Sarah, the billing coordinator, sat across from me at the laminate table, peeling an orange with her thumbnail.
“You look like you are waiting for bad news, Daniella,” she said, tossing a curl of orange peel into the trash.
I took a slow bite of my sandwich and chewed it without really tasting it.
“Julian lost his phone yesterday,” I said, keeping my voice as even as I could.
Sarah paused, her fingers sticky with juice.
“Just lost it, or lost it in a way that does not make sense?” she asked.
“He thinks he dropped it in the parking lot at work,” I said, twisting my silver wedding band around my knuckle until the skin turned red. “But the carrier logs show he did not use any data for three hours before that.”
Sarah leaned back in her plastic chair, her expression shifting into something sympathetic and tired. She had been through a bitter divorce two years ago, and she carried the scars of it like a badge of survival.
“My ex-husband used to leave his phone in his glovebox on Thursday afternoons,” Sarah said.
“Why the glovebox?” I asked, my voice rising slightly before I caught myself.
“Because he told me he was playing racquetball, but he was actually checking into the motel near the highway,” she said, her voice flat and matter-of-fact.
She wiped her hands on a paper towel, the rustle of the paper loud in the small room.
“He had a separate account at the credit union downtown that I only found because of a misdirected tax form,” she added.
“Julian does not have another account,” I said, though the words felt hollow in my mouth as I said them.
“They always have something,” Sarah said, picking up her orange slices. “Check the joint statements first, just to be sure there are no odd transactions.”
The lunch buzzer rang, its high-pitched tone signaling the end of our thirty minutes.
