She slides her phone across the grainy tabletop, her hand on Bella’s head to shield her from the surface as she leans forward.
“I think you should see this.”
4
Susan
Wednesday
I swivel her phone to look. Facebook.It’s made it to Facebook?
“I don’t think I want to…”
“I think you should. Someone in a local buy-and-sell group doxed you. They’ve shared the screenshot, your phone number, your postal address, and suggested people might like to email your principal.”
My stomach drops. “How could they have got that information?”
“Well, everyone in the Oakpark WhatsApp group can see your phone number, and any of them who know you in real life know who ‘SO’D’ is and which house you live in…” She trails off, biting her lip. “It’s shit, I know. People with too much time on their hands. Look, it’ll be old news by tomorrow.” Even Greta, ever practical Greta, doesn’t sound convinced.
How is this happening?Why do people care so much? If I was inanyother job, this would have blown over by now. But people—some people, anyway—like to get a dig in at teachers when they can. To get up on high horses, to get all “won’t someone think of the children.” A little voice inside my head reminds me that, this time, maybe they have a point.
• • •
When the doorbell chimes again, I check the Ring app. A familiar red uniform fills the screen—a delivery. My heart lifts just the tiniest bit. Packages cheer me up. I know that sounds shallow, but the anticipation of a delivery has got me through many a fraught day in the last four months and I’m waiting for some skincare stuff I ordered last week. By the time I get to the door, the courier has gone, but the package is waiting for me, tucked behind a pot of pink hydrangeas on the porch. A brown box, a familiar logo. My briefly lifted mood dips. Sighing, I carry the box through to the kitchen counter.
“Anything nice?” Greta asks, looking up from her phone, Bella still cradled in her arms.
“Undoubtedly, but sadly not for me.”
She squints at the logo. “Sézane. What’s that? Something for Jon?”
“Nope, worse.” I sit back down at the table. “It’s for my alter ego, the beautiful Savannah Holmes.”
Greta tilts her head. “OK, you have an alter ego now? Have you been on the wine?”
“It’s a long story.”
It’s not a long story, but itwillearn me an eyeroll.
“Go on, I have loads of time. I don’t have to be at hockey camp until this afternoon.”
She’s trying to distract me from the text drama, and I love her for it.
“Here though”—she adds, passing Bella carefully into my arms—“take this one for a sec.” She rummages in her bag and pulls out two lots of pills—one brown bottle, one cheerful orange-and-purple container. She pops a supplement into her mouth, then a tablet. She takes alotof supplements and chastises me regularly for taking none.
“Right, go on?”
“So, you know the other Oakpark, down the N11 toward Loughlinstown?”
Greta rolls her eyes. “You know I wrote to the council about that?”
In the midst of all that’s going on, this makes me smile. Greta is generally calm and largely unruffled by the kind of minor frustrations that get to me—very much a don’t-sweat-the-small-stuff kind of person. So it’s surprising to hear she’d taken the time to write to the council over something like this. Then again, she has a history with the council…a memory that makes me deeply uncomfortable. I push it away.
“Did they reply?” I ask.
“No!”
Iadorethat this surprised her. “It probably isn’t the biggest issue on their agenda.”
