It was brutal and beautiful and completely out of my control. Around 10:00, my phone rang. Unknown number. Hello, Jack Walsh. The voice was female professional speaking.
This is Amanda Chen from Channel 7 News. I'm calling about the Nathan Coleman story that's been circulating on social media. We understand your wife works with Mr. Coleman at Hartwell Corporation. My pulse spiked. The local news was picking up the story.
This was escalating faster than I'd anticipated. I'm not sure what you're referring to, I said carefully. There are photos circulating that show your wife having dinner with Mr. Coleman. Given the allegations about his behavior, we're wondering if you'd like to comment. No comment, I said and hung up.
My phone immediately started buzzing with more calls. I turned it off and tried to focus on work, but my mind was racing. The story was getting bigger, growing beyond anything I'd planned. Nathan wasn't just being embarrassed, he was being destroyed, and Megan was getting dragged down with him. Part of me felt guilty.
Part of me felt vindicated. Mostly, I felt like I was riding a runaway train with no idea where it was headed. I left work early and drove to the grocery store, needing to get out of the office and think. The parking lot was busier than usual for a Wednesday afternoon, and I recognized several faces from the neighborhood. Word was definitely spreading.
I was loading groceries into my car when someone tapped me on the shoulder. Jack Walsh. I turned to find a woman in her 30s with short dark hair and intelligent eyes. She looked familiar, but I couldn't place her. "Do I know you?" I asked.
"Lisa Chen, I work with your wife at Hartwell." "Lisa, the mysterious L who'd been sending me text messages. Megan's supposed best friend who'd been watching me vandalize cars and orchestrate social media disasters." "Right," I said. Megan's mentioned you. I'm sure she has. Lisa's smile was sharp as a blade.
We need to talk. About what? About the game you're playing and why you're going to lose. She walked away before I could respond, leaving me standing in the parking lot with a cart full of groceries and a headful of questions. I drove home in a days trying to process this new development.
Lisa Chen, not Martinez Chen. She was Asian, probably mid30s, with the kind of confident bearing that suggested she was used to being the smartest person in the room. She knew about my activities, had been tracking them somehow, and now she wanted to talk. The question was, what did she want? I got my answer that evening when Megan came home looking like she'd been through a blender.
Her hair was disheveled, her makeup smeared, and her hands were shaking as she poured herself a glass of wine. "Rough day?" I asked. "You could say that." She took a large gulp of wine. "Nathan's been suspended pending an investigation. HR is interviewing everyone who worked with him, asking about inappropriate relationships." That sounds serious.
It is serious, Jack. This could affect my promotion, my reputation, everything I've worked for. I felt a flicker of something that might have been sympathy. Megan had worked hard to build her career, and seeing it threatened couldn't be easy. But then I remembered the laptop messages, the casual cruelty of her comments about pushing boundaries and having fun.
I'm sure it'll blow over, I said. These things usually do. She looked at me suspiciously. You're being awfully calm about all this. What do you want me to say?
That I'm happy your coworker turned out to be a creep. I'm not that petty, Megan. But I was that petty. I was exactly that petty, and we both knew it. Emily came home around 8 with Chinese takeout and more gossip from her college friends who'd seen the story online.
"It's everywhere," she said, unpacking containers of lain and sweet and sour chicken. "Someone made a Tik Tok about it. It has like 50,000 views. Megan closed her eyes. A Tik Tok.
Yeah. It's this girl from state who does videos about local drama. She calls Nathan Milbrooks Most Wanted and shows all the photos of him with different women. It's actually pretty funny. Hilarious, Megan said flatly.
We ate dinner in relative silence, the weight of unspoken truths pressing down on the table like a lead blanket. Emily kept glancing between her parents, clearly sensing the tension, but not understanding its source. Megan picked at her food and checked her phone obsessively. I ate my lo mein and planned my next move. After dinner, I volunteered to take out the trash, a convenient excuse to check my phone for messages.
Sure enough, there was a text from Lisa. Meet me at Murphy's Bar tomorrow at 7:00. Come alone. It's time we discussed the rules of engagement. Murphy's was a dive bar on the east side of town.
The kind of place where nobody asked questions and everybody minded their own business. It was also where Jimmy's boxing gym regulars went to drink beer and lie about their glory days. I texted back, "I'll be there." Her response was immediate. "Smart choice. You're going to need all the help you can get." I deleted the messages and went back inside where Megan was loading the dishwasher with mechanical precision.