I did not ask the other question. Not that day, and not in the two years that followed.

Chapter 7 — The Fake Emergency

The next day, in the middle of a major pitch to a tech client, my phone rang and rang — Shirley. I stepped into the hall.

“Stella, get home this instant!” she screamed. “Walter had a seizure and collapsed on the rug! You have to drive him to the ER — I’m too frail to lift him!”

Her panic was loud, but underneath it I heard the theatrical cadence of a staged crisis meant to pull me off my job.

“Shirley, I’m in a presentation, so I’m sending an ambulance to the apartment right now,” I said calmly. “They have stretchers and oxygen. Unlock the door and wait for the sirens.”

I hung up and dialed emergency services, relaying the exact symptoms she’d described to guarantee a lights-and-sirens response. Twenty minutes later she called back in a mortified whisper.