Halfway to You(12)

“That can’t be right,” Maggie whispers to herself.

She cancels the upload and tries again, but again, the file seems too huge. She doesn’t have time to troubleshoot. She needs to leave for Ann’s soon.

Maggie unplugs the recorder and tries the playback option instead.

Raw audio clip #3

MAGGIE: Test, test, test. Okay.

Raw audio clip #4

MAGGIE: Can you introduce yourself?

ANN FAWKES: My name is Ann Fawkes. I’m—

Maggie skips toward the end. She expects to hear their terrible argument before Maggie shut off the recorder, but instead she gets a few seconds of rustling and—dinging? It sounds like her car when the door is open and the keys are in the ignition.

Perplexed, she rewinds farther.

Voices—many voices. And Mexican music. Dishes clanking. It sounds like a pocket dial. She realizes it is a pocket dial—a purse recording. She hears herself ordering dinner, paying, exiting the restaurant, the dinging of her door, then silence.

With the power button left on, the record button must’ve been bumped. That explains the massive file. How much space did she waste recording the inside of her purse?

Horror claims her breath. When did it turn on?

Maggie rewinds again, skipping through swaths of rustling and a humiliating stint of her poorly but enthusiastically singing along to the radio in her car. She stops when she hears Ann’s voice, not as crisp as the initial interview, but muffled.

“Oh, fuck.”

ANN: My heart pattered anew. God, I was a hopeless romantic of the truest form.

Maggie skips back.

ANN: I was on my eighth day in Venice when my life changed forever.

“No,” Maggie whispers. “No, no, no.”

Ann trusted Maggie with her story, and here Maggie is, listening to the playback of their confidential conversation. From her purse, the recorder picked up everything. The audio isn’t good—muffled, staticky, far away—but it exists.

Maggie drops the recorder as if it were burning. It clatters on the desk, and the red light starts blinking. Sheesh. With quivering fingers, she moves the power switch off.

It’s a crime to record in-person conversations without the consent of all parties, at least in Oregon. She’s not sure about Washington’s laws. Is it illegal if it’s an accidental pocket dial? Regardless of the legality, she should delete it. Obviously. Except: What if Ann eventually agrees to record her story? Can the audio retroactively be consented to?

She listens to a few clips, savoring. The thought of losing this material makes her choke.

Guilt and temptation slither up Maggie’s arms and down her back. Either option presents its own form of discomfort: one moral and one of missed opportunity.

Maggie’s phone chimes. Grant: You promised updates.

She checks the time: nine thirty. It’s too early for you to nag me. I’m going to start charging you a quarter for every unnecessary text.

The SASS this morning, he responds, adding a smiley face.

She sends a shrug emoji.

Shelving her awful conundrum for the time being, Maggie triple-checks the off switch on the recorder, then slides it into an outer compartment of her purse. She arrives at Ann’s house ten minutes early, still fretting. As she texts Grant that she’s arrived, her fingers are sweaty and slippery on the iPhone screen, leaving smudges.

Alone in the quiet of her car, Maggie grips the steering wheel, forcing herself to take three deep breaths. She’s overly hot in her sweater, the edges of it irritating the skin at her neck and wrists. She glances into the rearview mirror, checking her makeup, smoothing her hair.

Maggie never looked too out of place with the Whitakers. In a family of Irish coloring, Maggie has the freckles and coffee-colored hair to fit in. But her bright, blue-green eyes, full mouth, and defined bone structure are all her own. Unrelated. They’re features of another family, a map to her identity that she can’t decode.

Staring into her own eyes in the mirror, she finds her anxious face unrecognizable.

That startles her.

Or maybe she’s startled by the sudden tapping on her window.

Through the glass, the morning glare obscures the person’s features. She grabs her purse, opens the car door, and steps out. The man’s face is pulled into a scowl.

“Can I help you?” she asks, perplexed.

He’s about her age, slight, and good looking—from the chisel of his cheekbones to his gently hooded brown eyes. His unzipped jacket reveals a T-shirt with a logo she doesn’t recognize—maybe a local restaurant?

He gestures to Ann’s house. “She doesn’t take visitors, so don’t even try.”

“She invited me.”

“Yeah, right. How would you feel if fanatics camped out in your driveway?”

“I’m not lying. I have an appointment.” She moves toward Ann’s footpath, but he blocks her way. “Seriously?” she asks, trying to step past him.

He matches her steps, left, right, left, right. “Seriously.”

Maggie’s irritation grows. “Who are you?”

“What’s going on out here?” Ann stands on her porch, dressed in all black save for a knee-length, open-front scarlet wool sweater.

The man’s dark eyebrows pinch together. “I was just asking her to leave.”

“She’s with the podcast I told you about.” A doting smile. “You didn’t think I’d be eating all those pastries alone, did you, Matt?”