Page 57 of The Man I Hate

I couldn’t help but smile. The only part of the entire thing that bothered me was the way she signed the hand-written note. I don’t know how I could have expected her to sign it in any other manner. It troubled me, nevertheless.

As Anna requested, I showered, got dressed, and returned to the kitchen. After separating the contents of the box out onto the countertop, I was mildly confused. One of the items seemed out of place.

I called Anna, hoping for clarification.

“How do you feel?” she asked upon answering.

“Fine.”

“Any fever?”

“No. Nothing.”

“Good,” she said. “Are you ready to get started?”

“I think so,” I replied. “I’ve one question, though.”

“What is it?”

“What part does the tripod play?”

“That’s going to come in handy,” she said. “Believe me.”

I lifted the small box and looked it over. “What am I going to do with it?”

“Your phone’s an Android, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it’s a Samsung.”

“A new one?”

“I got it last year.”

“Inside the Google options icon, there’s Google Drive, Google Photos, Gmail, and a little movie camera symbol that says ‘Duo.’ When we get off this phone call, you’re going to attach your phone to the tripod, situate it to point at you, and then you’re going to call me on the Google Duo app. It’ll let us do a video call.”

“Sounds good,” I replied.

“My phone is on the tripod right now,” she said. “Get yours all hooked up and then message me using the app. Okay?”

“Will do.”

I unboxed the tripod, attached the phone cradle mechanism, and adjusted the height to where I thought it should be. When I was satisfied, I called Anna using Google’s Duo application.

When she answered, her face covered the entire screen, and a toothy smile covered her face. A small window in the lower corner contained a real-time video image of me.

She backed away from the camera and waved. “Hi.”

“This works pretty well,” I admitted. “The picture is great, and the sound is clearer than the phone.”

“I like your choice of clothes,” she said. “Is that shirt purple?”

I thought a suit would be too much and knew a tee shirt would be too little. I decided to wear my favorite button-down shirt with jeans and a nice pair of shoes.

“It’s somewhere between pink and purple,” I said. “It’s perfect Italian Wednesday.”

“Agreed. Are you ready?”

“I suppose.”