(give the episode a moment to load once you hit play)
Or if you prefer to read...
Glenn stared blankly at the shelves in the back aisle of the drug store. His mind was racing and then immediately stalling. It had taken him close to 45 minutes to get one tube of toothpaste into his little red basket. And never mind the accompanying toothbrushes. Regardless, he'd managed to fill the basket: Three packs of white undershirts and undershorts, black socks, disposable razors, and every travel-sized toiletry the store had. He hadn't come there to buy any of it, yet here he was, unconsciously ticking off the shopping list of a man preparing to make an escape. He'd made this basket before when he was 19, just after seeing Ava for what he'd thought would be the last time.
He grabbed a package of white briefs and was about to put them into his basket when his phone vibrated. It was a text from Ava. Just an address and a sentence: "Need to talk in one hour."
To his surprise, he laughed at the sight of the message.
He texted her back: "I've got an empty apartment, an intoxicated wife, two suitcases, and the clothes on my back." After hitting send, he added: "Can't wait to share all the details."
He put his phone in his pocket and noticed that he suddenly felt lighter than he had in days. Then he glanced down at the package of spackle and the putty knife he'd also placed in the red basket. The sight of them made the lightness quickly dissipate.
***
Ava sat down at one of the booths in the bar. She'd only been here once before and had avoided returning ever since.
She had remembered it as a dive bar frequented by college kids because it still had a collection of decades-old rotary phones at each booth. The phones had enabled one table to anonymously flirt with another by picking up the handset and dialing. The phones were still there and Ava imagined that a few of them likely still worked. However, none of the current bar patrons, mostly well-heeled professionals, seemed to notice them as they gazed into the glassy depths of their smartphones.
But then the rotary phone at Ava's booth rang. Without thinking, she picked it up.
"You look like you could use a beer," a man's voice said.
She glanced around the bar and spotted the only person speaking into a phone. It was a man seated in the booth immediately next to hers. He was relatively handsome, wearing a suit, a tie, and a very wide grin.
"I could use a hundred beers, actually," she replied.
The man chuckled and said, "Don't think I have that much on me, but I can get the first couple."
"Thanks, but --" she realized she didn't need to talk into the phone and hung up, "I'm meeting someone," she said to him.
He hung up his own phone and said, "No reason we can't chat over a beer until then. Or maybe a chardonnay?"
"Whatever," Ava replied with a sigh, "I'm too tired to argue."
The man called quickly over to the bartender for a chardonnay then asked her, "What's got you so tired?"
"If you must know," Ava said, "I just got out of jail."
The man slid into Ava's booth as her chardonnay arrived and said, "Really. Guess I'm buying a drink for the right lady, then."
They clinked their glasses, but the weight difference of his heavy pint and her comparatively light glass caused the foam of his beer to tip onto the table, soaking a folded piece of paper resting in front of Ava.
The man immediately hopped up to wipe the paper, but Ava just as quickly yanked it away from him.
"I'm so sorry," he said.
"Don't be," Ava replied as she unfolded the paper and began fanning it out to dry, "It was an accident."
The man gestured at the paper as Ava continued to fan it, then said, "Did you just have your family tree done?"
"You know what," Ava replied curtly, "Let's talk about you. I'm so rude, I didn't even ask you your name."
"Brad," the man replied.
"And what do you do for money, Brad?" Ava said, and glanced down at the family tree. Despite her best efforts to dry it, the ink had already started to run.
"I work in insurance," he replied.
"Sounds boring," Ava said.
"You'd be surprised," Brad said with another wide grin.
***
Glen returned to their apartment a few minutes later to find Maryanne was still passed out on the pile of comforters and moving blankets she'd stacked to create some semblance of a bed. With the exception of Glen's two suitcases and the carryon luggage from their vacation, they were still the only items in the apartment.
He checked his watch and saw that he had only 30 minutes left until he'd need to meet Ava. He reached his hand into the drugstore bag and removed the spackle and putty knife. He set the rest of the escape-kit items in the bag quietly next to Maryanne so he wouldn't wake her.
He turned to survey the damage he'd have to repair, a collection of holes in the ceiling and walls that ran throughout their apartment. He'd made them before heading out to the drug store, once he'd been sure Maryanne was sufficiently passed out.
He dipped the putty knife into the spackle and began to fill the first hole he'd made. The hole was from the first camera he'd found during his sweep of the apartment, and as best as he could tell, it was the only one that had been active. The other cameras, like the first, were all identical to what he'd thought was his own unique design. Each had been placed and perfectly obscured with care, but never turned on. Their only purpose, it seemed to Glen as he filled in the holes, was to show him just how great of a fool he was. He checked his watch again and moved quickly to fill the next hole.
***
When he arrived at the bar, Glen sat down in the booth across from Ava and said, “Ava, I think --”
Ava cut him off and said, “From here on out it's Abagail. Got it?”
“What?” Glen asked.
“Shhhhhh. It's Abagail. Just go with it. I was getting hit on by this guy a second ago and I used it as an alias.”
"Okay Abigail," Glen said, "Is he still here?"
"He went to the bathroom, whatever," she said, "Are you going to order?"
"No," Glen replied, then said, "So I realize this is quite odd to be saying, especially in light of our earlier conversation. But I am now assuming you had nothing to do with my furniture?" He winced, then corrected himself, "Maryanne’s furniture.”
"For the record," Ava replied, "I didn't want to re-enter your life. And I haven't been playing any game, or playing along, or playing anything. I do need to talk to you though, about something that has nothing to do with whatever insurance fraud scheme she's cooked up..."
Ava took a sip of her wine, then said, "But no. It turns out I actually do have her stuff."
She saw Glen's face immediately begin to contort and so quickly continued, "Because Maryanne put me into a position that I couldn't immediately get myself out of."
"You," Glen said, looking down at the table, "You have all of Maryanne's things."
"Let me just say," Ava continued, "First of all, I didn't know it was her stuff."
"The stuff from your shoot?"
"Yes, and that stupid print of the shoes that she thinks is so great. All of it. Look, when I'm doing a job, I don't source any of that stuff myself. It's just an assistant who gets it from somebody else. It's either rented, or they buy it and return it. I never know from where."
"Do you have it all?"
She shrugged and said, "What I have is in a storage space. I'll give you the key, and then we can all be done with each other."
They were silent for a moment, then Ava continued, "That said, I think the things you've been doing, just to get some stupid furniture back, have been really shitty. Beyond shitty.”
"What have I been doing?" Glen asked.
Ava laughed and said, "Fuck you, Glen. That apartment? My old apartment? I mean I appreciate you putting in the effort to trick it out exactly the way it was. I don't think I even have any photos of it from back then. Getting all of those details in there--that's pretty twisted. But then to call the cops while I was there so it looked like I was breaking in? With your stupid cameras installed everywhere so you could record it? That's...that's evil Glen."
"Ava. Abagail. Whatever. Whatever you're talking about...that wasn't me."
"Who else could it have possibly been!" Ava shouted. "You trick me into scouting the very apartment where we...had sex, whatever. And then you text me to meet you here? The bar where we first met?"
"I texted you to come here." Glen said.
"That's what I just said!" Ava replied.
After a moment, Glen asked, "May I see the text?"
"So you can delete it?"
Glen pulled out his phone and showed Ava the text he'd gotten from her phone number. After staring at it for a moment, Ava pulled out her own phone and showed him the text she'd gotten from his phone number.
She'd gotten the same message, just the bar's address and the words "Need to talk in one hour." The two texts, which neither of them had sent, were identical.
***
Maryanne stirred as the vibrations from her phone pulled her out of sleep. It had been sunny when she'd passed out. And now in the disorientation of a dark apartment with spoiled tequila pounding in her brain, she pulled out her phone to find that someone was trying to FaceTime her: It was Tiffany. The boss who had all but fired her earlier in the day now wanted to have a FaceTime chat.
She was about to tap "ignore" on her phone. Until she realized that Tiffany had most likely butt-dialed her. The temptation of possibly seeing Tiffany while she didn't know she was being seen was too great to resist.
Maryanne was wrong though. Tiffany wasn't accidentally calling her. In stark contrast to the dour expression Maryanne recalled seeing when she'd been given her leave of absence, Tiffany was now all shiny white teeth, caught mid-laugh as the phone connected. She was wearing the exact hair and dress combination that the two of them had agreed on weeks ago. Through the tequila haze, Maryanne realized Tiffany was now at the post-keynote benefit party that they'd been screening suitors for only days ago.
"Maryanne!" Tiffany shouted excitedly into the phone over the party noise, "I can't see you!"
"I'm sleeping," Maryanne replied.
"Are you kidding? It's only 9 o'clock. Get over here!"
"The benefit?"
"Yes, I've got an extra ticket!"
"I thought I was on leave of absence."
"Ugh!" Tiffany said, "I'm over that. You should get over it too. And get down here. We're having the best time."
"Who's we?"
"Oh my god, Maryanne. The guy. The guy from the executive dating service!"
Maryanne could see Tiffany's image shake as she walked toward the edges of the party, where it was slightly more quiet and private.
"Maryanne," she said with her expression now serious, "I think he's the one."
"...Like, marriage?"
"What? No. Jesus no. Although he does have a certain dark charm. But he's only 23. Way too young for me. Way to bum me out by the way. But anyway, no, "he’s the one," like I think he's interested in buying the company. So get down here. That's an order! He wants to meet you.
"Me?"
"I know," Tiffany said with dismissive shrug,"But he says he's a big fan of your site."
"My site."
"Yes, your site," Tiffany said, starting to sound annoyed, "Congratulations. So put on a dress, throw your hair up and --"
"I'm sorry Tiffany, but I'm really not up for --"
"You want a raise? I'll get you a raise.
Maryanne said, "I just don't --" but Tiffany cut her off.
"Maryanne, maybe I wasn't clear enough the first time. He. Might. Buy. Us. Which would make me very happy. Which could enable me to make you very happy." Her voice got both quieter and darker, an adjustment familiar to Maryanne, signaling that Tiffany was about to strike, "So get the fuck down here right --"
Tiffany turned suddenly toward someone just off camera and said in a warm tone, "Hey! So sorry for ditching you. But look who I've got!"
Tiffany handed the phone to her date. It was him, the man with the shaved head and thick glasses: The man she'd colluded with to commit insurance fraud. Who'd hidden a camera in her apartment. Who was now on a date with her boss.
"Hi Maryanne," he said with an amused grin.
"Hi," Maryanne said almost inaudibly.
"I don't know if Tiffany's told you, but I'm a huge fan of your work," he continued.
"Thank you," Maryanne replied.
"Can you come out tonight?" He said, "I think we've got some business to discuss."
***
Glen looked up from their phones and finally noticed the unfolded piece of paper that was resting face down next to Ava. It was still wet, enabling him to see splotches of the family tree printed on the other side.
Ava saw Glen looking at it, then decided to flip it over.
"So I should believe," Ava said, "That it was someone else--not you--who left this in the apartment and then had me arrested."
"Most likely," Glen said, "it was the same guy who wanted me to have this."
He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his own pocket and handed it to Ava.
She unfolded it and saw that it was his family tree, ending with their two names and a blank space beneath it.
After a long moment, she looked up from the family tree to Glen and said, "Did you know I had it? Had him, I guess I should say."
"Once I saw that," Glen said, gesturing at the family tree, "Then I did."
"Okay." Ava said.
They were silent for another moment, then Ava continued, "Then who's pinning up these secret notes and sending out secret texts? Who's doing all this shit?"
Glen pointed to the empty space below their two names on the family tree and said, "I think it's him."