive outside the perimeter. Besides, this was America. Where was the fucking NRA? She should be able to buy an AK-47 from a vending machine outside any Subway.

Feminine Products.

Gina bypassed the giant boxes of pads. She slowed the cart to peruse the more discreet feminine offerings. Tampax had a line called Radiant that instantly brought to mind a spotlight shining out from her cooch. Pearl made her think of oysters, which reminded her of a cartoon an ex-boyfriend had once shown her. A blind man was walking by a display outside a fish market and said, “Good morning, ladies.”

Ha.

Ha.

Ex-boyfriend.

Her eyes skipped around the various products, all colored in pink or blue, just like the baby crap. Cardboard applicator. Plastic applicator. No applicator. Heavy flow. Medium flow. Light flow—who were those bitches? Click Compact reminded her of a gynecologist’s speculum. Sport Fresh: because you love sweating on your period. Smooth: like the bottom of that baby that you are not going to have in nine months. Security: a padlock for your pussy. Gentle Glide: worst pickup line ever. Organic: why go outside to compost? Anti-Slip, Rubbery Grip: the hot new jam from Salt-n-Peppa.